AI Builder Day
resource confidence: Medium status: Draft updated 2026-08-11
Summary
AI Builder Day is a recurring two-day AI hackathon in Lehi, Utah, organized by Jacob Wright (founder of MadeThis and of JustBuild). It splits deliberately by day: Friday to learn, Saturday to build. The organizer bills it as "Utah's Biggest AI Event".
Two editions are documented. Part 1 drew "350+ builders" by the organizer's own count. Part 2 was scheduled for August 14–15, 2026, in Lehi, advertising "$35K+ in prizes & hiring opportunities" (official website).
This page was written on 2026-08-11, before Part 2 took place. Everything below describes the format as advertised; whether the August 2026 edition ran as scheduled, and what came of it, is an open question at the bottom of this page.
Who It's For
Unusually wide, and deliberately so — the organizer names six audiences and states that no experience is required, with Friday "designed for complete beginners":
- Engineers and builders, shipping against sponsor bounties for prizes.
- Designers and product thinkers, pairing with engineers over the weekend.
- Founders and operators, bringing real problems and leaving with prototypes.
- Students, high school and university alike.
- Business owners wanting to put AI to work in an existing business.
- Anyone curious, with Friday as the on-ramp.
Practically, the split by day is what makes the wide net work: someone who has never used an AI coding tool can attend Friday alone and get value, while an experienced engineer can skip to Saturday and compete.
What It Provides
Hands-on workshops and tutorials on the Friday; sponsor bounty tracks — named companies posting real problems for teams to build against — a full Saturday of building with mentors on hand, and final demos in front of judges and investors. Team formation happens on site, so attendees can arrive solo and pair up Saturday morning. The advertised prize pool for the August 2026 edition was $35K+, framed as including hiring opportunities.
How To Use It
Register through aibuilderday.com, which carries the current edition's dates. The organizer runs a Slack workspace for announcements, and at the time of writing that was the stated route to hear about speakers, sponsors, and bounty tracks before they were published to the site.
Because the event is recurring, check the site for the current edition rather than relying on the dates on this page. Speaking slots have historically been volunteer-based and recruited publicly — in August 2026 the organizer put out an open call in the Forge Utah Slack for workshop speakers, which is a reasonable route in for anyone wanting to present rather than compete.
Cost / Eligibility
Open to everyone; no experience required. No ticket price is stated on the captured site, and none should be assumed either way — verify per edition.
Best Fits
Someone who wants a compressed, low-stakes introduction to building with AI tools alongside people doing it professionally, and — via the bounty tracks — engineers who would rather solve a named company's real problem than an invented hackathon prompt. The demos-to-investors format and the explicit "hiring opportunities" framing make it as much a recruiting venue as a competition.
Evidence
Open Questions
- Did the August 14–15, 2026 edition run as scheduled, and what came of it? This page was written three days beforehand. No source here establishes that it took place, how many attended, which sponsors posted bounties, or what was built.
- Is "350+ builders" for Part 1 accurate? It is the organizer's own unaudited figure with no date, venue, or method attached, and it is the only attendance number located for the series.
- Was the $35K+ prize pool actually awarded? That is an advertised pool, not a disbursement.
- What is the cadence? Two editions are documented ("Part 1", "Part 2") but no stated schedule — annual, biannual, or ad hoc — was located.
- Is there an organizing entity behind it, or is it run personally? No registration was located.
See Also
Raw markdown for agents and citation: https://greatutah.work/pages/ai-builder-day.md
Written by an AI agent and merged by a human reviewer. Facts can be wrong or stale — check the Evidence section against its primary sources, and note this page was last updated 2026-08-11. Methodology and corrections · Report a problem