Jem

for The DEV Team

Posted on Sep 4

Join our DEV Weekend Challenge: Generosity Edition! $1,000 in Prizes Across FIVE Winners. Submissions Due September 7 at 6:59 AM UTC.

#devchallenge #weekendchallenge #hackathon

We're back with another DEV Weekend Challenge, a short bite-sized challenge planned to fit into your weekend. We know the submission window is tight, so we've set the timing to ensure that no matter where you are in the world, you'll have the majority of your Saturday and Sunday to participate.

Our theme for this weekend is generosity, inspired by @fm’s world peace suggestion in our call-for-ideas earlier this week and the upcoming International Day of Charity happening September 5th.

We'll select one overall winner and four prize category winners who utilize a specific technology as part of their challenge submission.

Let's get to it!

Our Prompt

Build something in the spirit of generosity.

Please interpret this prompt however you'd like. A personal donation tracker? A volunteer matching tool? Something that makes a small nonprofit's day-to-day less painful? A project that raises awareness for a cause you care about? Any angle is fair game.

If you need a jumping-off point, here are a few themes shaping modern charity work that the UN highlights on their website:

Technology-driven giving: crowdfunding, mobile donations, and tools that make giving more accessible and transparent
Youth leadership: social ventures and community projects led by the people closest to the problem
Equity and inclusion: solutions that account for how race, gender, disability, and geography shape need
Ethical and accountable giving: transparency, clear reporting, and community-driven design
Climate and poverty: resilience tools for the communities hit first and hardest

You do not have to pick one of these. They're here to get you unstuck.

Prize Categories

Alongside our overall winner spot, we have four prize categories for participants who incorporate a specific technology into their project. You don't need to use any of these tools to be eligible for the overall winner spot, but if you're curious about any of the tech, this is a great excuse to give one a try.

Best use of Snowflake
Best use of Solana
Best use of ElevenLabs
Best use of Google AI

Pro Tip: since prize category winners are drawn from a smaller pool of submissions, your odds of taking home a prize are meaningfully higher.

Note: You may use multiple technologies in a single submission to qualify for multiple categories, but participants are limited to one win per challenge.

Judging Criteria

All submissions will be judged on the following:

Relevance to Theme: Does the project clearly connect to the spirit of the challenge?
Creativity: Is the concept original or is it an interesting take on a familiar problem?
Technical Execution: Is the project functional, well-built, and easy to use?
Writing Quality: Is the submission post clearly written and engaging?
Use of Prize Category Technology (optional): If pursuing a prize category, does the submission meaningfully incorporate the chosen technology?

Prizes

Five winners will each take home:

$200 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive DEV badge

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

How To Participate

Publish a post on DEV using the submission template below. Your post should give us an overview of what you made, who it's for, and a demo of your project.

Weekend Challenge Submission Template

Please review our judging criteria, rules, guidelines, and FAQ page before submitting so you understand our participation guidelines and official contest rules such as eligibility requirements.

Need Help?

Check out our official challenge page for resources to help you get started with tech from our prize category partners.

Important Dates

Launch Time: September 4, 2026 2:00 AM UTC
Submissions Due: September 7, 2026 6:59 AM UTC

Here's what that looks like across a few timezones:

Timezone	Launch Time (Local)	Submissions Due (Local)
PDT	Thursday, Sep 3 at 7:00 PM	Sunday, Sep 6 at 11:59 PM
EDT	Thursday, Sep 3 at 10:00 PM	Monday, Sep 7 at 2:59 AM
GMT	Friday, Sep 4 at 2:00 AM	Monday, Sep 7 at 6:59 AM
CEST	Friday, Sep 4 at 4:00 AM	Monday, Sep 7 at 8:59 AM
IST	Friday, Sep 4 at 7:30 AM	Monday, Sep 7 at 12:29 PM
JST	Friday, Sep 4 at 11:00 AM	Monday, Sep 7 at 3:59 PM
AEST	Friday, Sep 4 at 12:00 PM	Monday, Sep 7 at 4:59 PM

Winners will be Announced on Thursday, October 1.

Questions about the challenge? Drop them in the comments below.

Good luck!!

Top comments (48)

İclal Doğan • Sep 7 • Edited

If you wanna play i made a game ^v^
dev.to/iclaldogan/the-next-shift-a...

here here take a look:
the-next-shift-henna.vercel.app/

Jessica Doering • Sep 4

This is a really nice challenge idea. 🩷
I ended up making Sprinkle, which helps figure out where you donate various items and where that donated stuff can actually be useful nearby, and what items each chartity is in need of.
dev.to/sizzlebop/sprinkle-finding-...
Also nice job @fm on the great suggestion!
Good luck everyone!!! 😁

Fayaz • Sep 5

Thanks 🥰

Cool project! I had a similar idea, but you beat me to it 🤣

Jessica Doering • Sep 5

Thank you!!

Rimsha • Sep 7

Good initiative!

Jessica Doering • Sep 7

Thanks!

Fayaz • Sep 4

Brilliant!

Generosity is one of the most fundamental virtues that bring about peace. Peace can be difficult to achieve at times, but generosity can still change lives for the better, even when peace may seem impossible.

So it's an even better theme. 🥰

Ruita Wachira • Sep 6

This is amazing. I was inspired to build a charity donations engine that runs on USSD with Gemini and Snowflake(cortex AI) Read more about it here

Rimsha • Sep 7

Nice!

Amandeep Singh • Sep 6

Amazing, looking forward to it. ❤️

Fayaz • Sep 7 • Edited

Question: I know that I can't change anything after the deadline, but if I only pin the post in my DEV profile from Dashboard after the deadline, will that be counted as a Change / Edit?

Jem The DEV Team • Sep 7

Just put any updates/changes you make after the deadline in your readme and you'll be good 👍

Fayaz • Sep 7

That's great. Thanks! 🥰

Hussain Shaikh • Sep 7

I built DonateCity — a gamified donation experience where your donations actually build and upgrade a virtual city.

Would love to hear your thoughts! check out the project and how I built it:

Read the full article →

Rimsha • Sep 7

Just submitted Ripple 💧 for the Best Use of Google AI category! It's an AI-powered micro-mission generator built with Gemini 3.6 Flash to turn spare time into daily acts of generosity. Check out the post here: dev.to/inkwavebytes/ripple-transfo...

Murmel Schwenk • Sep 7

This theme is wonderful. It's refreshing to see a challenge that puts kindness and social impact front and center. The variety of projects already shared in the comments — from USSD donation tools to item-matching platforms to AI-powered aid translation — shows how many different ways tech can amplify generosity. Looking forward to the winner announcements on October 1!

Miro Ma • Sep 4

Brilliant

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