Bring your curiosity. Build something bold. Join fellow Badgers for a hands-on weekend of making, experimenting, and turning ideas into reality.
One weekend. Multidisciplinary teams. Real momentum.
BuildFest kicks off the Lab’s fall season: a 24-hour, campus-wide build sprint with three tracks — Applied AI & Automation, Health, Sustainability & Society, and Emerging Technology & Entrepreneurship — plus five challenges any team can opt into on top of their track, each with its own prizes.
Teams of 2–5 pull together builders, designers, and business minds from every corner of campus — CS, Data Science, Engineering, Business, and beyond. You don’t need to code to be on a winning team.
It’s the launch point for a four-week sprint that turns raw ideas into working prototypes, building toward Demo Night on November 19.
Last year: 140+ students, $16,500 in prizes across 16 winning teams. This year, we’re going bigger.
Got an idea? A skill? Just curiosity? This is where it starts.
Want in? Register for BuildFest
Thank you to this year’s sponsors: School of Veterinary Medicine, the Douglas D. Bradley Digital Health Challenge, DoIT Academic Technology, Xorbix, Kinetic Solutions, and Strato VC.
Are you a company that wants to sponsor? Contact sandra.bradley@wisc.edu