OSS Cameroon OSS CameroonHacktoberfest 2026
🎉 3 – 31 OCTOBER 2026

Hacktoberfest Cameroon 2026

Hacktoberfest Cameroon is a month of contributing, building and meeting up around open source — organised by OSSCameroon, with Atori Space, MODULIS Tech and partner hubs.

4 weeks. 4 sprints. Multiple hubs. One open-source community.Learn on Saturday. Build all week. Show what you made.

Register See the full programme Browse the Contribute Track
5Saturdays — 3 to 31 October
3Tracks — Contribute, Build, Open AI
~30Candidate projects, Contribute Track
3Awards at the finale, 31 October
Organised by OSSCameroon Atori Space Partner hubs
The month at a glance

Five Saturdays, one build-up

Saturdays set the pace, Telegram connects the community, hubs provide places to meet, and the work continues all week.

1
3 October

🌱 START

Learn how to contribute.

2
10 October

🛠 CONTRIBUTE

Work on something useful.

3
17 October

🤖 EXPLORE

Explore AI × Open Source.

4
24 October

🔥 SHIP

Finish what you started.

5
31 October

🎉 SHOW

Show Cameroon what we built.

Concept

~20% programmed content, 80% hacking

Saturdays are for learning, kicking off sprints, finding a team, getting help and showing progress. The work then continues all week — from home, Atori Space or the other hubs.

🌍

Telegram OSSCameroon

Live sessions, workshops, panels, announcements and national coordination. Join the group →

📍

Atori Space & hubs

Hacking, mentoring, meetups and local Show & Tell.

🏠

Remote

Contribute and build from home, with support from the community.

🎉

Finale — 31 October

Bringing together projects, contributors, communities and partners.

Participant tracks

Choose a track — switch anytime

Every participant picks a track and can switch during the month.

Track 01

🛠 Contribute Track

Contribute to existing open-source projects: code, documentation, translation, design, tests, bug reports or community improvements.

Track 02

🚀 Build Track

Build a new open-source project as a team that meets a real need, then publish a first usable version.

Optional

🤖 Open AI Challenge

Build a useful open-source project with open-source AI technology or an open-weight model. AI is never required to take part in the month.

Final programme

3 to 31 October 2026

Each week opens with a Saturday in the hubs and on Telegram, then continues as a sprint until the following Saturday.

WEEK 1 — START

Discover & Contribute

3–9 October +

Saturday 3 October — Kickoff & First Contribution

TimeActivityFormat
10:00–10:20Opening: programme, hubs, tracks, challenges and partners🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
10:20–11:20Workshop: Your First Open Source Contribution🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
11:20–12:30Project discovery, track selection and team forming📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
12:30–13:30Break and networking📍 Hubs
13:30–13:50Sponsor Engineering Spotlight: Show us what you build🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
13:50–17:00Open Hacking: contributions, mentoring and pair programming📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
17:00–18:00Local Show & Tell📍 Each hub

Sprint 1 — First Contribution · 4–9 October

Goal: make a first meaningful contribution in public.

  • Contribute Track — find an issue, talk with the maintainers and open a first contribution.
  • Build Track — form the team, create the repository, write the README and define the first issues.

A contribution can be code, documentation, a translation, a test, a design or a useful bug report.

WEEK 2 — CONTRIBUTE

Build for Your Community

10–16 October +

Saturday 10 October — Contribution Day

TimeActivityFormat
10:00–10:45Workshop: From Issue to Pull Request🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
10:45–11:15Open Source Project Pitches: about 5 projects × 5 minutes🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
11:15–13:00Open Hacking📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
13:00–14:00Break and networking📍 Hubs
14:00–14:20Sponsor Engineering Spotlight🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
14:20–17:00Open Hacking and mentoring📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
17:00–18:00Local Show & Tell: What did you ship this week?📍 Each hub

Sprint 2 — Build for Your Community · 11–16 October

Build an open-source tool that solves a problem around you. Optional challenge.

Possible themes: education, culture, transport, environment, developer tools, African languages, accessibility, open data and public services.

  • Build Track — pick a problem, agree on a realistic scope and build a first prototype.
  • Contribute Track — keep contributing to existing projects and respond to the first reviews.
WEEK 3 — EXPLORE

AI × Open Source

17–23 October +

Saturday 17 October — Open Source AI Day

TimeActivityFormat
10:00–10:45Panel: AI × Open Source — What Changes Now?🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
10:45–11:45Hands-on workshop: Building with Open Source AI🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
11:45–13:00Open Hacking📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
13:00–14:00Break and networking📍 Hubs
14:00–14:20Sponsor Engineering Spotlight: How We Use Open Source AI🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
14:20–17:00Open Hacking — AI projects or any other OSS project📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
17:00–18:00Local Show & Tell📍 Each hub

Panel topics include: open source vs. open weights, AI-generated code, PR spam, accountability, licensing, training data, attribution and the impact on maintainers.

Sprint 3 — Open AI · 18–23 October

Build something useful with open-source or open-weight AI — and make your project open source. Optional challenge.

