Jem

for The DEV Team

Posted on Oct 9 AI-assisted

Congrats to the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Winners!

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

Record-breaking participation with open-source AI

We are so excited to announce the winners of the Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend, the first of five challenges kicking off this year's Hacktoberfest!

This was our most participated-in challenge to date, nearly tripling our previous record for submissions. We asked you to build something with open-source AI at its core for one real person in your life, and you showed up for your parents, grandparents, siblings, classmates, roommates, and friends. Many of you told us how the person you built for reacted, and those stories made judging both a joy and a challenge.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Your projects show exactly why open models matter: private data stays at home, tools run without a credit card, and builders get to shape AI around the people they care about.

Now, let's celebrate our winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

Overall Winner

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

ADK BBX

Oct 4

Phone calls are the boss fight of living in Japan. 🗼

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

13 min read

Featured Prize Category Winners

Best Use of Arduino

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Abhinav krishna N

Oct 5

Project JARVIS: The Offline AI Lab Assistant

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

10 min read

Best Use of DigitalOcean

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Alex Georgiev

Oct 2

The BMW manual was off-limits, so I built my friend something better

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

10 min read

Best Use of Gemma

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Uptime Architect

Oct 4

Gemma 4 reads my parent's mail at home: 39 test letters, 9 of them real, and one calm wrong answer I engineered out

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #gemma

11 min read

Best Use of Render

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Vicente G. Reyes

Oct 3

Tala: Free Audio-to-Text for My Designer Friend (No Signup, No Credit Card)

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

7 min read

Best Use of TabPFN

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Robert Moore

Oct 4

My mate wants a sub-5 70.3. Before recommending one, I made an open model predict 79 of my old race legs.

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

10 min read

Best Use of Tinker

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Muaaz Shaikh

Oct 4

Rakshak: I built my parents a scam-checker that never leaves the house

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

9 min read

Prize Category Winners

Best Use of Backboard

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Yash Kumar

Oct 2

Kharcha: a 4B model that reads Indian bank SMS so the money stays on your laptop

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

7 min read

Best Use of ElevenLabs

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Rahul Kumar

Oct 5

Padh Ke Batao: an AI that reads my grandfather's documents to him, on a laptop with no GPU

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

7 min read

Best Use of Entire

Abdul Wasih

Oct 5

Viva: a mock interview that knows which parts of your project an AI wrote

#showdev #devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

4 min read

Best Use of GitHub Copilot

Post not found or has been removed.

Best Use of Mastra

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Bipul Chamoli

Oct 2

Prep Buddy: an AI interview coach for my classmate that runs on his laptop with the Wi-Fi off

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge

8 min read

Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Elev 💥

Oct 4

I turned my sister in law's voice notes into a cookbook that answers in her voice

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #opensource

8 min read

Best Use of Sentry Agent Tracing

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Arqam Waheed

Oct 5

"If it's not in front of me, it's gone": I fine-tuned a 4B model for my friend with ADHD

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

12 min read

Best Use of SerpApi

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Muhammad Murtuza Hussain

Oct 2

Pīzhù 批注: a writing tutor that never rewrites your essay, built for my friend Joy (Gemma 4)

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #hacktoberfest

10 min read

Best Use of Temporal

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Prateek Rai

Oct 3

PaidYet: for the friend who says “kal bhej dunga”

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #opensource

9 min read

Best Use of Tiger Data

Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend Submission 🤝

Priyanshu Jha

Oct 5

My friend runs her supplements shop from WhatsApp voice notes, so I built her a shop helper

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hf26challenge #ai

7 min read

Prizes

Our overall winner will receive:

$250 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV badge

Our featured prize category winners will each receive:

$200 USD
Exclusive DEV badge

Our prize category winners will each receive:

$100 USD
Exclusive DEV badge

All participants with a valid submission will receive a completion badge.

A huge thank you to our partners, Render, Prior Labs, Thinking Machines, Arduino, DigitalOcean, Google, Backboard, ElevenLabs, Entire, GitHub, Mastra, MongoDB, SerpApi, Sentry, Temporal, and Tiger Data, for making these prizes possible!

What's Next?

Hacktoberfest is just getting started! We're launching a new challenge every week this month. Each challenge is a fresh start, so it's not too late to jump in. Week 1 is happening now:

Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 1: Touch Grass Submission 🌿

Jem for The DEV Team

Oct 5

Join the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Touch Grass! $2,450 in Prizes Across 17 Winners.

#devchallenge #hf26challenge #hacktoberfest #softwaredevelopment

266

7 min read

Week 2 launches Monday, October 12, with a brand-new theme. Register for the upcoming challenges to be notified as details drop:

The Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 2 runs October 12 to October 18. This week's theme is Side Hustle: build something with open-weight models or open-source AI that someone would actually pay for. $2,550 in prizes across 18 winners. This year's Hacktoberfest is all about building brand-new projects with open-source AI and open-weight models. Every week brings a new theme, and every challenge is a fresh start, so you're competing on the same footing as everyone else.

The Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 3 runs October 19 to October 25. In honor of International Sloth Day, build something with open-source AI that rewards laziness: a tool for relaxation, an automation for a task you dread, or anything that makes life easier. $2,850 in prizes across 21 winners. New to Hacktoberfest this year? Instead of pull requests, you build a brand-new project with open-source AI at its core and write about it on DEV. Every challenge is a fresh start, so it's never too late to join.

The Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 4 runs October 26 to October 31. Build something spooky, or something that honors the past in the spirit of Día de los Muertos, with open-weight models or open-source AI. $2,850 in prizes across 21 winners. This is the final challenge of our Hacktoberfest series. This year's Hacktoberfest is all about building brand-new projects with open-source AI and open-weight models, and the theme is intentionally broad, so interpret it however you'd like!

Happy Hacktoberfest 💜