Girls Code Fun is a Community Partner of HackYeah 2026
HackYeah is a well-known and respected event that has earned a permanent spot on the calendar of anyone who loves coding and loves putting their skills toward a good cause. It’s 24 hours of intense teamwork, coding, prototyping, and testing ideas under time pressure. All in one place, in person, alongside thousands of other people who want to build something that actually works.
On October 3–4, 2026, the twelfth edition of the hackathon takes over TAURON Arena Kraków. Girls Code Fun is joining as a community partner and we hope many of you will be there with us.
What is HackYeah and why is it worth your attention?
HackYeah calls itself the largest in-person hackathon in Europe and the numbers back that up. The event brings together developers, analysts, designers, AI specialists, cybersecurity professionals, and many others who spend 24 hours solving real technology challenges:
- Networking – meet IT professionals, business leaders, and nonprofits. Many participants have found an employer, a project co-founder, or a mentor here.
- Mentor support – experts are on-site to help teams bring their ideas to life, from brainstorming to debugging code.
- Hands-on learning – you don’t need to be a senior with ten years of experience. A hackathon teaches you rapid prototyping, teamwork, and decision-making when time and resources are tight.
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Four categories-each addresses a real problem
At HackYeah 2026, participants work on projects across four open categories.
Defense
Modern threats rarely arrive as a single, visible attack. More often, they start with disinformation, eroded trust, or pressure on systems and infrastructure. This category calls for solutions that strengthen defense and security from cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience to countering disinformation and crisis response.
Sport & Healthcare
We now have access to vast amounts of data about our health and activity from smartwatches and fitness apps to medical test results. The problem is that this data is scattered, hard to interpret, and rarely leads to real action. This category seeks solutions that bring together sport, physical health, mental well-being, and access to medical care.
AI
Artificial intelligence is becoming a natural part of how we work, create, and communicate. The AI category is open to ideas that explore practical, unconventional, or unexpected applications of AI across different fields. The organizers also hint at “unexpected twists” during the event so expect tasks that evolve in real time.
Smart City
Cities are operating at the edge of their capacity. Growing populations, overloaded infrastructure, transportation, energy, and access to information — everything needs to run faster and more smoothly. This category looks for solutions that help cities function better: mobility, resource management, communication with residents, and crisis response.
Tasks and Prizes
HackYeah divides tasks into two types:
Open Tasks – the organizer outlines a problem but doesn’t prescribe a solution. You and your team decide how to approach it and build whatever you think is most compelling. Prize pool: 25,000 zł.
Partner Tasks – a partner (typically a company or institution) presents a specific challenge and expects a specific solution. Prize pool: 25,000 zł.
That’s 50,000 zł in prizes up for grabs. But participants from previous editions often say the prizes aren’t the main draw – the real value is the experience, the people, and the projects that come together in those 24 hours.
SheHacks — Women Supporting Women in Technology
Since 2022, HackYeah has run SheHacks, an initiative that brings together women who want to support other women in the IT world. The goal is straightforward: to show that getting into technology isn’t as hard as it might seem, that women are already part of it, and that sharing knowledge and experience makes the path easier for those who come next.
The numbers speak for themselves. In 2025, 710 women took part in HackYeah — a significant jump compared to earlier years, when female participation was much lower. That number keeps growing with each event.
In 2026, SheHacks is expanding with workshops, events, and on-site activities that give participants a chance to learn, gain experience, and build connections within the community.
Why is Girls Code Fun a partner of HackYeah 2026?
Our mission at Girls Code Fun closely aligns with the idea behind SheHacks: we want girls and women to have real access to digital skills, coding, and technology-not as an abstract goal, but as a concrete path for personal and professional growth.
Partnering with HackYeah is a natural step for us. A hackathon is a place where:
- Theory meets practice.
- You can test your skills on a real project.
- Relationships are built that pay off long after the event is over.
- You experience that technology is a team effort — not just coding alone in a closed room.
We want our community to be where there’s a real opportunity to build skills. HackYeah is one of those places.
How to prepare – especially if it’s your first hackathon
You don’t need to be an expert to join. Many people show up to their first hackathon without a project already in mind. Here are a few practical tips:
Join a team before the event. If you don’t have one, HackYeah can help match you with one. You can also look for teammates through the Girls Code Fun community.
Pick a category that genuinely interests you — not the one that seems “easiest,” but the one where the problem actually catches your attention.
Don’t try to build everything. Twenty-four hours goes by fast. Focus on one feature that works well. Mentors on-site can help you decide what to cut.
Bring a laptop, a charger, and comfortable shoes. It sounds obvious, but it matters. You’ll be working, walking, and sitting for a full 24 hours.
Take breaks. Sleep is part of the strategy. The best ideas often come after a short rest, not after your fourteenth coffee.
Mentors and experts will be on-site to help teams bring their ideas to life. Whether you’re stuck on a technical problem, unsure how to design your architecture, or need help shaping your pitch for the jury, there’s someone there who can help.
HackYeah 2026 makes one thing very clear: technology gets built in teams, under time pressure, with ideas that often come together at the last minute.
As Girls Code Fun, we want as many girls and women as possible to be part of that work. Not because “women can code too.” They code, design, lead teams, and build products — and they have been doing it for years. We want more of them to have a space where they can do it alongside others, in person, all in one place.
Don’t wonder whether a hackathon is for you. Just join. And if you can’t be there, share this with someone who doesn’t know yet that an opportunity like this exists.
See you at TAURON Arena Kraków. Register here, on the HackYeah website!
Organiser
A Kraków-based event agency with nearly two decades of experience, specializing in organizing hackathons and technology conferences. They are the creators and organizers of HackYeah, the largest in-person hackathon in Europe, which has been bringing together thousands of participants around real technology challenges since 2017. Their motto is “We make IT happen!” and it’s hard to imagine a better summary of what they do.
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