Since AI: The Turku hackathon that wants prototypes to survive beyond the weekend
More than 1,000 builders, 72 hours, and 15 real-world challenges from companies and public organizations are coming to the Finnish city from November 6-8. We spoke with Riku Lauttia, Chair of Since AI, about why this event aims to be the beginning of a product, not the end of a weekend.
OCTOBER, 2026.- Turku, Finland’s former capital and a port city in the country’s southwest, rarely appears at the forefront of Europe’s technology landscape. That is precisely what Since AI wants to change.
A year ago, a student-led team brought together around 260 builders at the EduCity campus, where, according to organizers, more than 30 artificial intelligence projects were completed in a single weekend.
Now, the ambition is on an entirely different scale. From November 6 to 8, the hackathon expects to welcome more than 1,000 participants, with a €50,000 cash prize pool, free participation and meals, and a special highlight: an in-person visit from a Google executive.
To understand how a university-led event grows into an international gathering, we spoke with Riku Lauttia, Chair of Since AI.
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From 260 to More Than 1,000: Ambition as the Driving Force
Lauttia’s explanation does not begin with budgets or sponsors, but with a question.
"Instead of asking how to make the same event slightly bigger, we asked what it would look like if we tried to build something genuinely international from Finland. That changed the scale of everything," he tells Entreprenerd.
The numbers appear to back up that ambition. The 2026 edition has already attracted more than 3,000 applications from over 80 countries, while the Since AI community now connects more than 10,000 builders across over 100 countries.
Lauttia attributes this international reach more to the format than to geography.
"A builder does not need to be Finnish to understand the value of a real challenge, a strong team and a path toward deployment."
He also sees this scale as a message to Finland’s own innovation ecosystem. Setting ambitious goals, he argues, is something "Finland and Europe need more of," provided that ambition is backed by the work required "to make them credible."
Working Demos, Not Slide Decks
The event’s guiding principle is straightforward: working demos only. An idea or a compelling pitch is not enough.
For Lauttia, the reasoning reflects a fundamental shift in the technology landscape.
"Because ideas are no longer the scarce resource."
With today’s AI tools, he explains, a strong team can use just 72 hours to shift the conversation from "could this work?" to "how would we pilot this?"
In his view, building something functional forces teams to confront the issues that a polished presentation can easily avoid.
"A working demo forces you to confront reality: the data, the user experience, the technical limitations and whether the solution actually creates value. A pitch can hide those questions; a functioning product cannot," he explains.
The challenges come from organizations including Valmet, Bayer, Elisa, Meyer Turku, Revvity, FORCIT, and Traficom. They are developed with participating organizations well before the event, ensuring that teams do not spend the first half of the weekend figuring out whether the problem they are trying to solve is real.
Still, Lauttia is realistic about what can be achieved in such a short period.
"Nobody should pretend that a production-grade corporate system is completed in one weekend."
The real value, he adds, is that three days "can be enough to eliminate bad assumptions, surface unexpected approaches and produce a concrete basis for a pilot."
What Happens After Sunday?
If there is one idea Lauttia repeatedly emphasizes, it is that the problem with many hackathons is not what happens during the event, but what happens when it ends.
"We noticed that many hackathons end at exactly the moment when the most interesting work should begin: there is a prototype, people are excited, prizes are handed out — and then everyone goes home," he says.
To avoid that outcome, Since AI offers approximately eight weeks of follow-up support for selected teams. Discussions about potential continuation also begin with challenge partners before any winners are announced.
The next step is not predetermined. Depending on the project, it could mean a corporate pilot, an independent startup, an applied research initiative, or further technical validation.
"We are less interested in whether the outcome carries a particular label — startup, pilot or research project — than in whether something valuable actually gets built, validated and used," Lauttia explains.
Nor is he promising fairy-tale endings.
"We do not want to manufacture artificial success stories," he cautions.
Instead, he proposes a different measure of success: "For us, success is not simply a good demo on Sunday afternoon. The more interesting question is what still exists, is being tested or is creating value months later."
Can Finland Become a Global AI Hub?
The conversation inevitably turns to Finland itself.
The country has world-class universities, major industrial companies, advanced infrastructure such as the LUMI supercomputer, and a society built on high levels of trust.
So, what is still missing?
For Lauttia, the answer has less to do with technology and more to do with translating those strengths into viable businesses.
"A technically impressive result is not automatically a product, and a product is not automatically a global company," he points out.
He sums up the challenge: "Our problem is not a lack of ingredients. It is making them work together with enough speed, ambition and persistence."
His perspective extends to Europe as a whole, where he acknowledges the challenges of limited growth capital in some sectors, fragmented markets, and a regulatory environment that differs from that of the United States.
But he does not see these obstacles as an excuse for lowering expectations.
If he had to identify the biggest gap, it would be "execution speed combined with global ambition."
And he is equally clear that the answer is not imitation: "Europe does not need to become a copy of the United States."
Lauttia also has an answer for those who wonder why Turku, rather than Helsinki, is hosting an event of this scale. "Global relevance is not determined by a postal code," he says.
He describes Turku as a city "large enough to have serious institutions but small enough that collaboration can still be very direct," while also benefiting from strong connections to Helsinki, Tampere, and Stockholm.
Another potential benefit that particularly excites him is the ability to attract international talent.
Bringing builders to Finland, he argues, gives them a far more tangible understanding of the country’s technology ecosystem than any recruitment campaign could offer.
"A CV tells you what someone says they can do; a 72-hour build shows how they think, collaborate and execute under pressure," he explains.
An event cannot guarantee that international participants will ultimately stay in Finland, he acknowledges. But it can create "the relationships and proof of ability" that make such outcomes far more likely.
A Guest from California
One of the names attracting particular attention is Jason Mayes, Google’s Web AI Lead, who has spent more than 15 years at the company.
Mayes will travel from the San Francisco Bay Area to Turku to deliver a talk and mentor participants in person.
For Lauttia, the visit carries both symbolic and practical significance.
Builders will gain direct access to someone working at the forefront of rapidly evolving technologies, while his participation also signals that what Since AI is building "can be interesting beyond Finland."
What matters most, Lauttia emphasizes, is not the logo or the job title, but "the transfer of experience and mindset."
He describes that mindset in simple terms: "Experiment quickly, think globally and do not decide in advance that something is impossible simply because it has not been done here before."
Key Event Details
- Dates: November 6-8, 2026.
- Venue: EduCity, Turku University of Applied Sciences (Joukahaisenkatu 7, Turku, Finland).
- Format: In-person, 72-hour hackathon, with teams of up to five people.
- Challenges: 15 real-world challenges from companies and public organizations.
- Prizes: €50,000 in cash.
- Cost: Free participation and meals.
- After the event: Eight weeks of follow-up support for selected teams.
- More information and applications: sinceai.ai/hackathon.
An Invitation Beyond Finland
For those of us following developments in the Nordic innovation ecosystem from Latin America, Since AI’s underlying message feels familiar: building globally ambitious projects from places that are not traditionally recognized as major technology capitals.
Lauttia puts it plainly when discussing his own country, but the message resonates just as strongly across our region:
"Building a global company is difficult from anywhere. Geography should not become an excuse."
The ultimate question, he concludes, is not whether it is possible to build a global company from Finland, but rather "whether enough of us decide to try at the scale required."