The GENCO Hackathon
One night. Grid foundation models. A real optimization challenge revealed only when the clock starts. Bring a team, put GENCO to work, and compete across universities for a US$1,000 grand prize.
Participate as a student Host at your university
What it is
The GENCO Hackathon is an overnight, multi-site competition running alongside the 6th Conference on Foundation Models of the Electric Grid in Porto. Student teams will apply the pre-trained grid foundation model GENCO to a hands-on power-grid optimization problem, racing to find the best solution before the morning deadline.
The hackathon is an opportunity to work with emerging GridFM technology, meet members of the community building it, and compete on a shared leaderboard with teams at universities in multiple countries.
The challenge stays secret — for now
The problem will be disclosed only at kickoff, 20:00 CET on 29 October. What we can say in advance is that it will be a real, economically meaningful grid-optimization task; solution quality and speed will matter; and GENCO will be central to solving it efficiently.
GENCO and the GridFM toolkit
GENCO is a pre-trained grid foundation model. Two open-source GridFM libraries support the workflow from power-system data generation to model training and use:
- GENCO — the pre-trained grid foundation model at the heart of the challenge. GridFM on Hugging Face
gridfm-graphkit— tools to train, fine-tune, and interact with grid foundation models. GitHub repositorygridfm-datakit— tools to generate scalable, realistic power-flow and optimal-power-flow training data. GitHub repository
A hands-on tutorial on GENCO, gridfm-datakit, and gridfm-graphkit will take place before the hackathon begins.
Schedule
All times are Central European Time (CET).
| Date / time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 29 Oct 13:00–14:00 |
GENCO, gridfm-datakit & gridfm-graphkit tutorialHands-on introduction to the tools. The session will be streamed and recorded for teams at participating host sites. |
| 29 Oct 20:00 |
Kickoff and challenge reveal The problem and rules are released simultaneously to all sites and the hackathon begins. |
| Overnight | Build, test, submit Teams work through the night and submit to a shared live leaderboard. Host sites provide workspace, food, drinks, and coffee. |
| 30 Oct 08:00 |
Submission deadline Final entries lock simultaneously. Judging and reproducibility checks follow during the day. |
| 30 Oct 17:15 |
Winners announced Results are announced in Porto at the close of the conference, and the US$1,000 grand prize is awarded. |
Students — come compete
- Open to student teams, typically 2–4 members.
- No prior GENCO experience is required; the tutorial will get teams started.
- Work with grid foundation models on a real power-system optimization problem.
- Compete on one shared leaderboard across all participating sites.
- Compete for a shared US$1,000 grand prize.
- Bring your laptop, your team, and your best ideas.
Participant registration: Add registration link here.
Universities — host a site
Universities can run a local hackathon site on the shared schedule. Host institutions provide an overnight room plus food and drinks for participating teams. GridFM will provide the GENCO challenge package, submission workflow, shared leaderboard, and remote support.
All participating universities compete together on one leaderboard for one overall winner.
Confirmed host sites
- ETH Zurich
- DTU — Technical University of Denmark
- TU Delft
- Stony Brook University
Additional host sites are welcome. Contact the organizers if your university would like to participate.
Get ready
Participants can explore GENCO and the GridFM tooling before the hackathon:
- GENCO / GridFM research paper
- GridFM on Hugging Face — models and datasets
- GridFM on GitHub — open-source libraries
gridfm-datakitgridfm-graphkit
Questions
For questions about participating or hosting a site, contact the organizers.
GENCO Hackathon @ GridFM Porto 2026 · 29–30 October 2026 · Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto