Not to be rude, but these days it's best to ask.
This is about community and building fun things. I can’t speak for all the sponsors, but what I want is to show people the Open Source tooling we work on at Daily, and see/hear what other people interested in real-time AI are thinking about and working on.
Wow, I have been attending public hackathons for over a decade, and I have never heard of something like this. That would be an outrage!
I had one employer years ago who did a 24 hour thing with a crappy prize. They invited employees to come and do their own idea or join a team, then grind with minimal sleep for a day straight. Starting on a Friday afternoon, of course, so a few hours were on the company dime while everyone else went home early.
If putting in that extra time and effort resulted in anything good, the company might even try to develop it! The employee who came up with it might even get put on that team!
....people actually attended.