Judging the Agentic AI Hackathon with IBM Watson Orchestrate
I’m excited to share that I recently served as a judge for the Agentic AI Hackathon with IBM watsonx Orchestrate, hosted by lablab.ai. This 48-hour hackathon brought together developers and innovators from around the world to build AI agents that transform how people and businesses get work done.
The hackathon challenged participants to harness IBM watsonx Orchestrate’s orchestration features, integrations, and digital skills to create agents that automate repetitive tasks, orchestrate workflows across tools, and empower employees to focus on high-value work. The focus areas spanned customer service, finance, HR, procurement, and sales.

I was honored to join a distinguished panel of judges and mentors that included leaders from IBM, Amazon, PayPal, JP Morgan, CapitalOne, Walmart, SAP, and other organizations. The diversity of expertise ensured that submissions were evaluated from multiple perspectives including technical implementation, business value, originality, and presentation quality.

The submissions demonstrated the incredible potential of agentic AI. Teams built solutions ranging from automated HR onboarding assistants and intelligent procurement systems to supply chain disruption orchestrators and ESG compliance co-pilots. What impressed me most was how participants tackled real-world pain points with practical, deployable solutions.
As someone deeply involved in AI security and governance through my work with University of San Francisco, Cloud Security Alliance, OWASP, NIST, and the World Digital Technology Academy, I see agentic AI as a transformative force in enterprise automation. These hackathons play a crucial role in advancing the field by encouraging experimentation and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with AI agents.
Congratulations to all the participants for their innovative contributions to the future of work.