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Hemapriya Kanagala for The DEVengers

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Dev Opportunity Radar #23: $500K Mozilla AI Incubator, $100K+ Kiroween Hackathon, and Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge

TL;DR

Welcome back to Dev Opportunity Radar.

This is a weekly series where I share opportunities, resources, communities, and interesting finds that I come across, with the goal of helping people discover things they might otherwise miss.

This week's edition features Mozilla's Human-Scale AI Incubator, offering up to $500,000 in potential funding for selected projects; Kiroween 2026, a Kiro-powered hackathon with $100,000+ in prizes; and the Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge, where candidates can build a creative portfolio using voice to explore hiring opportunities with its India growth team. I'm also sharing the Hugging Face AI Agents Course, a free resource with hands-on lessons, assignments, and certification options for people interested in learning to build AI agents.

If you're new to the series, you can browse previous editions, search past opportunities, and explore Community Finds, Reader Updates, and Resources Worth Checking Out on the Dev Opportunity Radar website. I've also written a short post about why I built it. You'll find links to both at the end of this article.

This week's 🌟 Community Finds section features an opportunity shared by La Shara Cordero (@earlgreyhot1701d). Thank you for sharing the AdaL Ambassador Program with the community. I always enjoy seeing readers help others discover opportunities they might otherwise have missed, and I hope this section continues to grow.

If you've discovered something through the Radar, I'd love to hear about it. Whether you applied to an opportunity, attended an event, joined a community, completed a program, built something, or found a resource you hadn't seen before, I'd be happy to feature your experience in a future πŸ’™ Reader Updates section (with your permission).

And if you've come across an opportunity, resource, community, program, event, or anything else you think deserves more attention, feel free to share it in the comments.

If I feature one of your 🌟 Community Finds in a future edition, I'll always make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.


Table of Contents


⚑ Quick Scan

Opportunities

Opportunity Organization Type Location / Format Deadline / Status
Mozilla Human-Scale AI Mozilla Foundation AI Incubator / Funding Global applicants (subject to eligibility) November 20, 2026
Kiroween 2026 Kiro AI Hackathon Online December 4, 2026
Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge India / Bangalore or willing to travel November 4, 2026

Resource Highlight

Resource Why Check It Out
Hugging Face AI Agents Course A free, hands-on course covering AI agent fundamentals, popular frameworks, practical assignments, challenges, and certification options.

Community Finds

Shared By Find Type Location / Format
La Shara Cordero (@earlgreyhot1701d) AdaL Ambassador Program Ambassador Program Worldwide / Cities & Campuses

πŸ“ A quick note: I spend a lot of time researching and reviewing the opportunities I feature in Dev Opportunity Radar. However, deadlines, eligibility, program details, and application requirements can change after publication. Before applying, please visit the official program page, review the latest information, and confirm that you're eligible.


πŸ”„ Still Open From Previous Editions

Before we get into this week's opportunities, here are a few from the two most recent editions that are still accepting applications or submissions.

As the Radar has grown, there are now quite a few opportunities spread across the different editions. I used to keep all the still-open opportunities here, but I don't think repeating a long list every week makes the editions easier to read.

So I keep this section to the two most recent editions as a quick reminder of opportunities you may have missed. Older opportunities are still available on the Dev Opportunity Radar website, where you can browse the collection and use the filters to find something specific.

I've already covered these opportunities in detail, so I won't repeat everything here. If any of them catch your attention, you can go back to the original edition for the full overview, eligibility details, and application links.

Opportunity Organization Type Format Deadline / Status Featured In
Basis Fellowship Basis Fellowship Not specified Rolling applications Edition #22
More Than a Hack 2027 Mobile World Capital Barcelona, BarΓ§a Innovation Hub & Metrica Sports Football Analytics Hackathon Online challenges + final in Barcelona November 10, 2026 (registration) Edition #22
Perplexity Research Fellowship Perplexity AI Research Fellowship In person: San Francisco, Palo Alto, or New York City Rolling applications; priority deadline passed Edition #22
MATS Residency: AI Safety Research MATS Research Residency Hybrid: London, Berkeley, or Washington, DC October 31, 2026 Edition #21
Y Combinator Winter 2027 Batch Y Combinator Startup Accelerator & Funding In person: San Francisco, USA November 2, 2026 Edition #21

Please check the original editions for complete details and confirm that each opportunity is still accepting applications or submissions before proceeding.


πŸ“ This Week's Opportunities

Here are a few opportunities I came across this week that I thought were worth sharing.

πŸ“Œ Mozilla Human-Scale AI Incubator

Who it's for: Teams and builders who already have working AI technology deployed with real users, particularly those developing smaller, resource-efficient, privacy-conscious, and purpose-built AI systems.

