Apply to mentor & judge
Help teams build. Then judge what they made.
Spend Sunday directly with teams working through hard problems, then join the group reviewing what they built on Monday. Mentoring and judging are one combined role.
About the role
What you'll do.
- What you'll do
- On Sunday, you'll spend time directly with teams. They might come to you with an architecture decision, a contract that won't deploy, a product question, a security concern, a pitch that isn't landing, or a problem they've been debating for four hours. Your job isn't to solve it for them. It's to help them get unstuck and keep building. On Monday, you'll join the judging process and help evaluate what those teams created.
- The commitment
- Roughly four to six hours of mentoring on Sunday, October 25, plus the judging session on Monday, October 26. If you can give more, great. If you have a tighter window, tell us what's realistic in the form, and we'll build the mentor schedule around everyone's availability.
- What we're looking for
- We match mentors with teams based on what they actually know, so we'll ask about your areas of expertise: payments, blockchain infrastructure, smart contracts, security, AI, product, design, developer experience, go-to-market, fundraising, growth, or something entirely different. Experience with Stellar or Soroban is especially useful, but not required. We want a strong mix of technical and non-technical perspectives in the room.
- Conflicts of interest
- If you're an investor in, advisor to, employed by, or otherwise closely connected to a team that may compete, tell us in the application. It does not disqualify you. It just means you won't be assigned to judge that team.
What happens next
From application to Sunday.
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Submit
Takes around ten minutes. Have a headshot ready.
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We review it
Reviewed by the HackMeridian team on expertise, fit, and availability.
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You'll hear from us
Mentor and judge confirmations continue through October, with earlier confirmation where possible.
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We make it official
If you're selected, we'll confirm your details and availability, then add you to the mentor schedule.
Rolling review. Applying early helps.
FAQ
Before you ask.
Can I mentor without judging?
Not really. They're one commitment here. The value of judging is that the people scoring already spent Sunday with the teams and know what a project actually overcame. If Monday doesn't work for you, apply anyway and say so in the availability question.
I don't have a decent headshot.
A recent phone photo against a plain wall is fine, and usually better than a low-resolution crop from a conference photographer. Square if you can, at least 1000 pixels, under 5MB.
What happens to what I submit?
Guava Global handles it as organiser. If you're accepted, the publishable parts (name, photo, title, company, bio, links) go on the site with your permission, asked for separately on the form. Everything else, including your email and anything you tell us in confidence, stays internal. Full detail is in the privacy notice.
Does this overlap with the Meridian conference?
No. This is for HackMeridian on 25–26 October. The Meridian conference on 28–29 October runs its own separate process.
Ready?
Apply to mentor & judge.
Tell us about your expertise and availability. We'll take it from there.
Deadline: October 4, 2026. Choose "Mentor & Judge" on the form. The same form also covers Speaker applications.
Trouble loading the form? Email meridian@growwithguava.com and we'll take your application by reply.