Comedy analysis
Classify joke structure, tone, topic, rhythm, callbacks, or audience fit.
Community hackathon
Build with Gemma: Humor Genome NYC
An online Kaggle hackathon exploring how open models can understand, generate, organize, and support comedy. Selected projects advance to a live finalist showcase in Midtown Manhattan on July 25.
Kaggle submissions Live finalist showcase July 25, 2026 Build with Gemma
What this is
A creative-tech hackathon for AI and comedy.
Humor Genome NYC is a Build with Gemma community hackathon for builders, comedians, designers, researchers, writers, and curious people exploring the intersection of AI and comedy.
This is not about replacing comedians. It is about using open models to study, organize, test, and expand how humor works.
Why humor
Humor is one of the hardest and most human tests for open models.
Humor is timing, context, culture, surprise, risk, and shared understanding. That makes it one of the most interesting places to test open AI models.
Humor Genome NYC asks what AI can reveal about joke structure, audience fit, creative iteration, performance context, and the messy human signals behind what makes something funny.
Timing Context Surprise Audience Callbacks NYC Open models
What people can build
Projects can be practical, weird, researchy, performable, or all of the above.
Writing and feedback tools
Help comedians brainstorm, rewrite, compare premises, or pressure-test a set.
Audience and scene intelligence
Explore venue fit, crowd type, local references, and performance context.
Creative agents
Build Gemma-based editors, roast partners, premise challengers, or set reviewers.
Dataset and discovery projects
Organize clips, transcripts, joke tags, venues, performer notes, or historical patterns.
Live showcase experiments
Create interactive demos that can be shown in front of an NYC audience.
Who should join
You do not need one perfect label.
You do not need to be a professional comedian or Kaggle expert. You just need curiosity about AI, humor, or creative tools.
AI builders Kaggle users Comedians Writers Designers Product people Researchers Students Event people Photographers Video people Judges Mentors
Timeline
Online now, live in NYC on July 25.
Now
Join on Kaggle, explore ideas, form teams, and start building.
Submissions
Open now on Kaggle. See Kaggle for deadline and rules.
July 25, 2026
A live finalist showcase for the online Kaggle hackathon, featuring selected project demos, judge feedback, recognition, and community networking in Midtown Manhattan on July 25.
After the showcase
Selected projects, contributors, and learnings become part of the longer-term Humor Genome community.
Live showcase
Finalist demos, feedback, and community networking.
A live finalist showcase for the online Kaggle hackathon, featuring selected project demos, judge feedback, recognition, and community networking in Midtown Manhattan on July 25.
2:00 PM
Doors open / networking
2:30 PM
Opening remarks
2:40 PM
Finalist project demos
3:45 PM
Judge feedback and discussion
4:15 PM
Recognition and closing
4:30 PM
Optional networking
How to participate
The main path is Kaggle.
Submit on Kaggle
Projects should include a short writeup, a working demo or prototype, and a 2-minute demo video. Full rules and submission details are on the Kaggle competition page.
Join the Kaggle HackathonAttend or follow
Register for the live finalist showcase, support the builders, and follow what comes next after July 25.
Register for Live ShowcaseBuild support
Want to help with the event itself? There is a separate contributor path below.
Help build the eventContributor path
Want to help build the event?
We are looking for builders, creative technologists, comedians, designers, writers, mentors, judges, and event-day helpers who can make Humor Genome NYC stronger.
Selected short-term contributors may receive a project stipend of $100-$500, depending on contribution level.
What makes a strong project?
Useful demos with a clear point of view.
Uses Gemma in a meaningful way
Explores humor, comedy, audience, or performance
Shows a working demo or clear prototype
Explains what was learned
About Gemma
Open models in a creative, cultural, human domain.
Gemma is a family of lightweight, state-of-the-art open models from Google, built from the same research and technology used to create the Gemini models. Humor Genome NYC uses the Build with Gemma community hackathon format to explore what open models can do in a creative, cultural, and highly human domain.
Organizer
Hosted by Humor Genome NYC.
Humor Genome NYC is a public Kaggle competition with online submissions and a live finalist showcase in Midtown Manhattan on July 25, 2026.
It is organized with the broader Humor Genome and Midtown Show ecosystem.