What it's about:

The Mozilla Foundation is looking for projects that take a different approach to building AI. Instead of focusing on larger models, more compute, and systems designed to do everything, Human-Scale AI focuses on building technology around the specific people and problems it is meant to serve.

The call is built around three principles: Small, Intentional, and Tailored. In simple terms, Mozilla wants to support AI systems that use resources efficiently, give people more control over their data and technology, and are designed for specific communities and real-world needs.

This is not an early-stage idea or prototype grant. Projects must already have working technology and some evidence that people value or use what they're building. Mozilla is particularly interested in projects serving underserved communities and those offering alternatives to the resource-intensive and centralized AI systems we see today.

Selected projects will receive $300,000 in funding and 12 months of support, including technical coaching, mentorship, and access to Mozilla's wider network. Projects that demonstrate strong progress may be eligible for up to another $200,000 in funding and two additional years of support, bringing the potential total to $500,000 over three years. The funding is non-dilutive, so applicants don't give up equity.

One thing worth checking carefully before applying is eligibility. Mozilla is looking for primarily technical projects where AI is a core part of the solution. Generic chatbot applications, standalone research or policy projects, and ideas without working technology are not what this call is looking for. Projects must also demonstrate a charitable purpose and meet Mozilla's funding eligibility requirements.

If you're already building something in this space and have people using it, this could be worth exploring.

Funding: $300,000 initially, with up to $200,000 in additional funding for eligible projects demonstrating strong progress

Total potential support: Up to $500,000 over three years

Program duration: 12 months initially, with potential for two additional years of support

Cohort start: April 2027

Number of projects: 7

Application deadline: November 20, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (UTC-8)

Format: Incubator program with funding, coaching, and cohort support

Equity: No equity requirement

About Human-Scale AI | Call for proposals and application | Eligibility guidelines


πŸ“Œ Kiroween 2026

Who it's for: Developers, students, and builders interested in experimenting with AI-powered development, building software applications, and exploring tools such as AI agents, MCP, and spec-driven development.

What it's about:

Kiroween 2026 is Kiro's annual Halloween-themed hackathon, where participants are invited to build a new software application using Kiro. This year's event has a prize pool of $100,000+, with several categories that give participants different ways to approach the challenge.

There are four main categories to choose from. Resurrection is about bringing an old or obsolete technology back to life using modern approaches. Frankenstein challenges you to combine seemingly unrelated technologies into something useful. Skeleton Crew focuses on building a flexible code template and demonstrating it through two different applications. And if you enjoy working on the visual side of development, Costume Contest is about creating an application with a polished and memorable interface.

You can participate individually or in a team of up to three members. The important thing to note is that projects must be new and built during the hackathon's submission period. Projects started before October 30, 2026, including entries from Kiroween 2025, aren't eligible.

There are also some specific submission requirements. Your project needs to be a working application built using Kiro, and you'll need to submit a public GitHub repository with an open-source license and the .kiro directory included. You'll also need a working application link, a project description, a demo video of no more than three minutes, and an explanation of how you used Kiro during development.

Beyond the main categories, there are additional prizes for student projects, startup projects, Kiro Crew applications, and other contributions such as blog posts and social media posts.

One eligibility detail worth checking before registering: participants must be above the legal age of majority in their country of residence, and certain countries and territories are excluded under the official rules. I'd recommend checking the full rules to confirm that your location is eligible before getting started.

Prize pool: $100,000+ in cash and additional prizes

First place: $30,000 | Second place: $20,000 | Third place: $10,000

Categories: Resurrection, Frankenstein, Skeleton Crew, and Costume Contest

Team size: Individual participation or teams of up to 3

Format: Online

Project requirement: New working software application built using Kiro

Submission period: October 30–December 4, 2026

Deadline: December 4, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time (December 5 at 3:30 a.m. IST)

If you're planning to participate, take some time to read the submission requirements and choose a category before you start building. There are quite a few details to get right, especially around the GitHub repository, .kiro directory, and demo video.

Join Kiroween 2026


πŸ“Œ Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge

Who it's for: Students, aspiring growth professionals, and experienced professionals interested in joining Wispr Flow's India growth team. Internships and full-time opportunities are available, depending on experience.

What it's about:

Wispr Flow is running a hiring challenge to find creative people for its growth team in India. Instead of asking candidates to submit just a resume and application, they're asking them to build a new portfolio using Wispr Flow and a tool such as Emergent.

The idea is to show how you think, what you can create, and how you use voice as part of your building process. You can build an interactive portfolio, a game, a quiz, a mock interview app, an interactive timeline, or something entirely different. The focus is on creativity, how you communicate your ideas, and what you can take ownership of.

