Beirut, Lebanon, November 14, 2025
This past weekend, the 42Beirut campus hosted Lebanon’s first-ever Agentic AI Hackathon, a three-day innovation sprint created in partnership between TEKNOLOGIIA and 42Beirut. Designed to push the boundaries of cybersecurity automation, the hackathon brought together talented students from across Lebanon to experience what it takes to build the next generation of intelligent SOC tools.
What Happened?
After approximately 50 intense hours, participants collaborated, built, broke things, fixed them, and ultimately delivered fully functioning agentic AI systems.
The challenge:
Build an n8n-powered workflow that behaves like a SOC analyst — ingesting logs, analyzing events, and automatically identifying True Positives (TPs) vs. False Positives (FPs) based on predefined criteria.
But beyond the technical challenge, the mission of the hackathon was to:
- Expose students to real-world cybersecurity operations
- Introduce automation and agentic AI concepts through hands-on experience
- Encourage creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving
- Bridge the gap between security engineering and AI-driven workflows
- Support Lebanon’s growing community of tech innovators
This wasn’t just a competition; it was an empowerment initiative designed to nurture the next wave of cybersecurity and AI builders.
When and Where Did It Happen?
The hackathon took place over the weekend of November 14 at the 42Beirut campus, an environment built for experimentation and collaborative learning. The unique peer-to-peer coding culture of 42 set the ideal tone for an event centered on creativity, resilience, and exploration.
The Challenge: Build an AI-Driven SOC Workflow
Participants were asked to create an autonomous pipeline capable of performing real SOC operations.
They had to:
- Ingest security logs in real time
- Classify alerts as TPs or FPs using logic, criteria, and creativity
- Integrate external tools and APIs using n8n
- Build custom code blocks where automation wasn’t enough
- Deliver clear, impactful data visualizations
- Present a workflow that was accurate, efficient, and innovative
The result was a series of projects that demonstrated impressive technical ability, creative thinking, and a strong understanding of AI’s role in modern security operations.
What Participants Gained
Throughout those intense hours, participants received:
- Hands-on experience building real cybersecurity automation
- Mentorship from cybersecurity professionals, engineers, and AI specialists
- Exposure to agentic AI concepts reshaping SOC teams globally
- A crash course in integrations, workflow design, and effective alert triage
- Networking with industry leaders and other aspiring builders
- The satisfaction of turning an idea into a functional prototype in under three days
The hackathon delivered both technical growth and personal confidence, a combination essential for future cybersecurity and AI leaders.
The Impact
The event confirmed what many already recognize: Lebanon has an abundance of capable, motivated, and highly creative young talent.
Students demonstrated:
- Solid cybersecurity intuition
- Strong automation and coding capabilities
- Clear communication and team collaboration
- The ability to build production-style logic under pressure
For the broader ecosystem, the hackathon showed that when companies and educational institutions collaborate, innovation accelerates.
For TEKNOLOGIIA, this was a milestone in its mission to empower local talent and promote AI-driven security innovation.
For 42Beirut, it reaffirmed its role as a hub for those who build, experiment, and redefine what’s possible.
The Prize
Three exceptional team members were selected as the winners of Lebanon’s first Agentic AI hackathon. Their projects excelled in automation logic, creativity, integration depth, and visualization quality.
Their reward:
A fully covered 4-day trip to Istanbul as a celebration of their achievement and a well-deserved break after hours of high-intensity building.
Closing Note
This hackathon was only the beginning. TEKNOLOGIIA and 42Beirut are committed to creating more opportunities for students to learn, innovate, and shape the region’s technological future.
Congratulations to the winners, participants, mentors, sponsors, and everyone who made this event a success.
Lebanon’s next generation of AI and cybersecurity innovators is ready, and this weekend proved it.
