Global MCP Hackathon

Descope MCP Hackathon – FAQs

Participation and eligibility

1. Who can participate?
   
   Anyone 18 years or older is welcome to join—whether you're a student, startup founder, security engineer, or AI developer.
   
   
2. Can I participate alone or with a team?
   
   Yes, you can register solo or as a team. Teams can have up to 5 members.
   
   
3. Do I need experience with Descope?
   
   No prior experience with Descope is required. We’ll provide docs, guides, and live office hours to help you build.

Registration & submission

1. How do I register?
   
   Visit this landing page starting August 12 to sign up.
   
   
2. Is there a registration fee?
   
   No—registration and participation are completely free.
   
   
3. When is the Hackathon?
    
   • Launch & Kickoff: August 12
   • Submission Deadline: September 8
   • Judging: September 8–12
   • Winners Announced: September 12
     
     
4. Where is the Hackathon hosted?
   
   The hackathon is virtual - you can unleash your creativity from anywhere in the world!

Challenges & judging

1. What kinds of projects can I build?
   
   
2. Choose from three challenge themes, each with its own judging criteria:
   
   - Build a purposeful AI agent
   - Build a MCP-compatible API server for Agents
   - Secure agent-to-agent communication with Descope
   
   
3. How are projects judged?
   
   There are distinct judging criteria including utility, creativity, demonstration quality, and technical feasibility. You can view the judging guideline details here.

Prizes & Recognition

1. What can I win?
   
   For each Theme there will be a First, Second and Third-place prize. 
   
   
   • First Prize: $4000 + $75K in Daytona credits + 6 months of Vercel Pro
   • Second Prize: $3000 + $50K in Daytona credits + 6 months of Vercel Pro
   • Third Prize: $1500 + $10K in Daytona credits + 6 months of Vercel Pro
     
     Please note that Daytona credits are only redeemable / usable by a single person per challenge winner. If a winning team comprises more than one person, we invite you to select who within your team gets the Daytona credits.
     
     
2. Do all participants get something?
   
   All participants can utilize $100 Neon credits and $50 Anthropic credits to build their hackathon submission projects.

Technical Questions

1. Can I use any tech stack?
   
   Yes. You can use any backend, frontend, or agent framework, as long as your solution uses the technologies mandatory for each Theme (e.g. Descope for Theme 1, Cequence Security for Theme 2).
   
   
2. Where do I find Descope docs?
   
   Visit https://docs.descope.com or check out the Resource Center for more specific documentation, sample apps, and videos.
   
   
3. Will I get access to support?
   
   Yes. You can email mcphackathon@descope.com with any questions or join the Descope Slack community and ask your questions on the #global-mcp-hackathon channel.

Intellectual Property

1. Who owns the IP of my project?
   
   You do. All participants retain full rights to what they build.
   
   
2. Can I open-source my code?
   
   Yes, we encourage open-source submissions, but it’s not required unless your team prefers to.

Other

1. Where can I ask more questions?
   
   You can email mcphackathon@descope.com with any questions or join the Descope Slack community and ask your questions on the #global-mcp-hackathon channel.

HackerEarth Platform – FAQs

1. Do I need to pay any money to register for the Hackathon? 
   
   No. You do not have to pay anything to anyone to register yourself for any Hackathon on HackerEarth.

2. Do I need to have any specific qualifications to be a participant for the Hackathon? 
   
   If you love to code, you are more than welcome to participate in the Hackathon.

3. Do we need to have the entire idea fully working? 
   
   The entire idea need not be fully implemented however, the submission should be functional so that it can be reviewed by the judges.

4. Does one have to be online and available for the entire duration of the Hackathon? 
   
   No, one does not need to be logged in on HackerEarth or be online for the entire duration. You can develop the application on your local system based on the given themes and then submit it on HackerEarth, on the specific challenge page.

5. If it is a team submission, does that mean all team members will have access to work at the same time? 
   
   Yes, all team members can login from their account and do application submission on HackerEarth.

6. Who will own the IP(Intellectual Property) Rights to the product that I have built? 
   
   The developer/developers of the web/mobile application will have all rights and own the IP of the product. However, all code needs to be in public domain (open source) so that it can be evaluated by the judges.