Hackathon / Event Grant

The FOSS United - Event / Hackathon grants is an initiative to support Free and Open Source Software events among student and developer communities in India.

Grants of up to ₹50,000 for FOSS events
For grant requests, please send an email to grants@fossunited.org

FAQs

Who can apply?

Event, conference, hackathon organizers organizing FOSS events or hackathons can apply for the grant.

Note: We don't support events having blockchain, web3 and crypto related tracks. Read our thoughts on blockchain here.

What has to be done?

  • Participants of your hackathon need to follow the FOSS track guidelines.
  • The application should be made using an official or educational mail id.
  • We do not encourage promotion or usage of proprietary technologies in the event.

Sponsorship amount

  • ₹10,000 for first time FOSS events.
  • ₹25,000 to ₹50,000 for long running events and hackathons that require all submitted projects to be FOSS (released on an open platform under a FOSS license. See the guidelines) and encourage the use of FOSS tools in building. The organizer should have a track record of hosting FOSS events.

On grant approval

Once your application is approved, you will receive a confirmation e-mail. To receive the grant amount, follow these steps.

Rules

These rules should be added to your FOSS hackathon event or the FOSS track in your hackathon event.

Eligibility

  • To receive the prize money, any Indian national who has a valid bank account.

What you can work on

  • A new FOSS app, tool, or library.
  • An alternative to any existing popular app or service.
  • Extending and improve an existing project or library.
  • Design projects: Redesign of an existing FOSS application.
  • Open hardware.

What you should (probably) not work on

  • An app or project that extensively uses proprietary service or API.
  • Yet another Keras model on available datasets.
  • A simple CRUD application.

Evaluation

  • License: Must have a valid Free and Open Source license.
  • Communication: A well written README and video demo are important. These will determine the first round of elimination. Before your code is reviewed, the quality of your README will be. Please be concise in explaining what your project does, how to install it, test it, and use it. Similarly, write concise and meaningful commit messages that show the progression of the project.
  • Completeness: Applications must be complete and working.
  • Design and aesthetics: If you are making a user interface, try and ensure that they are clean, modern, and usable.
  • Timeframe: The project must be reasonably built within the given timeframe. The judgement of the jury will be final in this.
  • Credits: If you are using existing code, make sure you credit it. Plagiarism, which is all too common unfortunately, is strictly not appreciated.
  • Demo Video: Participants must submit a video demo before the clock ends (uploaded on YouTube or any other platform that is accessible to us). Restricted to 3 mins.


Questions?

You can post your queries on our telegram group or email us.

Grant history

Date Name Grant
March 15, 2024 FOSSmeet 2024 ₹40,000
January 19, 2024 Techacks 4.0 ₹10,000
October 19, 2023 ETHOS - FOSS Club SRM ₹10,000
April 28, 2023 Hack4Bengal 2.0 ₹10,000
April 16, 2023 MeenHacks ₹10,000
April 7, 2023 Wittyhacks 3.0 ₹10,000
March 18, 2023 Bytecamp ₹10,000
March 18, 2023 TechnoHack 2023 ₹25,000
March 15, 2023 PWOC (PEC Winter Of Code) ₹10,000
March 4, 2023 GIRLATHON ₹10,000
March 2, 2023 INKRIT'23 ₹10,000
February 24, 2023 Starlet Hackathon ₹30,000
February 17, 2023 Hacklipse ₹10,000
February 10, 2023 FOSSMeet ₹25,000
February 4, 2023 S.P.I.T Hackathon 2023 ₹10,000
February 4, 2023 Smart Punjab Hackathon ₹10,000
February 3, 2023 Hack This Fall 3.0 ₹10,000
February 2, 2023 Tsec Hacks 2023 ₹10,000
January 28, 2023 Mini-Debian Conference Tamil Nadu ₹25,000
January 26, 2023 Pehia Summit 2023 ₹10,000
January 21, 2023 Eve-Hack ₹10,000
January 20, 2023 Hackanova 2.0 ₹10,000
January 7, 2023 DevCreate Hackathon 2.0 ₹10,000
January 1, 2023 Social Winter Of Code ₹25,000
December 23, 2022 Hack A Miners ₹10,000
December 17, 2022 Tink-Her-Hack ₹1,50,000
December 17, 2022 HackForTomorrow ₹10,000
December 10, 2022 WE Ideathon ₹10,000
December 9, 2022 Latency ₹10,000
December 2, 2022 Winterhack ₹10,000
December 1, 2022 TecHacks 3.0 ₹10,000
November 25, 2022 CentuRITon ₹10,000
November 25, 2022 Hacknovate 4.0 ₹10,000
November 23, 2022 HACK BPIT ₹10,000
November 18, 2022 UHack 5.0 ₹10,000
November 12, 2022 PyHacks 2022 ₹10,000
November 12, 2022 MiniDebConf Palakkad 2022 ₹25,000
November 5, 2022 DefineHack ₹10,000
November 5, 2022 BarCamp Bangalore 2022 ₹1,00,000
October 27, 2022 Make-a-ton 5 ₹10,000
September 30, 2022 DevJams'22 ₹10,000
September 2, 2022 MesoHacks ₹10,000
July 1, 2022 Hack@Arch ₹10,000
May 13, 2022 Hack For Inclusion ₹10,000
May 6, 2022 HackDefine ₹10,000
February 26, 2022 Hack@SKCET ₹10,000
February 11, 2022 HackNITP ₹25,000
January 20, 2022 OSDHack'22 ₹25,000