There are opportunities for both interns and experienced full-time candidates. For internships, having at least one year of experience is preferred, but it's not a strict requirement, and students are welcome to apply. Full-time roles are aimed at people who have previously owned or grown channels at tech startups, particularly in areas such as influencer marketing and partnerships.

A few things to keep in mind before applying: this is specifically for the India growth team, and candidates should be based in Bangalore or willing to travel. The team ideally wants people who can start in November, although they're open to waiting for the right candidate. Students graduating later are also welcome.

You'll need to submit a new portfolio built for this challenge, a publicly accessible link, and a video explaining what you created, why you chose it, and how voice helped you build it. Existing portfolios created before the challenge aren't accepted. Wispr Flow is providing Emergent credits to help participants get started, although you're free to use another vibe-coding tool.

Opportunity: Internship and full-time hiring opportunities

Team: Growth, India

Location: Bangalore or willing to travel

Preferred start: November 2026, with flexibility for the right candidate

Challenge dates: October 28–November 4, 2026

Shortlist notification: November 5, 2026

Hiring announcement: November 20, 2026

Compensation: Top-of-market pay (exact figures not specified)

Additional detail: The submission form also asks candidates to select a $3,000 work setup pick.

This one is a little different from the usual hackathon or fellowship. If you're interested in growth roles and enjoy building creative things, it could be worth exploring, even if you don't usually think of yourself as someone who builds portfolios.

Explore the Wispr Flow Hiring Challenge


πŸ“š Resources Worth Checking Out

Not every useful find comes with an application deadline.

Here's one resource worth checking out this week.

Hugging Face AI Agents Course

Who it's for: Developers and learners with basic Python and LLM knowledge who want to understand AI agents and learn how to build them.

What it's about:

Hugging Face has a free AI Agents Course that takes you through the fundamentals of AI agents and helps you build your own using popular libraries and tools.

The course starts with the basics, covering how agents work, including tools, thoughts, actions, and observations. From there, it moves into frameworks such as smolagents, LangGraph, and LlamaIndex, with hands-on sections where you can experiment with building agents in preconfigured Hugging Face Spaces.

You'll also work on use case assignments, share your agents on the Hugging Face Hub, and participate in challenges where you can compare your agent's performance with other learners on a leaderboard. There are additional units covering topics such as fine-tuning LLMs for function calling, agent observability and evaluation, and even building agents that play PokΓ©mon games.

One thing I found useful is that you can choose how you want to follow the course. You can audit it and learn at your own pace, or complete the required assignments and challenges to earn one of the certificates. The certification process is completely free, and there is no deadline to complete it.

You should have basic knowledge of Python and LLMs before getting started. The recommended pace is around 3–4 hours per week, with each chapter designed to take approximately one week.

Format: Free online course with theory, hands-on exercises, and challenges

Prerequisites: Basic Python and LLM knowledge

Libraries covered: smolagents, LangGraph, and LlamaIndex

Additional topics: Function calling, agent observability, evaluation, and game-playing agents

Certification: Free, with fundamentals and course completion certificates

Deadline: No deadline for certification

If you've been wanting to understand how AI agents actually work and try building some yourself, this is a good resource to explore.

Explore the Hugging Face AI Agents Course | GitHub Repository


🌟 Community Finds

One of my favorite things about this series has been seeing people share opportunities, communities, and resources that others might not have discovered otherwise.

Sometimes, a reader comes across something, tries it out themselves, and then brings it here for others to explore. That's exactly what happened with this week's find.

The AdaL Ambassador Program

Shared by La Shara Cordero (@earlgreyhot1701d).

@earlgreyhot1701d shared an opportunity from AdaL, where they're looking for ambassadors from cities and campuses around the world to help organize workshops and hackathons.

The idea is to have people from different communities help bring AdaL workshops and hackathons to their own cities or campuses. You don't need to be from a particular location. They're looking for people from anywhere in the world.

As an ambassador, you'll receive mentorship on organizing events, building your personal brand, improving your employability skills, and learning about product building and go-to-market (GTM). AdaL also mentions subscriptions for ambassadors and event participants, merchandise such as T-shirts and laptop stickers, reimbursement for food and venue expenses, and opportunities to have your events featured on its social media channels and email list.

There are a few things to keep in mind before reaching out. They're looking for people who can demonstrate AdaL's products, including its CLI and desktop features, and who have experience with communities, such as university societies, developer groups, or AI communities. You'll also need to be available to organize or co-host events regularly, with the first event expected by the end of November 2026.

I wanted to include this because community involvement can take different forms. Sometimes it's about attending events, and sometimes it's about taking the initiative to organize something for others. If you're already part of a campus or developer community and enjoy bringing people together, this might be something to look into.

