Dev Opportunity Radar #3: Neo Scholars, a $2M AI Challenge, and an $85K AI Fellowship

TL;DR Welcome back to Dev Opportunity Radar. This is a weekly series where I share opportunities,...

TL;DR

Welcome back to Dev Opportunity Radar.

This is a weekly series where I share opportunities, resources, communities, and interesting finds that I come across, with the goal of helping people discover things they might otherwise miss.

This week's edition includes a student-focused founder program, a $2 million AI business challenge, a free Google AI agents course, a Web3 learning resource, and two community finds shared by community members.

If you've come across an opportunity, resource, community, program, or event that deserves more attention, feel free to share it in the comments.

If I feature it in a future edition, I'll make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

Table of Contents

• Quick Scan

• Still Open From Previous Editions

• Radar Follow-Up

• This Week's Opportunities

  • Neo Scholars
  • Gemini × XPRIZE AI Business Challenge

• Bonus Opportunity

  • 5-Day AI Agents Intensive Course with Google

• Resources Worth Checking Out

  • LearnWeb3

• Community Finds

  • AI Tinkerers
  • Claude Corps
  • Hacking for Good

• Until Next Friday

• Dev Opportunity Radar Archive

⚡ Quick Scan

Opportunities

Resource Highlight

Community Finds

🔄 Still Open From Previous Editions

A few opportunities from previous editions are still accepting applications.

I've already covered these in detail, so I won't repeat everything here. If any of them catch your attention, check the original edition for the full overview, eligibility details, and application links.

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📡 Radar Follow-Up

One of the things I hoped this series would do was help someone discover an opportunity they otherwise wouldn't have come across.

Last week, Daniel Nwaneri (@dannwaneri) shared that he discovered the FR8 residency through the radar and applied the same day.

That genuinely made my week.

Daniel also shared something that summed up what I'm trying to do with this series:

"The series does something most opportunity roundups don't. It actually explains why something is worth your time instead of just listing it."

There are already lots of places that collect links.

My goal is to add enough context that you can quickly decide whether something is actually worth exploring further.

Seeing someone discover an opportunity, take action on it, and then come back to share that experience felt like a reminder that the series is doing what I hoped it would do.

Thank you again, Daniel, for sharing the update and for letting me mention it here.

And Daniel, if you're reading this, wishing you the very best with your application.

📍 This Week's Opportunities

Here are a few opportunities I came across this week that I thought were worth sharing.

📌 Neo Scholars

Who it's for: Undergraduate students who enjoy building things, love computer science, and are interested in startups, entrepreneurship, or ambitious technical projects.

Neo combines mentorship, startup recruiting, founder support, and access to a strong network of builders all within a single program.

Accepted scholars gain access to mentorship, startup opportunities, recruiting support, events, and a community that includes founders and builders from companies like Cursor, Cognition, Chai Discovery, Applied Compute, and more.

One thing I particularly liked is that participants aren't being pushed into a single path. Whether you want to start something, join a startup, explore ideas, or simply meet ambitious people, there seems to be room for all of those outcomes.

There's also an optional Neo Residency program where student teams can receive a $40,000 equity-free grant and spend time building in San Francisco.

Who can apply: Undergraduate students graduating Winter 2026 or later.

Application Deadline: June 14, 2026

🔗 Learn More & Apply

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📌 Gemini × XPRIZE AI Business Challenge

Who it's for: Builders, founders, developers, students, and anyone interested in creating an AI-powered business.

Participants aren't just building a prototype.

They're expected to build something that reaches real users, solves a real problem, and generates real revenue.

The challenge focuses on businesses powered by AI agents and built using Google Cloud products.

Projects can be submitted across areas including education and human potential, entrepreneurship and job creation, small business services, financial access, and professional services.

I actually came across this later than I would have liked, but the good news is that there's still plenty of time left.

If you've been thinking about building something meaningful with AI rather than just experimenting with prompts, this might be worth looking into.

Prize Pool: $2,000,000

Grand Prize: $500,000

Deadline: August 18, 2026

🔗 Learn More & Join

🎁 Bonus Opportunity

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5-Day AI Agents Intensive Course with Google

Who it's for: Developers, students, builders, and anyone interested in learning how modern AI agents are designed, built, and deployed.

The course goes beyond basic prompting and focuses on practical topics like agent workflows, tool use, memory, evaluation, security, and deployment.

The program is hosted by Kaggle and developed with Google researchers and engineers.

Participants receive daily learning materials, whitepapers, companion podcasts, hands-on codelabs, daily livestreams and AMAs, Discord discussions, and a capstone project.

The capstone project, called Kaggriculture, involves building an autonomous agent that manages a virtual farm and competes against other agents.

I wanted to include this because it's free, happening soon, and seems much more focused on building real agent systems than many introductory AI courses.

Dates: June 15-19, 2026

Capstone Deadline: June 28, 2026

Cost: Free

Bonus: Certificates, badges, and Kaggle swag for top participants.

