HTS 2026 · The first ever Brandathon

Brandathon

Build it. Promote it. Win $5,000.

The hackathon is dead. We killed it.

Sign up your teamWhat is it?
Free to enter, judged onlineSubmit by Fri Oct 2, 5PM ET
A Darfurian woman winnowing millet at Farchana refugee camp in eastern Chad

The challenge

Put Sudan back in the news. Turn every headline into a donation.

The goal, in one sentence: raise visibility of the ongoing crisis in Sudan and East Africa by collecting and promoting what is happening in the news right now, and use each of those news moments to trigger donations to Ethar Relief.

Build an AI product that gathers the current events as they break, pushes them in front of people who would otherwise never see them, and ends every one of those moments at a donate button. Then promote it: content, creators, ads, stunts. Whatever it takes.

Not a tool for its own sake. A visibility engine for the crisis, with a donate button on it.

  1. Collect the news
  2. Promote it
  3. Trigger the donation

Frederic Noy / UNHCR · CC BY-SA 2.0

Why this exists

Lives are hanging on whether anyone is looking.

Ethar Relief was started in 2006 by people who had lived in the East African refugee camps themselves.

Twenty years of food, clean water, healthcare, shelter and schooling across Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia, for refugees the rest of the sector has largely walked past.

They reach donors well once those donors know the crisis exists. Everybody else is the problem. When Sudan is in the news people give, and when it drops out of the cycle the giving stops while the need does not.

A boy carrying bartered grain home in a bowl at Djabal refugee camp, eastern Chad
Djabal camp, eastern ChadFrederic Noy / UNHCR · CC BY 2.0

227,273

people reached in 2025

82

projects across nine sectors

800

orphans sponsored

Ethar Relief, 2025 impact report

News in. Donations out.

The aid is ready and the teams are on the ground. The thing standing between them and the next delivery is whether anyone outside the news cycle knows this is happening at all. So the job is to close that gap: collect what is being reported about Sudan and East Africa as it happens, promote it to people who would never have seen it, and turn each moment of attention into a donation.

Which is why this is not a hackathon. You can ship a working product in an afternoon now. Getting the crisis seen, and getting the donation, is the half that is still hard, and it is the half we are judging.

What the Brandathon is

Collect the news. Promote it. Convert it.

Three things, one week, and you are scored on all three. Every other competition you have entered stopped after the first one.

  1. 01

    Build

    Ship something real.

    An AI product that collects what is being reported about Sudan and East Africa right now, wires, local outlets, field reports, and turns each event into something people share. Every share ends at a donation to Ethar Relief.

    Judged onProduct

  2. 02Where the others stop

    Promote

    Push the news, not the product.

    Every current event is a post, a creator collab, an ad, a stunt. Get the crisis in front of people who did not know. This is the half every other competition skips, and it is the half that decides this one.

    Judged onReach

  3. 03

    Generate impact

    Move something you can count.

    Donations to Ethar Relief through your team's own giving link, habibi.tech/give/your-team, which is how a judge counts them. Attention on Sudan you caused. Real people using your product. Bring the numbers with you.

    Judged onImpact

How to take part

Four steps.

  1. Now01

    Sign up

    Solo, or up to 5 of you.

  2. This week02

    Build and promote

    Collect the news on Sudan, push it out, end every post at a donation.

  3. Fri Oct 2, 5PM ET03

    Submit two things

    Your working product and a 60 second video.

  4. Judged online04

    We judge and announce

    Judges watch every film and open every product. $5,000 to the winner.

Sign up your teamGet Summit ticketsDownload the brief

How it is judged

Scored on impact, not slides.

Everything is scored against the one goal: visibility for the crisis in Sudan and East Africa, converted into donations. A real idea, a real audience, a real product, real money moved. The rubric is published here because a rubric anyone reads after the fact is not a rubric.

1

Originality

Is the way you collect and push the news fresh, or something Ethar could already buy?

2

Reach

How many people saw the crisis because of you?

3

Product

Does it actually collect and publish current events, and does it work?

4

Impact

How many donations did your news moments trigger?

$5,000

Awarded to the highest combined impact score. We announce the winners by email and on this page.

Who is behind it

Four partners, one engine.

Steers the ship. The stage, the audience, and everything on the day.

Runs the programme. Innovation workshops built for Muslim nonprofits.

Powers the giving. The crowdfunding platform Muslim causes raise on, $650M+ across 150+ countries.

Owns the mission. Official charity sponsor of the Summit, and where the money goes.

Before you sign up

Questions.

Do I need a Summit ticket?

No. Judging is online, so you do not need a ticket and you do not need to travel. We announce the winners by email and on this page. The Brandathon itself charges no entry fee and never will.

Can I still enter?

Yes. The challenge went out on September 17 and it is public, so you get exactly what every other team got, with less time to answer it. Submissions close Friday October 2, 5:00 PM ET for everybody.

Do I have to be a developer?

No. You can build a working product with AI tooling in an afternoon, and the half that decides this competition is getting people to use it. Bring a marketer, a designer, a builder, or be all three.

How big can a team be?

One to 5. Solo is a real option, not a handicap.

How are donations counted?

Every team gets its own giving link on this site, habibi.tech/give/your-team-name, the moment it signs up. Your exact link is on your submission page in the Habibi Tech app, ready to copy. Put it under every post, in every bio, at the end of every video. Gifts through it are recorded against your team and 100% of what we receive is granted to Ethar Relief. That recorded figure is the donation half of your Impact score. Money raised anywhere else can be shown to the judges, but it is not counted the same way.

Who owns what I build?

You do. Winning comes with the chance to take it further with Ethar Relief, and that is a conversation rather than a handover of anything.

Who is Ethar Relief?

A UK humanitarian charity founded in 2006 by former refugees. They deliver food, water, healthcare, shelter and schooling across Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia, and they are the Summit's official charity partner.

Before you build

Download the full prompt and judging criteria.

The goal, the steps, the four scores and the deadline, as a file your whole team can hold. Read it before you sign up, and keep it open while you build.

The brief at a glance

One page. The goal, the five steps, the four scores, who can enter, and the deadline.

1 page · PDF

Download

The full brief

Everything above, plus the partner, the attention gap, starting points and what a winning entry looks like.

11 pages · PDF

Download

Submissions close Friday October 2, 5:00 PM ET

Sign up your team

Solo builders or squads of up to five. Tell us who you are and you are in; you hand in your product and your film in the app, any time before the deadline. Entering is free and judging is online, so there is nothing to buy and nowhere to be.

  1. 1Team
  2. 2Builders

Your team

It is how the judges and everyone else will know you. It can change later.

Who is building

You and up to 4 others. Everyone gets their own row, because each of them is credited by name and reached at their own address.

01Team lead

Name everyone who built it. Each of them is credited, and whoever we reach about the entry is reached at the address you give here, so a builder left off is a builder we cannot write to.

0 builders0