📌About the Event

The Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge – Week 2 (2026) is an international online AI development competition hosted through the DEV Community as part of Hacktoberfest 2026. This week’s theme, “Side Hustle,” challenges participants to build innovative, practical AI-powered products that individuals or businesses would realistically pay for. Participants must use open-source AI tools or open-weight models to develop original projects and demonstrate their real-world applications. With a total prize pool of $2,550 USD across 18 winners, the challenge encourages developers, students, and AI enthusiasts to turn creative ideas into commercially useful solutions.

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ℹ️ Event Details

• Theme: Side Hustle
• Mode of Conduct: Online
• Event Type: AI Development Challenge / Open-Source Hackathon
• Participation: Individual or team (maximum 4 members)
• Platform: DEV Community (dev.to)
• Geographical Scope: International, subject to country-specific eligibility restrictions.
• Challenge Objective: Develop a new AI-powered application using open-weight models, open-source AI frameworks, or local AI inference that solves a real-world problem and has commercial potential.

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📅 Important Dates

• Competition Start Date: October 12, 2026, at 12:00 PM PDT.
• Last Date for Submission: October 18, 2026, at 11:59 PM PDT.
• Deadline in Indian Standard Time: October 19, 2026, at 12:29 PM IST.
• Winner Announcement: Week of October 19, 2026.
• Competition Duration: October 12–18, 2026

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🎯 Eligibility & Rules

• Eligibilty:
• Participants must be at least 18 years old and meet the applicable legal age requirements.
• Open to developers, students, AI enthusiasts, freelancers, and other eligible individuals.
• Participants must have an active DEV Community account.
• Indian participants are eligible under the published country restrictions, subject to applicable laws and other official eligibility conditions.
• Participants may compete individually or in teams of up to four members.

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🏆 Benefits for the Participants

• Overall Winner (1):
• $250 USD cash prize.
• DEV++ membership.
• Exclusive DEV winner badge.
• Featured Category Winners (6):
• $200 USD cash prize each.
• Exclusive DEV winner badge.
• Categories include Render, TabPFN, Tinker, Arduino, DigitalOcean, and Gemma.
• Partner Category Winners (11):
• $100 USD cash prize each.
• Exclusive DEV winner badge.
• Categories include Backboard, ElevenLabs, GitHub Copilot, MongoDB Atlas, Mastra, Temporal, SerpApi, and other partner technologies.