Dear students, researchers, staff, and faculty,

You are invited to Good Vibes Only!, the first AI/ML buildathon and networking series bringing together the USC community, Viterbi School of Engineering, Viterbi Impact, USC Alumni Association, and our industry tech partners on Thursday, October 16th and Friday, October 17th.

Good Vibes Only is an asynchronous buildathon featuring technical workshops and career connections with companies such as Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA and Lovable. Selected teams will receive exclusive company tours and networking opportunities with recruiters and the USC Alumni Association. 

Event Timeline:
Wednesday, October 15th: The hackathon prompt will be sent out, at which point students may begin working and submit projects throughout the remainder of the week.

Thursday, October 16th: Students will join us at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) in Marina Del Rey (FREE shuttles are available from Vivian Hall campus) for a day of learning, networking, and working collaboratively on projects.

Friday, October 17th: We’ll reconvene at ISI to share-out projects and get feedback from judges. Following the event, we’ll be headed to a networking reception hosted by the USC Alumni Association. 

*Note: students can attend either any or all days of the event! Participants are not required to attend all days. Please see Partiful below for up-to-date agenda.

What Makes This Different:

• Asynchronous Format: Work on your project anytime during the week. No need for overnight coding marathons and skipping a day of classes.

• Workshops & Office Hours: Learn at your own pace from USC professors, mentors, and partners on topics like computer vision and agentic AI with A2A/MCP. Join workshops and office hours on topics such as:

• Image Classification and Object Recognition with CreateML

• Reinforcement Learning in Games with Unity Engine

• Agentic AI Systems with Anthropic’s MCP and Google’s A2A frameworks

• Networking & Collaboration: Connect directly with organizers, researchers, and industry partners from Vercel, Lovable, and ISI. Following the hackathon, attendees are invited to join an exclusive networking event hosted by the USC Alumni Association.

• Community Impact: Your project will inspire and be integrated in Viterbi Impact’s AI education initiatives. Our mission is to use AI/ML for good and create something that will directly support the LA community through the Viterbi Impact program. We are calling for AI/ML projects to inspire ML education in classrooms across Los Angeles. Following the buildathon, you will also have the opportunity to collaborate with teachers and students beyond the event in serving our community.

Why Participate: Network and collaborate with industry partners, USC faculty, and USC students across departments. Your work will shape how K-12 teachers and students experience, learn, and think about AI. The prizes include private tours at tech companies, software usage credit, and vintage USC swag by @sidelinecloset.

Where: Feel free to join asynchronously via Zoom or stop by our office hours at the USC University Park campus. The main events will be hosted at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI). On Thursday and Friday, we will be heading to the ISI together; alternatively, you may check the bus schedule linked here. Please feel free to contact Debbie Yuen (yuendebo@usc.edu) if you have any questions! 

Please register here to receive the prompt and gain more details: https://partiful.com/e/RfbKj5XPYeZ1QE7e8LyJ 

Warmly,
The Good Vibes Only! Team and Viterbi Impact