Opethon

A 30-day open-source hackathon for health, learning, and accessibility.

Pick a real problem. Build the whole solution. Ship it open.

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The idea

Most hackathons give you a theme and a list of ideas. We don’t.

You pick a real problem people face in one of three domains, then build a complete, working, open-source solution in your own new repo. The thinking is part of the challenge.

Three domains

  • Health & Care

    How can open software help people stay healthy, understand their care, and support caregivers?

    WHO projects a shortfall of about 11 million health workers by 2030.

    Source: World Health Organization

  • Learning & Education

    How can open software help anyone learn anything, anywhere, and help those who teach?

    273 million children and young people are out of school.

    Source: UNESCO GEM Report

  • Accessibility & Inclusion

    How can open software remove barriers for people with disabilities, older adults, and anyone left out?

    95.9% of the top one million home pages have detectable accessibility failures.

    Source: WebAIM Million

How it works

  1. Pick a problem. Name who has it and what it costs them.
  2. Build it in a new public repo, created after the start date.
  3. Ship it open: an open-source license, a README anyone can follow, and a short demo.
  4. Judged on real impact, whether it actually works, and how original the thinking is.

The basics

  • Solo or teams of up to 4.
  • AI tools are welcome. Just say which ones you used.
  • Pull requests to other projects don’t count. Build your own.

When

October or November.

Exact dates will be announced once sponsors are confirmed.

Sponsors

We’re looking for sponsors. If your company wants to back open-source work in health, learning, and accessibility, let’s talk.

Message @Da7_Tech on X