Major League Hacking

Can you tell a human's doodle from an AI's? That's the question at the heart of TuringSketch, an incredible hackathon project by Jun Bin Cheng and Larry Chen that reimagines the classic Turing Test as a competitive drawing game inspired by skribbl.io. Here's how it works: each player gets 30 seconds to sketch a prompt while an AI generates its own version of the same image. When the timer runs out, players are shown both drawings side by side and must guess which was human-made. Jun Bin built the backend database with Azure SQL Server and designed the frontend in Streamlit, while Larry handled the AI image generation and tied the frontend and backend together. They even fine-tuned prompts so the AI would produce "MS Paint style" sketches, making the guessing genuinely challenging. Read more about their build here: https://lnkd.in/eEqAPApC

We’re teaming up with Midnight again from July 17–19, but this won’t be a repeat of the last few events. With Midnight's Mainnet up and running, we’re focusing on real-world utility this time. This doesn't mean you need to be a blockchain expert—it just means we're looking for creative, practical ideas. Even a simple, straightforward app can make a huge difference when it's built to protect everyday user privacy. To keep things fresh, we’re introducing brand-new project tracks to choose from. We’re also completely shaking up the rewards. We can’t announce the prizes just yet, but we’re cooking up a massive surprise for the winners that we think you're going to love. Whether you've hacked with Midnight before or are completely new to the community, we’d love to see what you build. Register today: https://lnkd.in/et_e6zrv

Applications for the LARGEST HACKATHON IN THE MIDWEST are officially LIVE! For years, MHacks has been bringing together thousands of developers, designers, and innovators. This is where late-night breakthroughs happen and future co-founders meet. Whether you’re an experienced builder or building your very first project, your spot is waiting. Apply @ mhacks.org/apply

The DEV Weekend Challenge: Passion Edition is live! You have the whole weekend to build something great! ❤️🔥 Your mandate: build something inspired by passion: a tribute to a great rivalry, a tracker for the projects you love, a World Cup companion app for the truly devoted fan, or anything in between. 🔥 $1,000 in prizes. 5 winners total — one overall winner and 4 bonus prize categories for projects that incorporate a specific tech: Snowflake, Solana, ElevenLabs, or Google AI. Each takes home $200 USD, a DEV++ membership, and an exclusive DEV badge Not sure where to start? The prize categories are a great jumping-off point. Because winners are drawn from a smaller pool of submissions per category, your odds of taking home a prize are meaningfully higher if you incorporate one of the featured tools. Submissions due July 13 at 6:59 AM UTC — winners announced July 30! https://lnkd.in/eT3j6ab8

We're so excited to welcome these four speakers to DevRelCon NYC this July. Meghan Grady, Head of Marketing and Communications at DigitalOcean, spent over a decade in Product, Partnerships, Sales, and Marketing at Twilio and Stripe before founding OMG Consulting. Meghan's talk, "I Learned Everything I Know from Dev Rel," shares what it looks like when DevRel partners across the business and delivers clear line of sight to impact. Dominik Kundel works on Developer Experience & SDKs at OpenAI, with 10+ years in DX and DevRel. Dominik's talk will unpack what happens to developer experience when your product changes every week and your developers discover what's possible before you do. Ojus Save is leading a hands-on workshop on the first mile: why developers drop off before they ship, where the friction hides in setup, onboarding, and examples, and the interventions that actually move them forward. David Crawshaw, CEO of exe.dev, Co-Founder of Tailscale, and previously a Staff Software Engineer at Google, will walk through building your own software factory in the age of personalized software. See them speak at DevRelCon NYC this July 22-23. Register at https://nyc.devrelcon.dev/

Say goodbye to clunky, confusing language-learning websites! Imagine a learning companion that speaks your language while teaching you a new one. Check out ABC's of English, an inspiring hackathon project built to make learning English easier for friends and learners around the world. ABC's of English guides users through three levels—from the alphabet, to basic vocabulary, to full sentences. The tool uses ElevenLabs to model accurate pronunciation and give learners feedback on how they actually sound. With Google Translate built right in, learners can study from their native language every step of the way. Projects like this highlight the power of builder culture by breaking down language barriers and making education accessible to everyone. Read more about their build here: https://lnkd.in/eYpx3RPS

Bring your Solana questions!

What makes someone great at developer relations? Usually, a career that refuses to follow a straight line. Laís Carvalho started out designing water dams for arid communities in northeastern Brazil. Now a board member of Python Ireland and organizer across the European Python community, Laís will share the ins and outs of building and scaling a champion’s program on a tight budget. Caelean Barnes, co-founder and CEO of Gauge, has been studying a question most DevRel teams haven't caught up to yet: when Claude Code decides which auth provider to install, why does it pick the one it picks? Caelean will run a live AI visibility program on a real developer brand. Lisa Tagliaferri has written resources on Python, machine learning, and cloud infrastructure that have reached over 45 million developers. Lisa's argument: the best docs and platform adoption work is marketing done honestly, and it's time to stop apologizing for it. Jonathan Murray, co-founder of Backboard.io, has spent his career translating complex systems into decisions people can act on, from medical devices to defense. Jonathan's rule for developer advocates: the goal is not to sound smart, it's to make other people feel smart. Sean Keegan is a former math teacher turned developer advocate who wants to know: are your developers actually learning your platform, or just collecting badges? Sean will show how to escape the gamification trap and build education that turns badge hunters into builders. See them all at DevRelCon NYC this July 22-23. Register at nyc.devrelcon.dev

I am delighted to again be presenting a lightning talk at DevRelCon! I'll be sharing some of my experience using Claude Code to help me document my coding and convert the best parts into blog posts. I hope to see you in NYC!