Organization: AdaL

Role: Community Ambassador

Location: Worldwide, including cities and campuses

What you'll do: Organize or co-host workshops and hackathons

Expected commitment: Monthly events

First event: Expected by the end of November 2026

Contact: Jax Koh (jax_koh) on Discord

πŸ”— Explore AdaL


Thank you to La Shara Cordero (@earlgreyhot1701d) for thinking of the Radar and sharing this opportunity with us. I really appreciate readers taking the time to pass along things they've discovered themselves πŸ’™

I'd love for this section to keep growing.

If you've come across an opportunity, fellowship, grant, hackathon, conference, community, resource, or anything else you think more people should know about, feel free to share it in the comments.

If I feature it in a future edition, I'll always make sure to credit you. If you discovered it, that recognition belongs to you.

One small request: If you're sharing an opportunity, please avoid posting raw URLs directly in the comments. DEV sometimes filters them before I get a chance to see them.

A short description alongside the link makes it much easier for me to review and potentially feature it in a future edition.


πŸ’™ Reader Updates

I'm looking forward to this section gradually growing over time, and I'd still love to hear from you.

One of my favorite parts of writing Dev Opportunity Radar has been hearing from people who discovered something they otherwise might have missed.

If you discovered an opportunity through the radar, applied to something, joined a community, attended an event, or simply found a resource you hadn't seen before, I'd genuinely love to hear about it.

You don't need to have been accepted or have a big success story to share. Sometimes simply discovering the right opportunity at the right time is already a win.

If you'd like to share an update, feel free to leave a comment on this edition. With your permission, I may feature it in a future πŸ’™ Reader Updates section and tag you so other readers can celebrate your journey too.

I hope this section gradually becomes a place where we can celebrate those stories together, one update at a time.


πŸ‘‹ Until Next Friday

Before I go, I just want to say thank you.

Every week, I spend time searching for opportunities, resources, and communities that I think deserve a little more attention. But one of my favorite parts of this series isn't the research. It's seeing what happens after an edition is published.

Seeing someone discover an opportunity, apply to a program, share a resource, suggest a Community Find, or come back to tell us what they learned reminds me why I started Dev Opportunity Radar in the first place.

The goal has always been simple:

Help people discover opportunities they otherwise might have missed.

Thanks to all of you, it feels like we're doing exactly that.

Whether you've been reading since the very first edition or this is your first time here, thank you for being part of the journey. Every comment, suggestion, and shared opportunity helps make this series better than I could build on my own.

If you ever come across an opportunity, resource, event, community, or anything else you think deserves more attention, I'd love for you to share it in the comments. And if Dev Opportunity Radar helped you discover something exciting, I'd love to hear that too.

Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for helping make this our radar, not just mine.

I'll be back next Friday with more opportunities, resources, and Community Finds.

Until then, take care, and I hope you discover something amazing this week πŸ’™


🌐 Dev Opportunity Radar Website

If this is your first time discovering the series, you can explore every edition, browse opportunities by category, discover Community Finds, and catch up on Reader Updates on the Dev Opportunity Radar website.

πŸ‘‰ Website

I also wrote a short post about why I built the website and the journey behind it.

πŸ‘‰ Website Launch Post

Top comments (3)

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hemapriya_kanagala profile image
Hemapriya Kanagala The DEVengers •

What opportunities, communities, grants, fellowships, hackathons, conferences, or resources have you come across recently that deserve more attention?

I am always looking for things to include in future editions, so feel free to share anything interesting you've found. If I feature one of your finds in a future edition, I'll always make sure to credit you.

If you discovered an opportunity through the radar, applied to something, joined a community, attended an event, or simply found something you hadn't seen before, I'd genuinely love to hear about that too. With your permission, I'd be happy to feature your update in a future πŸ’™ Reader Updates section.

Small request: If you are sharing a link, please avoid posting raw URLs directly. DEV sometimes filters them before I get a chance to see the comment.

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hemapriya_kanagala profile image
Hemapriya Kanagala The DEVengers •

One little question for you all!

I've asked this in a few previous editions, and I thought I'd keep asking it in every edition so more readers get a chance to share their thoughts.

What kind of opportunities would you like to see more of in Dev Opportunity Radar? More fellowships, hackathons, AI opportunities, learning programs, communities, or something else?

If you've already replied in a previous edition, thank you so much! It really means a lot to me. If you'd like to add anything else, please do!

I started this series to help you discover opportunities you might not have come across otherwise, so I'd love to know what you're looking for. I can't promise I'll always find opportunities in every category, but I'll keep your suggestions in mind while searching for each edition.

Looking forward to hearing from you all πŸ˜€

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