A Public Presence Platform Hackathon for the Developer community

While the launch of Meta Quest 3 marked a new frontier for Quest users looking for an even more performant device, the big splash was with our developers, who found an entirely new mixed reality playground. For the first time, they could explore experiences that merge the real world with virtual experiences that also have the potential to reach users at scale.

To support our community of developers as they build a new class of applications, Meta invested in a suite of capabilities for the next generation of Quest experiences, all available under Presence Platform. These new capabilities include mixed reality, improved embodiment, hands as input, spatial audio, and more. To complement and accelerate the adoption of this technology, we’ve released a number of tools, like Building Blocks, which reduce friction around testing and implementing these new capabilities.

Hackathons are part of Meta’s DNA. A number of features found on Meta products, including some of our most popular that are used by billions of users, were created as a result of our hackathons. We believe our community drives innovation, and will lead the way on what is best for MR and how exciting, immersive, and innovative MR experiences can be. To create opportunities for developers to harness their innovation, we’ve begun hosting and sponsoring hackathons around the globe. At these hackathons, we challenge talented individuals and teams to hack on new concepts. Last December, we flew 100 of our Oculus Start members to our offices in London, where they spent 3 days (and nights) building MR applications across new use cases including skill building and problem solving.

Weeks later in January 2024, we joined the MIT Reality Hack in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the MIT Reality Hack, developers from around the globe explored the bounds of what is possible in MR and VR. We brought our product team, our engineers, and dozens of Quest 3 devices to spend the weekend in the cold Boston winter ideating on new concepts with a talented XR community. The results reinforced our belief that the combination of new builders, Quest devices, and Presence Platform will lead to amazing applications, which was also reflected in the results: 14 of the 16 winning teams used Quest 3 devices paired with our Presence Platform capabilities.

This is just the beginning! In early March, we will be sponsoring DreamXR’s hackathon & Game Jam, and are excited to see what MR & VR developers in San Francisco come up with.

We realize location can be a barrier to accessing these types of opportunities. In an effort to offer access to the broader community, we’re hosting a public online Presence Platform Hackathon together with some of the leading voices from the XR community.

Those who sign up for the Presence Platform Online Hackathon will have a chance to innovate with Meta Quest, and the winners will receive $30K in prizes. Beyond the prizes, participants will also have the opportunity to work closely with our teams here at Meta and could get a fast track into our Oculus Start community, which provides access, support and savings to qualifying VR developers. Those who join our Oculus Start community can apply for the incubation program, where accepted applicants can receive up to $50K in funding to build out a concept and publish to App Lab.

To join the Presence Platform Online Hackathon, you can apply as an individual or form a team with friends or colleagues. Interested developers will have from March 27th to May 13th to submit a project. Leading XR experts like Dilmer, Valem, Justin Barnett, and Dinesh Punni will test & evaluate the top submissions.

Join the hackathon and learn more about our upcoming event here!

Our engagement with our community isn’t new. Since 2018, we’ve worked with a large group of talented VR pioneers in our Oculus Start program who have built some of the leading Quest experiences.

At Meta, we believe that those who build on our platform will shape the future of MR. We can see evidence of this in the accomplishments of new developers building our leading mixed reality applications, like Zac Reid with PianoVision and Thomas Van Bouwel with Cubism.

For those who are interested in what’s next for MR, we invite you to come build with us and join our community of pioneers determining the future of mixed reality.