Possible themes: African languages, education, agriculture, culture, accessibility, developer tools, public services and open data.

Contribute Track participants carry on contributing to any open-source project as usual.

WEEK 4 — SHIP

Finish What You Started

24–30 October +

Saturday 24 October — Open Source Build Day

TimeActivityFormat
10:00–10:30Quick workshop: Make Your Project Contributor-Ready🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
10:30–10:50Sponsor Engineering Spotlight🌍 Telegram Live + 📍 Hubs
10:50–13:00Open Hacking📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
13:00–14:00Break and networking📍 Hubs
14:00–17:00Open Hacking and demo prep📍 Hubs + 🏠 Online
17:00–18:00Local Show & Tell and finale selection📍 Each hub

Sprint 4 — Ship Week · 25–30 October

No new challenge this week. It's for finishing and shipping.

Build Track

  • finish the product;
  • add a README, a licence and CONTRIBUTING.md;
  • improve documentation, tests and CI;
  • ideally, release a v0.1;
  • prepare a 5-minute demo.

Contribute Track

  • finish your pull requests;
  • respond to reviews;
  • fix, test and document;
  • prepare a short write-up of what you learned, even if the contribution isn't merged yet.
31 OCTOBER — SHOW

Cameroon Open Source Festival

Saturday 31 October · Grand finale +

The finale is first and foremost a builders' festival: participants show what they built, contributed and learned during the month. It takes place at a partner venue.

Demo format

  • 5-minute demo;
  • 2 minutes of questions;
  • focus on what was actually built, contributed or learned during the month.

Awards

First-Time Contributor Outstanding Open Source Contribution Open Source Project Award
Contribute Track · working list, 24 September 2026

African open-source projects to contribute to

A curated shortlist so contributions are useful, not random — instead of searching GitHub cold, pick a project below and start from a maintained issue.

🚧 Draft, pending maintainer confirmation. These are prospects OSSCameroon is reaching out to — not yet the official Featured Projects catalogue. A project only becomes Featured once a maintainer confirms they'll review PRs and issues are prepared.

Top 10 — first to contact

🇨🇲Jobsika
GoFrontendDockerBeginner → Intermediate

Cameroon-focused project, clear local relevance, contributor setup documented and many open issues.

🇨🇲OSSCameroon Website
TypeScriptAPIScrapingBeginner → Advanced

OSSCameroon can directly mentor contributors and create well-scoped issues before the event.

🇨🇲Place
WebEventsDocsBeginner → Intermediate

Cameroon event-discovery application with a concrete user-facing scope.

🇨🇲js-generator
JavaJavaScriptTestingIntermediate → Advanced

Strong technical project for contributors who want deeper engineering work.

🇨🇲Lewa
PythonAfrican scriptsBeginner → Intermediate

Combines software contribution with African language and cultural impact.

🌍Local Service Atlas
Civic techGeospatialBackendBeginner → Advanced

Designed around civic infrastructure and has a broad contribution surface.

🌍CHAOSS Africa
CommunityDocsMetricsBeginner → Intermediate

Already has experience onboarding contributors around Hacktoberfest.

🇰🇪platform-client-mzima
TypeScriptMapsi18nIntermediate

Mature African open-source product with active releases and a substantial issue backlog.

🇰🇪Africa's Talking — Java SDK
JavaSDKTestsIntermediate

Contribution to a real production SDK used by developers building communications products.

🌍Africa Mining Watch
PythonDataMapsIntermediate

Strong Africa-specific open-data use case with room for data and engineering contributions.

First contact target: secure 5–8 confirmed Featured Projects — a mix of 3–4 Cameroon projects, 2–3 from other African communities, at least one beginner-friendly, one data/documentation project, and one advanced engineering project.

Full pool — 30 candidates across 8 communities

Beyond the top 10, these organisations are also in scope for outreach.

OSSCameroon8 repositories · 🇨🇲 Open Source Community Africa3 repositories · 🌍 OpenGov Africa2 repositories · 🌍 Code for Africa6 repositories · 🌍 Africa's Talking4 SDK repositories · 🇰🇪 Ushahidi2 repositories · 🇰🇪 CHAOSS Africa3 repositories · 🌍 Masakhane2 repositories · 🌍 NLP

See all 30 repositories, with links

Every candidate, grouped by organisation +

OSSCameroon — Cameroon

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
osscameroon/jobsikaGo, frontend, Docker, docs, testingPriority
osscameroon/websiteTypeScript, API, frontend, scraping, docsPriority
osscameroon/js-generatorJava, JavaScript generation, tests, docsPriority
osscameroon/placeWeb, events, UX, docs, testingPriority
osscameroon/lewaWeb/Python, African writing systems, contentPriority
osscameroon/caparledev-botTypeScript, automation/botValidate activity
osscameroon/camerappsTypeScript, Cameroon apps directoryValidate activity
osscameroon/blogWeb, content, documentationValidate scope

Open Source Community Africa

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
oscafrica/osf-websiteWeb, UI, event websiteAsk OSCA for issues
oscafrica/oscafrica.org-v2TypeScript, community websiteAsk OSCA to prepare issues
oscafrica/chapters-directoryTypeScript, chapter/community dataValidate scope