🔗 Learn More & Register

📚 Resources Worth Checking Out

Not every useful find comes with an application deadline.

Here's one resource worth checking out this week.

LearnWeb3

LearnWeb3 is a free learning platform for developers who want to explore blockchain and Web3 development.

The reason I wanted to include it is because a lot of learning resources assume you already know where to start. LearnWeb3 does a good job of organizing topics into structured learning paths, making it easier to progress from one concept to the next.

The platform covers areas such as Ethereum development, Solidity, smart contracts, blockchain infrastructure, and other Web3 fundamentals through a mix of lessons, projects, and hands-on learning.

Whether you're completely new to Web3 or looking to build a stronger foundation, it's a resource worth bookmarking.

Cost: Free

Community: Discord, study groups, events, and developer support.

🔗 LearnWeb3

🌟 Community Finds

One of my favorite things about this series has been seeing people share opportunities, communities, and resources that others might not have discovered otherwise.

AI Tinkerers

Shared by Julien Avezou (@javz).

AI Tinkerers is a global community for people actively building with AI. They host meetups, demo nights, hackathons, workshops, and technical events across hundreds of cities worldwide.

What I like about it is how focused it is on builders. The community is built around sharing working projects, technical workflows, lessons learned, and real implementation details rather than AI hype or marketing.

Whether you're building with foundation models, agentic workflows, open-source models, or no-code AI tools, the focus is the same: show what you're building, explain how it works, and learn from others doing the same.

If you're someone who learns best by seeing what other builders are creating and sharing your own work, this looks like a community worth exploring.

Who it's for: Developers, engineers, researchers, builders, and people actively shipping AI projects

Cost: Free to join (event availability varies by city)

🔗 AI Tinkerers

Claude Corps

Shared by Phinn Markson (@marsonp).

Claude Corps is a new fellowship from Anthropic, CodePath, and Social Finance that places early-career fellows inside mission-driven nonprofits across the United States for a full year.

Rather than learning AI in a classroom, fellows work directly with organizations tackling challenges in areas like education, public health, workforce development, housing, food security, civic services, and more.

There is no degree requirement and no formal coding background is required. The program is looking for people who are already comfortable using AI tools, learn quickly, communicate well, and care about making an impact.

Fellows receive training, mentorship, relocation support if needed, and spend a year helping organizations put AI to work on real problems.

Compensation: $85,000 salary + benefits

Eligibility: 18+, authorized to work in the United States, and less than 2 years of full-time work experience

Application Deadline: July 17, 2026

🔗 Claude Corps

Hacking for Good

Shared by Francis (@francistrdev).

MLH's Global Hack Week is running a special Hacking for Good edition from June 12–18.

Global Hack Week is a week-long online event where participants complete challenges, attend live sessions, learn new technologies, and build projects alongside a global community of developers.

This particular edition is focused on using technology to create projects that have a positive impact.

One reason I wanted to include it is that Global Hack Week tends to be much more approachable than a traditional hackathon. You don't need a team, prior hackathon experience, or even a strong technical background to participate.

Whether you're looking to learn something new, build a small project, or simply meet other developers, it's a good opportunity to get involved.

Dates: June 12-18, 2026

Cost: Free

Who can participate: Anyone, anywhere

🔗 Hacking for Good

Thank you to Julien, Phinn, and Francis for sharing these.

I'd love for this section to keep growing.

If you've come across an opportunity, fellowship, grant, hackathon, conference, community, resource, or anything else you think more people should know about, feel free to share it in the comments.

If I feature it in a future edition, I'll make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

One small request: If you're sharing an opportunity, please avoid posting raw URLs directly in the comments. DEV sometimes filters them before I get a chance to see them.

A short description alongside the link makes it much easier for me to review and potentially feature it in a future edition.

👋 Until Next Friday

Before I go, I just want to say thank you.

A few weeks ago, this was just an experiment.

Now people are discovering opportunities through the radar, applying to them, and sharing opportunities, resources, and communities back with the rest of us.

This week alone, the Community Finds section exists because Julien, Phinn, and Francis took the time to share something they thought others might benefit from.

I hope that continues.

The goal of this series hasn't changed:

Help people discover opportunities they otherwise might have missed.

My hope is that this slowly becomes our radar, not just mine.

So if you come across an opportunity, fellowship, grant, hackathon, conference, community, resource, or anything else you think more people should know about, feel free to share it in the comments.

And as always, if I feature it in a future edition, I'll make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

If you end up applying to any of the opportunities featured here, I'd love to hear about it.

Thank you for reading, thank you for sharing, and thank you for being part of this.

If you'd like to catch future editions, consider following me on DEV and bookmarking the series.

I'll be back next Friday with more opportunities, resources, and community finds.

See you next Friday 👋

🗂️ Dev Opportunity Radar Archive

If this is your first time discovering the series, you can browse previous editions and Community Finds here:

👉 Dev Opportunity Radar Archive

Every edition is collected in one place so it's easier to explore past opportunities, resources, and community recommendations.