Hack Pompey Online: November 2026

Hack Pompey’s back, and this time we’re going... nowhere! Join us for our longest hack yet, all from the comfort of your own home. You'll have a week to build your projects alongside a dozen other hackers (maybe even two dozen).
It's gonna be great.

Like all of our past events, Hack Pompey Online is FREE to enter. Will there be prizes? Perhaps! Winners are judged by your fellow hackers, including us.

Where: All online. Our first virtual hack.
Who: Anyone 13 or over
Teams: Up to five, or on your own
Cost: Not a penny

Sign-up opens soon

Sign up on the event site

The whole event runs on its own site, online.hackpompey.co.uk. That is where you make your account, start or join a team, submit what you built and eventually vote.

Sign-up opens there soon. Make your account before the week starts if you want a vote: accounts made after that can still enter, but not vote.

You will also need to be in the Hack Pompey Discord. Join it now and we will tell you the moment sign-up opens.

Go to the event site Join the Discord

The plan

How it works

01

Get into the Discord

This is where the community is. You need to be in it for this event. Like, literally. It’s how we’ll keep in touch with each other throughout the event. Oh, expect plenty of memes and half-baked ideas too.
02

Find people, or do not

Max team size is 5 people. You can start one, join one, or work alone. Working alone is a perfectly fine way to approach a remote hack so don’t fret about not having a team. Come as you are.
03

Build for a week

Take the theme wherever you want to take it. There is no requirement that the result works properly, only that it exists by the deadline, a much lower and kinder bar. The theme is announced at the event start, by the way.
04

Submit before the deadline

Your code will need to be hosted on GitHub. You’ll submit a link to your public repo and tell us which commit hash we need to look at. In addition, aim to share a link people can try, a walkthrough video, or screenshots with a write-up. No code? A walkthrough video instead. We (the organisers) will read every entry before anybody else sees it.
05

Vote on each other’s projects

Everybody with an account made before the event start gets one vote for the People’s Choice Award, and the Hack Pompey team will pick a Staff Choice. You cannot vote for your own. The winners are announced on our closing stream on the last night, and neither prize is worth cheating for.

What you win

The prizes

People’s Choice

TBA

Chosen by you.

Staff Choice

TBA

Chosen by the Hack Pompey team.

Prizes are physical, so you can only claim one if you can come to our next in-person hackathon, live in Portsmouth, or live within a 10-minute drive of Portsbridge Roundabout in Hilsea. If you win and can’t collect, you’ve still won. The prize just stays with us.

Questions

FAQs

How good do I need to be?

Not very. People turn up having never finished a project, and people who do this for a living, and they end up on the same team more often than you would think.

How old do I need to be?

Thirteen and up. The whole event runs in a Discord server and Discord accounts have to be 13, so we cannot let anybody younger take part.

Do I need a team?

No. Plenty of people work alone and submit alone. If you want one, the event site lists teams looking for people.

What if I drop out halfway?

Then you drop out halfway. It is a free community event, not a commitment. Tell your team so they are not waiting on you.

Where does my project live?

The code goes on GitHub, in a public repository, so voters can read it. Where it runs is up to you: a link, a video, or screenshots with a write-up.

Is there an in-person one?

Not this time. Every Hack Pompey before this one happened in a room in Portsmouth, and you can see them below.

About us

What is Hack Pompey?

Hack Pompey is a free, social hackathon. For over ten years it has happened in a room in Portsmouth at the University of Portsmouth, and this November is the first one online.

We welcome people from all backgrounds and disciplines to join us, learn something new, and build something together.

From Century Hack, March 2026

What the hackers said

“Wonderful and enjoyable event to experiment with new ideas and make new friends!”

Leon Ng

“It was a really enjoyable experience overall, and we thought everything was very well organised. As it was our second time at Hack Pompey, we had a good idea of what to expect, which meant we could get started straight away. It was also great to see members of the organising team coming around to check in on us and offer support throughout the day.”

Adil Mahmud Saad

“I got to bring my ideas and concepts to life, turning them into working code in just a few hours. It was an intense but incredibly rewarding experience - full of creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving. It was also wonderful meeting everyone and seeing the incredible, innovative ideas people came up with throughout the day. The energy during the presentations was amazing.”

Shreya Jagannatha

Since 2014

Past events

We’ve been running Hack Pompey events for over 10 years. Some other events we’ve done include Hack the Unexpected, Good Vibes, Sustainability, Hack the Home, Fashion Hack, Wearables, Open Data, and the original Hack Pompey way back in 2014.

If you have any questions at all, drop us a line at [email protected] or on our Discord.