From March 2 to March 31, 2025, we ran the Omi Mentor Hackathon, an online build focused on one clear challenge. Create the most helpful AI mentor, and make it something you can take with you through your day.
It was a success for a simple reason. The prompt was concrete, the feedback loop was real, and the category makes sense for Omi. A wearable that captures context becomes dramatically more useful when it can proactively guide you, not just store what happened.
Hackathon snapshot
- Dates: March 2 to March 31, 2025
- Format: online
- Theme: build the best AI mentor app
- Prize fund: $50,000 cash
- Winners: 2 winners, $25,000 each
- Payout structure: grants paid monthly over 6 months to keep building
The big idea. an AI mentor that knows your context
Most “mentors” in software are generic. They give advice without knowing what just happened, what you are trying to do this week, or what patterns show up in your real life.
Omi changes that. Omi is a wearable AI platform that can listen throughout your day and deliver personalized advice through in-app notifications. During the hackathon, builders used that context layer to create mentor experiences that feel timely, specific, and actually useful.
How the mentor talks to you. notifications, not another chat tab
A key design constraint was communication style. The mentor is not meant to live behind another app you need to open. Instead, it should reach you through notifications, the same way a great coach does. Short, relevant, and timed to the moment.
That model pushes builders toward clarity. If your mentor only gets a small window to speak, it has to be helpful. No fluff, no lectures.
Use cases teams built around
The hackathon centered on mentor behavior that fits real moments. During conversations, right after they end, and at the start of a day or week when goals matter.
- Faster decision-making during meetings. Proactive advice, or triggered when you ask, “Hey Omi, what do you think”
- Perspective after an argument. A calm, alternate viewpoint once the conversation ends, to help you reflect and adjust
- Better questions in real time. Suggested prompts mid-conversation to extract more value from the person you are talking to
- Communication coaching after a meeting. Feedback on clarity, pacing, tone, and what improved compared to last time
- Daily, weekly, monthly guidance. A plan that reflects your goals and what you have already said matters to you
The thread tying all of these together is context. The mentor is not guessing. It is responding to what you actually did, said, and care about.
Why this hackathon mattered for the Omi ecosystem
The Mentor Hackathon reinforced a core belief. The future is not one assistant that tries to do everything. It is an ecosystem of apps that each do one job extremely well, powered by a shared memory and context layer.
Mentors are a perfect example. One person might want a communication coach. Another wants a growth mentor. Another wants a study mentor. Another wants a founder advisor. Same platform, different “flavors,” built by developers who understand the use case deeply.
$50,000 in prizes. structured to keep winners building
The prize fund was $50,000 in cash, split across two winners. Each winner received a $25,000 grant designed to keep the project moving after the hackathon ended.
Instead of a one-time payout, the grant was structured to be paid monthly over six months. The goal was simple. Support winners as they keep shipping, iterating, and turning prototypes into real mentor apps that users can rely on.
Built on momentum from the first hackathon
This was our second hackathon. After the previous event, we paid $12,000 in cash plus $12,000 worth of hardware. The Mentor Hackathon built on that momentum and pushed the ecosystem into a new category. Personalized guidance, delivered at the right moment, based on real context.
What comes next
The Omi Mentor Hackathon proved that “AI mentor” is not a single product. It is a platform category. As more builders join the ecosystem, mentors will keep getting more specialized, more personal, and more deeply integrated into daily workflows.
If you want to build, the path is simple. Join the Discord, grab the Omi dev kit, and start creating apps that turn context into action.
www.omi.me
