Code to Connect
A 54-hour hackathon by Women in Technology · 4–8 September 2026
We're surrounded by more entertainment than ever, and somehow it's easier than ever to be bored, lonely, and passively scrolling.
Code to Connect challenges you to do something about that. Over one weekend, build something that brings more joy, creativity and connection into everyday life — online or off. You don't need to have hackathoned before. You don't need to be a developer. You need three or four people and one weekend.
The tracks
Pick one. Your project is judged against the track you choose.
🖥️ Track 1 — Connect OnlineReimagining how we spend our time on screens
Digital entertainment is more available than ever, yet it can feel repetitive, passive, expensive, or overwhelming. Build digital experiences that replace mindless consumption with curiosity, creativity, play, and genuine enjoyment.
Think: new forms of interactive entertainment, tools for discovering meaningful content, affordable alternatives to existing platforms, creative communities, games, or technology that makes people active participants rather than passive consumers.
How might we make digital entertainment more joyful, engaging, accessible, and intentional?
🌏 Track 2 — Connect OutsideCreating more reasons to explore and experience life together
Finding something fun to do — and people to do it with — is harder than it should be. Loneliness, busy schedules, cost, accessibility barriers and the sheer effort of organising plans all get in the way.
Think: helping people organise activities with friends, meet others through shared interests, discover affordable local experiences, explore their surroundings, or turn ordinary moments into opportunities for play.
How might we make it easier for people to step beyond their routines and experience more joy together?
Not sure which? Ask where the value lands for the user, not where the code runs. An app that gets four friends to a park on Sunday is Connect Outside.
Schedule
| Fri 4 Sept | 5:30pm | Opening Ceremony — briefing, team formation, pizza. At least one member per team required |
| Sat 5 Sept | 9am-4pm | Hub Day + Mentors — tech support, food |
| Sun 6 Sept | 9am-4pm | Hub Day — mentors, food |
| Sun 6 Sept | 11:59pm | Submissions close |
| Mon 7 Sept | 3pm | Finalists announced on Discord and email |
| Tue 8 Sept | 5:30pm | Closing Ceremony — finalist pitches, judging, winners, networking |
Try to make it to the hub days to get valuable feedback from our mentors!
🧭 Mentors
Industry professionals and experienced students are at the hub on Saturday to help you — free, and genuinely worth using. They'll help you scope an idea that's too big, unblock you on the technical stuff, and tell you where your demo loses people.
Every team checks in with a mentor on Saturday. It takes fifteen minutes, it's in person at the hub. You will be scored on how well you have iterated on your ideas and responded to feedback.
Requirements
What to build
A project that answers your chosen track's challenge question — Connect Online or Connect Outside. Anything goes: web app, mobile app, game, hardware, browser extension, physical-digital hybrid. Working prototypes beat polished mockups.
Start from scratch. All project work must begin at the Opening Ceremony, Friday 4 September 5:30pm. Thinking, sketching and researching beforehand is fine and encouraged — written code, designs and assets are not.
"From scratch" doesn't mean "from nothing." All of this is fine: frameworks and starter templates, open-source libraries, public APIs, UI kits, icon sets, fonts, stock assets, public datasets, pre-trained models, no-code tools. What's not fine is extending a substantial pre-existing codebase, yours or anyone's.
What to submit
Everything below is due by Sunday 6 September, 11:59pm.
1. This Devpost submission, including your team name, all members, and your chosen track.
2. A public GitHub repo (or similar) containing your project and a README that covers:
- what it does and key features
- setup and run instructions
- tech stack
- credits — every library, API, template, asset pack and dataset you used
- AI usage — which tools, and roughly what for
3. A demo video, 2–3 minutes. Unlisted YouTube or Drive link is fine. Show the thing working — a screen recording with a voiceover beats a polished edit with no product in it. Judges stop watching at 3:00.
4. "What we changed" — about three sentences in your project description: one piece of feedback you received this weekend, what you changed because of it, and why. This is a scored criterion, so be specific. "A mentor pointed out our onboarding took six taps before anyone saw the fun part, so we cut it to one and moved the map to the first screen" — not "we got great feedback and it validated our approach." Deciding against feedback scores fine if you can say why.
5. Your Saturday mentor check-in, logged in #mentor-checkins on Discord.
Prizes
First Place
Second Place
Third Place
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Natalie Lam
Software Engineer @ Atlassian
Amanda Chao
Software Engineer @ Atlassian
Judging Criteria
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Criteria
Check the Rules page for more details on the judging criteria
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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