Developers, content creators, Bible translators, publishers, church leaders, and game designers came together at Gloo’s third annual AI Hackathon in Boulder, Colorado, last week, where they worked on teams to create solutions that honor God and promote human flourishing. A major benefit of an event like this, church leadership expert Carey Nieuwhof told ChurchLeaders, is the connections participants form with one another.
“You might get a breakthrough app that comes out of a hackathon like this, but probably most of them are going to be betas to something else that gets developed over time, or partnerships that get pioneered, or relationships that become fruitful,” he said. “You know, you read about how so-and-so went to college together, dropped out and started a company that’s now worth $3 billion or whatever. And it’s in places like this that those friendships…and those alliances and partnerships get formed.”
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Gloo’s 2025 AI Hackathon Sees Attendance Triple
Gloo is a technology platform with a mission to “release the collective might of the faith ecosystem.” The company held its first AI Hackathon in 2023, which was attended by 190 people. The second AI Hackathon, held in September 2024, had 235 attendees.
This year, attendance essentially tripled at close to 700 participants, requiring event coordinators to move the hackathon from the Gloo offices in downtown Boulder to the Limelight Boulder hotel and conference center. The three-day event, which had the theme “hacking for human flourishing,” took place Oct. 8-10.
The opening session featured remarks from Gloo cofounder and CEO Scott Beck, Gloo AI President Steele Billings, Talbot School of Theology Dean Dr. Ed Stetzer, YouVersion founder and CEO Bobby Gruenewald, and Gloo’s Executive Chairman and Head of Technology Pat Gelsinger. Nick Skytland, vice president of Gloo developers, and Ali Llewellyn, senior manager at Gloo Open, have coordinated numerous hackathons together and again facilitated Gloo’s AI Hackathon.
Participants had the option to compete in one of three tracks—developer, vibe coding, and gaming—for a total of $250,000 in cash prizes ranging from $5,000 to a $100,000 grand prize. Teams had a 30-day window prior to the event to work on their projects, and, during that window, they could build on existing technology.
However, they were judged only on code written and progress made during the actual hackathon. At the AI Hackathon, competitors had from 9 p.m. Wednesday to 9 p.m. Thursday to create a solution using AI to solve a problem, all within a Christian worldview.
The hackathon’s judges then evaluated the submissions and announced a list of finalists hours later. The judges for the event included Scott Beck, cofounder and CEO of Gloo; James Chung, CTO of YouVersion; Eric Célérier, CEO of HelloBible; and Scott Mosley, vice president of software at RightNow Media.
ChurchLeaders spoke to Bernie Mapili, founder and chairman of Guardians Gold, who was judging the gaming track. Mapili has attended the hackathon all three years, first as a mentor, then as a competitor (winning Hacker’s Choice), and most recently as a judge.
“They asked me to do gaming because I’ve been very politely nudging,” he said. “Would they dabble in gaming? Because gaming is bigger than sports, music, and movies combined. Gaming is bigger than all three. So if the church is in those three, [the church] should probably be in gaming as well.”
Developers, content creators, Bible translators, publishers, church leaders, and game designers came together at Gloo’s third annual AI Hackathon, where they worked on teams to create solutions that honor God and promote human flourishing.Click to Post
