Congrats to the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle Winners!

We're excited to announce the winners of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side...

We're excited to announce the winners of the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge Week 2: Side Hustle!

This week, we asked you to build something with open-weight models or open-source AI that someone would actually pay for. You delivered small, specific, useful tools for freelancers, small businesses, job seekers, and niche communities, and plenty of you went the extra mile to put your project in front of a real first user. We loved seeing how often running open models was what made the business work, whether that meant keeping costs low, keeping customer data private, or tuning for a niche that general-purpose APIs miss.

Thank you to everyone who participated. Now, let's celebrate our winners!

🎉 Congratulations To…

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Overall Winner

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Featured Category Winners

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Best Use of Render

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Best Use of TabPFN

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Best Use of Tinker

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Best Use of Arduino

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Best Use of DigitalOcean

{% embed https://dev.to/reet_singh_ee97da2986538e/simple-site-hai-15k-mein-ho-jayega-na-i-built-panga-so-freelancers-stop-saying-yes-too-fast-5454 %}

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Best Use of Gemma

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Partner Category Winners

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Best Use of Backboard

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Best Use of ElevenLabs

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Best Use of Entire

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Best Use of GitHub Copilot

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Best Use of Mastra

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Best Use of MongoDB Atlas

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Best Use of Sentry Agent Tracing

{% embed https://dev.to/bipul_chamoli_09b5f0cc719/red-label-adha-kg-2-box-an-offline-whatsapp-order-reader-for-indian-shops-that-asks-before-it-i96 %}

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Best Use of SerpApi

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Best Use of a .tech Domain

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Best Use of Temporal

{% embed https://dev.to/13owen/chaptermill-a-podcasts-back-catalog-to-show-notes-for-3c-an-audio-hour-on-an-old-pc-i-kept-4gl5 %}

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Best Use of Tiger Data

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Prizes

• Overall winner: $250 USD, a DEV++ membership, and an exclusive DEV badge
• Featured category winners: $200 USD and an exclusive DEV badge each
• Partner category winners: $100 USD and an exclusive DEV badge each

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

A huge thank you to our partners for making these prizes possible!

What's Next?

Hacktoberfest isn't over yet! Week 3: Slow and Steady is live right now, with $2,850 in prizes across 21 winners. There's still time to jump in:

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Week 4 kicks off Monday, October 26. Sign up now so you don't miss the theme reveal:

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Happy Hacktoberfest, and congrats again to all of our winners! 🎃