HackerNoon Launches “Proof of Usefulness” Developer Hackathon With Bright Data, Neo4j, Storyblok and Algolia

Six-month global competition offers $100,000+ in cash and software prizes for real-world, production-ready projects.

Edwards, Colorado, United States, January 5, 2026 — HackerNoon, the community-driven technology publishing platform, today announced the launch of the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon, a six-month, global competition designed to recognize and reward software that demonstrates measurable real-world impact. 

Running from January 5 through June 5, the hackathon will award more than $100,000 in cash and software prizes to developers and teams building working products that can validate adoption, stability, and value beyond early-stage demonstrations.

Supported by Bright Data, Neo4j, Storyblok, and Algolia, the Proof of Usefulness Hackathon runs for six months and features rolling submissions, monthly rewards, and major prize cycles that recognize both emerging projects and sustained execution.

“Proof of Usefulness is about cutting through the noise and rewarding software that actually works for real people,” said David Smooke, Founder & CEO of HackerNoon.

Projects may be submitted whenever they are ready, enabling teams to prioritize quality, stability, and real users. Submissions must be functional and accessible, and must use at least one sponsor tool and relevant tag(s).

Top projects will be eligible for a prize pool made up of over $100,000 in cash and software, including:

Proof of Usefulness Cash Prizes: $20,000 (awarded monthly across the contest)

• Bright Data: $10,000 (10 winners × $1,000)
• HackerNoon: $5,000 (10 winners × $500)
• Storyblok: $5,000 (six monthly winners)

Proof of Usefulness Software Credits: $70,000+

• Bright Data: $60,000
• 3 startup winners × $20,000
• One winner per bimonthly cycle (Jan–Feb, Mar–Apr, May–Jun)
• Neo4j: $10,000 (10 winners × $1,000)
• Algolia: Premium access for 6 months, 6 winners

Hackathon Participation Rewards: $1,500+ (available to every eligible participant)

• Bright Data: $250 in free credits
• Storyblok: $540 worth of 45 days access to the Growth+ plan
• Neo4j: AuraDB Free for all participants
• Algolia: Build tier Free for all participants
• HackerNoon: $750 worth of Business Blogging credits

The Proof of Usefulness Hackathon is structured to support practical build-and-launch cycles rather than forcing artificial deadlines. Projects may be submitted whenever they are ready, enabling teams to prioritize quality, stability, and real users.

Key dates and cadence

• January 5 – June 5: Rolling submissions
• Monthly: Cash and software prize winners announced
• Bimonthly: Major software prize cycles
• June: Final awards and top project spotlight

All submissions receive a Proof of Usefulness (PoU) score that evaluate projects not only by the team’s submitted information but also by usage based signals such as public documentation and GitHub activity.

“The most exciting breakthroughs happen when teams leverage open web access to address real-world challenges,” said Or Lenchner, CEO of Bright Data. “At Bright Data, we believe usefulness starts with connecting people and AI to the world’s live information—transforming ideas into impact.”

“Proof of usefulness in our world comes down to one thing: does your CMS help developers ship better and faster, or does it slow them down? Hype doesn’t build products. Real utility does. That’s the standard Storyblok is built to meet,” said the Storyblok team. 

“As a manager of a developer relations organization, I see a lot of hackathons where the results are toys or novelties,” said Chuck Meyer, Sr. Manager, Developer Relations at Algolia. “By emphasizing usefulness, HackerNoon forces participants to put on their product hats and really build something that’s going to help the end user.”

Developers and teams with live, working products are invited to submit projects for evaluation and compete for cash and software prize at the following website: https://www.proofofusefulness.com/

For media inquiries, interviews, or collaboration opportunities, please contact: 

Sheharyar Khan,
[e-mail]

About HackerNoon

How hackers start their afternoons. HackerNoon is built for technologists to read, write, and publish. We are an open and international community of 50k+ contributing writers publishing stories and expertise for 4M+ curious and insightful monthly readers. Founded in 2016, HackerNoon is an independent technology publishing platform run by David Smooke and Linh Dao Smooke. Start blogging about technology today.

About Bright Data

Bright Data is the leading web data infrastructure company, empowering over 20,000 organizations with ethical, scalable access to real-time public web information. From startups to industry leaders, we deliver the datasets that fuel AI innovation and real-world impact. Ready to unlock the web? Learn more at brightdata.com.

About Neo4j

Neo4j is the graph intelligence platform that transforms data into knowledge to power the next generation of intelligent applications and AI systems. Trusted by 84 of the Fortune 100, Neo4j enables accurate, explainable, and governed AI through its enterprise-ready graph database and analytics capabilities across any environment or data source. Learn more at neo4j.com.

About Storyblock

Storyblok is a headless CMS built for developers who want clean architecture and full control. Structure your content once, connect it anywhere, and keep your front end truly independent. API-first. AI-ready. Framework-agnostic. Future-proof.

About Algolia

Algolia provides a managed retrieval layer that lets developers quickly build web search and intelligent AI agents. Built for speed, relevance, and scale, Algolia handles indexing, ranking, semantic understanding, and vector search so teams can focus on building great experiences. With products like AI Search, Agent Studio, and AI Recommendations, it delivers real-time updates and instant results out of the box. Whether you’re powering e-commerce, SaaS, or AI-driven apps, Algolia makes retrieval fast, reliable, and easy to integrate.

About the company: How hackers start their afternoons. HackerNoon is built for technologists to read, write, and publish. We are an open and international community of 35k+ contributing writers publishing stories and expertise for 4M+ curious and insightful monthly readers. Founded in 2016, HackerNoon is an independent technology publishing platform run by David Smooke and Linh Dao Smooke. Start blogging about technology today.

Contact Info:
Name: Sheharyar Khan
Email: Send Email
Organization: HackerNoon
Website: https://hackernoon.com/

Release ID: 89180001

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