About the challenge

Hack for Humanity is a hackathon that brings developers together in a 1-month event to come up with unique and creative solutions to mental and physical health issues, with an optional focus on AI. The participants' goal is to use technology to make meaningful changes in humanity by addressing health concerns.

You may work individually or in teams of 2-4.

Prior experience is not required! Participants of any skill level are welcome to participate and work together in this hackathon.

Get started

Join the Devpost hackathon on this page. This is where you will submit your project.
We suggest you join our Discord server to stay updated and engage with the community (link once you register).
If you know someone else who may be interested, you could send them this URL and ask them to sign up: https://hack-for-humanity-summer-26.devpost.com/. For every participant who joins the event and enters your username in the Discord server's "referral" text channel, your referral count will be increased for our referral prizes and raffle.
Announcements will be posted on Discord.

Partners

Girls Who Code - Breaking down barriers to AI and other emergent technologies.

Concussion Alliance - helping solve the hidden concussion epidemic

YOUTH x AI - Bringing free, accessible, and high-quality AI education to youth

Rutgers Synapse, Johns Hopkins Synapse, Pitt Synapse, UW Synapse - connecting and supporting the brain injury community.

Sprqs - your daily spark of support

SparkCloud

For Sponsors

For information about sponsoring Hack for Humanity, please visit our website or email the organizer at hackforhumanityevents@gmail.com.

Requirements

What to Build

You must build software (such as an app, website, or game) that improves mental or physical well-being. In addition to the core Mental Health and Physical Health categories, your project can compete in several dedicated tracks:

Best Use of AI/ML & Responsible AI: For projects implementing machine learning.
Best Tech for Concussion Recovery: For projects addressing brain injury recovery
Additional prizes for Best Design, Girls Who Code Future Innovator Award, Best Use of Render, Best Innovation and Creativity, and the Public Voting Winner.

What to Submit

Software: Include the GitHub repository for your software with the functioning source code.
Video: A video (4 min max) explaining
1. The issue you're solving
2. Your submitted software and its functionality in detail
3. An overview of how it was created

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

$100+ in prizes

+ other prizes

Participation - $143.67 value

1,000 winners

*More prizes coming soon

Everyone who registers will receive the following through our Discord server.

- 1 month of Wolfram|One ($25.67 value)
- $50 Render credits
- Lifetime Dialogate Pro access (interview practice) ($60 value)
- 3-month Miro license
- 1 month of DevSwarm Pro ($8 value)
- 300 MeDo credits

Project Submission - $10 value

200 winners

The first 200 valid submissions will receive:

- 1 .xyz domain ($10 value)

Best Mental Health Tool (Presented by Sprqs) - $100 cash + other prizes

$100 in cash

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the highest-ranked submission for the mental health track
- $100 cash
- 3 1-year subscriptions for NordVPN
- 3 1-year subscriptions for Incogni
- 3 1-year subscriptions for NordPass
- 3 × 1 GB of free data for Saily
- 5 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($250 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- 1,500 MeDo credits
- Certificate of recognition

Best Physical Health Tool - $506 value + other prizes

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the highest-ranked submission for the physical health track
- 3 1-year subscriptions for NordVPN
- 3 1-year subscriptions for Incogni
- 3 1-year subscriptions for NordPass
- 3 × 1 GB of free data for Saily
- 5 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($250 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- 1 year of DevSwarm Pro ($96 value)
- 1,500 MeDo credits
- Certificate of recognition

Responsible AI - $8,676 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project that implements AI most responsibly with strict privacy and data safety measures
- 7 1-year SSOJet licenses ($8,316 value)
- 4 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($200 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- Certificate of recognition

Best Design - $360 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project that scores highest in the "Design" judging category
- 4 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($200 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- Certificate of recognition

Best Use of Render (Presented by Render) - $900 value

3 winners

Awarded to the best health technology tool that uses Render Workflows.

1st Place
- $500 Render credits
- Certificate of recognition

2nd Place
- $300 Render credits
- Certificate of recognition

3rd Place
- $100 Render credits
- Certificate of recognition

Best Tech for Concussion Recovery (Supported by Concussion Alliance & Synapse) - $456 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project that best addresses concussion recovery
- 4 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($200 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- 1 year of DevSwarm Pro ($96 value)
- 1,500 MeDo credits
- Certificate of recognition

Girls Who Code Future Innovator Award - $260 value

1 winner

Awarded to the best health technology tool by a student team. At least 50% of team members must be current students (middle school, high school, or university), and at least one student member made substantial contributions to the project.

- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- 2 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($100 value)
- Girls Who Code + Hack for Humanity certificate of recognition

* Criteria include Domain Effectiveness, Feasibility & Safety, Innovation & Novelty, and UI/UX & Accessibility

Best Use of AI/ML - $410 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project that best implements AI/ML in an innovative and effective way for either track
- 5 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($250 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- Certificate of recognition

Best Innovation and Creativity - $360 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project that scores highest in the "Innovation and Creativity" judging category
- 4 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($200 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- Certificate of recognition

Public Voting Winner - $410 value

1 winner

*More prizes coming soon

Awarded to the project with the most public votes
- 5 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($250 value)
- 16 .xyz domains for 1 year ($160 value)
- Certificate of recognition

Referral Prizes

11 winners

Each participant you refer to the hackathon will contribute to your total. To count a referral, whoever you refer must add their Devpost username and yours to our Discord server's "referrals" channel.

Top referrer
- 2 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Courses ($100 value)
- 4 .xyz domains for 1 year ($40 value)

2nd referrer
- 1 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Course ($50 value)
- 2 .xyz domains for 1 year ($20 value)

3rd-7th referrers
- 1 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Course ($50 value)

Raffle (4 randomly selected referrers)
- 1 7-day Interview Cake Full Coding Course ($50 value)

Judges

Iacopo Schianchi
Event Organizer

Malayka Gormally
Co-founder and CEO at Concussion Alliance

Zoe Marquis
Program and Operations Associate at Concussion Alliance

Claire Han
President of JHU Synapse

Mitali Srivastava
Treasurer of JHU Synapse

Jennifer Genell
President of Synapse at Pitt

Jules Frank
VP Synapse at Pitt

Aveen Maan
Co-Founder @YOUTH x AI

Devshree Mistry
Co-Founder @YOUTH x AI

Ravi Kiran Pagidi
(Judge and mentor) AI/ML Researcher and IEEE Senior Member

Sandeep Gadde
(Judge and mentor) Director of Software Engineering @ Capital One | IEEE & ACM Peer Reviewer

Serhii Bykov
(Judge and mentor) Senior iOS Engineer @ Lyft | IEEE Senior Member

Swapnil Gaikwad
(Judge and mentor) Senior Software Development Engineer @ Amazon | IEEE/ACM Peer Reviewer

Benslyne Avril
(Judge and mentor) Clinical Director & University of Ottawa Lecturer

Baber Javed
(Judge and mentor) CEO/CTO @ Square63

Anmol Whorra
(Judge and mentor) Senior Software Engineer @ AWS

Vikram Waradpande
(Judge and mentor) Senior Software Engineer @ Intuit

Shrie Raam Sathyanarayanan
(Judge and mentor) Health Data Analyst @ Oklahoma State University

Gaurav Shah
(Judge and mentor) Director of Full Stack Engineering @ Fidelity

Fahad Mehfooz
(Judge and mentor) Founding AI Engineer @ MenuData

Abhijit Kale
(Judge and mentor) Staff Cloud Engineer @ Lucid Motors

Pratik Ghawate
(Judge and mentor) Senior Analytics Engineer @ CDA

Mayur Jain
(Judge and mentor) Senior Software Engineer @ Bridgestone Americas

Sourav Saha
Senior Software Engineer @ US Bank | IEEE Senior Member

Advitya Gemawat
Machine Learning Engineer 2 @ Microsoft

Prashant Krishnan
Machine Learning Engineer @ Apple

Wenqing Li
Mental Health Clinician & Applied AI

Dhruv Bathla
Founder @ EZbeat

Karlie Koo
Head of Design @ Endo Health

Vaidehi Shettigar
Founder @ CareUno

Alvina Patra
Manager in Commercial Analytics @ Genpact

Judging Criteria

Mental / Physical Health Submissions
Full guide: https://hack-humanity.web.app/Health%20Judging%20Guide.pdf - Domain Effectiveness - Feasibility & Safety
Best Use of AI/ML and Responsible AI Submissions
Full guide: https://hack-humanity.web.app/AI-ML%20Judging%20Guide.pdf - Technical Complexity - Data Safety & Responsibility
All Submissions
Full guide: https://hack-humanity.web.app/Design%20and%20Innovation%20Judging%20Guide.pdf - Innovation & Novelty - UI/UX & Accessibility
Concussion Recovery Submissions
Full guide: https://hack-humanity.web.app/Concussion%20Recovery%20Judging%20Guide.pdf - Clinical & Domain Effectiveness - Safety & Responsible Design - Neuroscience Understanding - Research Foundation - Technical complexity - UX & Accessibility