Hack the Harvest

Hosted by UC Davis Center for Analytics and Technology in Society

November 14, 2026 9:00am - November 15, 2026 2:30pm

UC Davis Aggie Square exterior with sign

Can you tell what happened in a cornfield from space?

Hack the Harvest is a two-day hackathon for students from any discipline, hosted by USDA, NVIDIA, the Center for Analytics and Technology in Society at UC Davis and HMCI.

Teams will use public geospatial data, AI and creative problem solving to answer a real USDA question: was a cornfield harvested for silage or for grain? Silage corn is usually harvested early, while it's still green. Grain corn usually stays in the field longer and dries down before harvest. That difference is subtle and noisy, and it's easy to miss from far away. But the signal is there. Can you find it?

When: November 14 to 15, 2026
Where: Aggie Square, 4480 2nd Ave, Sacramento, CA
Who: 200 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students, in teams of 5 to 7 formed before the event
Build window: 22.5 hours, from Saturday 10:30 a.m. to Sunday 9 a.m.

You don't need to know how to code. Strong teams mix engineers, data scientists, and business and management thinkers.

Event flyer for Hack the Harvest at UC Davis, November 14–15, 2026, featuring event details, partner logos, and a breakdown of hackathon steps and focus areas.