Global C:\>DIR Hackathon

Global C:\>DIR Hackathon 2026

Agentic Regulator: Prototypes for public authorities to strengthen trust in an agentic financial system and digital economy
Virtual Format, Global

The financial system and the wider digital economy are increasingly being disrupted by AI agents that automate decisions and execute complex, evolving workflows. Adoption is moving at breakneck speed: 58% of FinTechs and 47% of traditional financial institutions are currently in the process of adopting Agentic AI, compared to only 28% of regulators (CCAF, 2026 AI in FS Global Report, forthcoming). This growing gap creates significant vulnerabilities, widening "trust fractures" ranging from accountability gaps and risks of consumer harm to accelerating volatility and machine-speed market manipulation.

The C:>DIR ‘Agentic Regulator’ Global Virtual Hackathon is designed to build capabilities across 100+ public authorities globally. The core purpose is to build agentic prototypes for public authorities that will directly enable and enhance four critical pillars: Policy, Regulation, Enforcement, and Collaboration.

To maximize innovation and reduce execution risk, the hackathon embraces an "Open-World" Problem Architecture. Rather than constraining participants to highly rigid, path-dependent testing harnesses (like a Kaggle competition), we will define rich problem spaces, provide secure synthetic datasets, and map out "current state" workflows. Participants are then empowered to design, formulate, and build their own diverse prototypes, evaluated against a standardized structural framework.

Target Audience & Participants

This initiative serves two distinct groups:

1. The End Users (Beneficiaries): Domain experts and decision-makers within public authorities (Central Banks, Financial Regulators, Data Protection & Communications Authorities, Competition Regulators, and Ministries of Finance).

2. The Hackathon Participants (Builders): A cross-sector talent pool forming the collaborative build teams, including AI Researchers/Academics, AI Vendors & Engineers, Industry Experts, and the Regulators themselves acting as active co-creators.

The Seven Core Tracks & Problem Spaces

Teams will select one of the following priority tracks to build their agentic prototypes. These are not isolated silos; together, they logically progress from the individual consumer level up to systemic macro-oversight, representing the complete regulatory perimeter required for an AI-native financial system.