Buildarena at Techarena 2026: Apply to Tech Forward’s hackathon track
A new hackathon is now open at Techarena 2026. Together with Lovable, Project Europe, European Defence Tech Hub and Inflection Fund, Techarena invites builders to team up, move fast and work hands-on with real challenges.
Buildarena is a new kind of hackathon where top developer talent comes together to build real products in just 12 hours. Teams work on predefined challenges, and the finalist teams pitching their solutions live on stage at Techarena 2026.
Tech Forward is part of the initiative and is now opening applications to our own track.
Our track is now open for application and you can choose between two statements, one is more specific and the second one is broader. Both tracks are designed to push teams to build solutions that can live beyond the hackathon.
Track description
The challenge in this track is rooted in a real corporate need, brought forward by Technology Industries of Sweden.
1. Swedish Tech Unwrapped
Sweden’s tech ecosystem is rich but fragmented, making it hard for founders, investors, corporates, media and policymakers to see where the real strengths, gaps and opportunities are across sectors like DefenseTech, HealthTech, CleanTech, FinTech and more.
How might we design a visual, data-driven “map of Swedish tech” that:
- Clusters Swedish tech companies into clear segments (e.g. DefenseTech, AgeTech, HealthTech, etc.) and makes their position and stage (start-up, scale-up, established) easy to explore.
- Lets users “unwrap” each cluster through concise playbooks that surface key companies, funding levels, hot topics, challenges, talent, education and research in that area.
- Generates an annual “Swedish Tech Wrapped”–style view, summarizing each cluster’s most important developments in an engaging, shareable format people want to return to and share.
Teams are challenged to build a first prototype of this module for techforward.se, focusing on smart data structure, intuitive UX and compelling storytelling rather than completeness of the underlying dataset.
Read more about our track here
2. Open track for Tech Ecosystems
This open track is for you who would like to explore and be creative around a module that Tech Forward should include in their platform to increase collaboration, partnerships and knowledge-sharing between their member companies.
For example: how would you design a module inside a membership platform so that members easily can find potential collaboration partners, share their burning problems with high-trust, or find investment opportunities?
In collaboration with
