Open community · Summer Pilot 2026
What is this program?
A six-week, open-access community program where participants build production-grade software using professional frameworks, deployment practices, review workflows, and operational expectations. Peers review the early platforms; external users, investors, and maintainers judge the later weeks.
Anyone can apply. Admission is through a short take-home and staff review—no degree enrollment required for Summer Pilot 2026.
Six weeks at a glance
Contest: project management platform. Motivation is the key design variable.
Contest: internal communications platform for the cohort.
Contest: public vibe marketing platform for the cohort.
Learning engineer integration to Ludwitt — a registered, working, instrumented app.
Venture package: deck, plan, production app, investor touch.
Open source swarm — land a merged upstream pull request.
Phase 1 repeats this loop
Three contest weeks (PM, comms, vibe marketing). Each uses the same cycle:
Build & deploy
Ship a production application with deployment notes and operating documentation.
Review every peer on GitHub
On each project’s Peer review tab, open a peer, then use “Open GitHub → write review & submit issue.” That creates an issue on their app repo titled Review by @{you}: @{peer}. Fill the rubric template and click Submit new issue on GitHub.
Optional upvote (or abstain)
Keep the Vote: up line in the issue body to upvote, or delete that section to abstain. No downvotes. Refresh the site afterward — it tracks your personal status only, not cohort tallies.
Operate the winner
The selected system operates for the cohort; everyone else contributes fixes and improvements.
What you need
- Complete platform onboarding (apply, take-home, staff approval) to unlock project pages and submissions.
- Cursor and Claude Code are required from week 1 (~$400/month combined). Participants work in modern development environments and production delivery workflows.
Quick answers
- How is completion measured?
- Pass/fail on published program criteria—no letter grades on the platform. Every pass gate is listed on each project page before you submit.
- What engineering experience is expected?
- You should be ready to learn standard repository, branch, review, deployment, and debugging workflows. Week 1 is a full build contest — tooling and Expectations Acknowledgment happen in parallel on the dashboard.
- Do I need to be a Hult student?
- No for Summer Pilot 2026. Apply on the platform, complete the take-home, and get admitted to the roster. Academic credit and formal certificates are not part of this open-access cohort.