Toronto hosts large-scale Anthropic AI Hackathon led by student organizer James Han
Photo credit: James Han
James Han, a privacy engineer at Firefox and incoming quantitative trading analyst at RBC Capital Markets, took to LinkedIn to detail his role organizing Toronto’s Anthropic AI Hackathon.
Han leads several student technology groups at the University of Toronto, including Blueprint and UofT AI, and works with Anthropic as an ambassador supporting technical workshops and student engagement. Anthropic develops AI systems such as Claude and partners with universities on safety-focused AI initiatives.
Han wrote that he served as “the lead organizer for Toronto’s Anthropic AI Hackathon, bringing together hundreds of hackers from across North America,” in collaboration with UofT AI, UofT Blueprint, and the University of Toronto Machine Intelligence Student Team. He described the event as his largest end-to-end project since leading Trinity College’s full orientation program in August.
Event required cross-campus coordination
According to Han’s post, the hackathon involved planning schedules, partnering with organizations, securing rooms, and coordinating judges and workshops. He said it required “planning the schedule, coordinating three organizations, securing rooms, building partnerships, recruiting judges, running workshops, designing communication, and making sure everything came together smoothly on event day.”
He thanked judges Nina Ricci Lu, Ethan Lam, and Harshkumar Patel for “giving thoughtful technical feedback throughout the day,” and acknowledged partner organizations agentiiv and Railtracks for supporting participants and presenting their work.
Han also highlighted contributions from faculty partners, including David Liu, Associate Chair of the Department of Computer Science. Han wrote: “I cannot easily articulate how much you've supported my learning and growth in the last 8 months.”
Organizing teams credited across multiple groups
The post underscored the number of student clubs involved. Han thanked fellow Anthropic Ambassadors, members of UofT AI, and collaborators from Blueprint, noting that “it’s been a busy but fruitful three months” working across teams. He credited marketing leads for ensuring “the event reached students across campus,” and emphasized the role of volunteers and mentors in running the program.
Han framed the experience as an opportunity to refine leadership skills, describing the event as a chance to practice “large-scale event strategy, cross-organizational coordination, and community-building.” He wrote that seeing the work of participants made the preparation “feel worth it.”
Han closed the update by saying: “Thank you to everyone who showed up, built, judged, mentored, volunteered, or supported us. I’m excited to keep building spaces like this for the Toronto tech community, and to act on even greater ideas in 2026.”
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