OpenGov Africa

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
OpenGovAfrica/oga-local-service-atlasCivic tech, geospatial data, backend, frontendPriority
OpenGovAfrica/oga-contributor-dashboardNext.js, TypeScript, Prisma, PostgreSQLStrong candidate

Code for Africa

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
CodeForAfrica/africa-mining-watchPython, data, maps, analysisPriority
CodeForAfrica/apiPython, APIs, dataValidate issue suitability
CodeForAfrica/probeviewTypeScript, Grafana, monitoringDevOps/SRE candidate
CodeForAfrica/pesacheck-uiNext.js, TypeScript, UIFrontend candidate
CodeForAfrica/PromiseTrackerTypeScript, civic techValidate bandwidth
CodeForAfrica/sensors.AFRICA-ESP32-Quectel-FirmwareC, ESP32, firmware, IoTAdvanced / hardware

Africa's Talking

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
AfricasTalkingLtd/africastalking-javaJava SDK, APIs, tests, docsPriority
AfricasTalkingLtd/africastalking-pythonPython SDK, APIs, tests, docsStrong candidate
AfricasTalkingLtd/africastalking-node.jsNode.js SDK, APIs, tests, docsStrong candidate
AfricasTalkingLtd/africastalking-rubyRuby SDK, APIs, tests, docsLanguage diversity

Ushahidi

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
ushahidi/platformBackend REST API, PHP, DockerIntermediate → Advanced
ushahidi/platform-client-mzimaTypeScript, frontend, maps, i18nPriority

CHAOSS Africa / African Open Source

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
chaoss/chaoss-africaCommunity, docs, metrics, contributor experiencePriority
chaoss/AFOS-AfricanOpenSourceReact/TypeScript, Tailwind, discoveryValidate bandwidth
chaoss/AFOS-APINode.js, Express, MySQL, testsBackend candidate

Masakhane — African Languages / NLP

RepositoryContribution areasStatus
masakhane-io/afriscience_mtPython, machine translation, African languagesResearch/ML
masakhane-io/masakhane-nerNLP, datasets, African languagesResearch/data

Find a project by skill

First contributionOSSCameroon website, Place, Lewa, CHAOSS Africa, OSCA chapters directory
Frontend / TSOSSCameroon website, Place, OSCA, Ushahidi client, PesaCheck UI
BackendJobsika, OpenGov Africa, Code for Africa API, AFOS API, Ushahidi platform
GoJobsika
Javajs-generator, Africa's Talking Java SDK
PythonAfrica's Talking Python SDK, Code for Africa, Masakhane
Node.jsAfrica's Talking Node SDK, AFOS API
Data / civic techOpenGov Africa, Africa Mining Watch, PromiseTracker
DevOps / SRECode for Africa Probeview, Jobsika Docker setup
Embedded / IoTsensors.AFRICA ESP32 firmware
AI / NLPAfriScience-MT, MasakhaNER
Docs / non-codeCHAOSS Africa, Lewa, SDK docs, community websites
Languages / i18nLewa, Masakhane, Ushahidi localisation

Quality over quantity

Hacktoberfest Cameroon explicitly discourages mass-generated PRs, cosmetic edits made only to raise a contribution count, unsolicited large refactors, AI-generated changes the contributor can't explain, duplicate issues, and pressuring maintainers to merge.

Useful contributions, respectful collaboration, and long-term participation in open source.

During the week

Hack from Home, Hack from Atori

Saturday sets the pace — the work continues all week, wherever you are.

🏠

Hack from Home

Participants can work from home and use the OSSCameroon Telegram group to:

  • find a project or a team;
  • ask for help;
  • share their progress;
  • set up pair programming;
  • prepare their weekly demo.
#Projects#Looking-for-Team#Help#Show-Your-Work#Announcements
📍

Hack from Atori

Throughout October, Atori Space becomes a Hacktoberfest House, with a permanent open-source table, a Contribution Board and a QR code to the OSSCameroon Telegram group.

Open Hack Evenings

Tuesday · 18:00–21:00 Thursday · 18:00–21:00

No talks or workshops: bring your laptop, work, ask for help and meet other contributors. Other hubs can run their own sessions.

Show & Tell — local to each hub

Each presentation lasts about 3 minutes and answers one question:

What did you ship or learn this week?

A rejected PR, a blocker or an important lesson is worth presenting too. Each hub then picks one or two standout contributions, which may be invited to the finale.

Organisers & partners

Thank you to our partners

Hacktoberfest Cameroon 2026 is made possible by organisations that support open source in Cameroon.

Co-organiser MODULIS. Tech Cameroon-based technology and digital services company: custom software engineering, web & mobile apps, AI automation, cloud and branding. modulis.tech →

Want to support Hacktoberfest Cameroon? Write to contact@osscameroon.com.

Get involved

Join the Telegram community, bring your project into the Contribute Track, or open your hub's doors for an Open Hack Evening.

Join Telegram