Hacktoberfest Cebu 2025: A Month of Building, Learning, and Showing Up for Open Source

October in Cebu is always special, but this year’s **Hacktoberfest Cebu 2025 made it unforgettable. Now on its 5th year since it first started in 2020, the celebration has grown into one of Cebu’s most community-driven open-source events. Powered by the combined efforts of [JavaScript Cebu](https://www.facebook.com/JavaScriptCebu), [ETHPH](https://www.facebook.com/ethphilippines), and [PizzaPy — Cebu Python Users Group](https://www.facebook.com/PizzaPy.PH)**, the event brought the community together for a full month of open-source exploration — from workshops to team formation to a long-running hackathon that pushed creativity and collaboration to new heights.

Three communities, one shared mission: make open source more accessible and more exciting for everyone.

Warming Up: Workshops, Mini-Events, and Community Learning

To get everyone ready, we hosted several workshops leading up to and throughout the month of October. These sessions helped participants sharpen their skills, build confidence, connect with potential teammates, and get comfortable with contributing to open source.

Some of the learning highlights:

• **Cebu Hacktoberfest 2025 Kickoff **— importance of Open Source Software and Git basics
• **Lisk Pitching Day** — teams presented their ideas and received early feedback
• **Deployment Day** — hands-on coaching on taking projects live
• **PHPxCebu: AI AI Captain** — a practical AI-focused collaboration with PHPxCebu
• **Cebu Hacktoberfest 2025 Awarding Day — **a celebration of the month-long hackathon, honoring the standout teams, contributors, and community efforts that made this year’s event unforgettable.Each workshop added momentum and community energy as the month progressed.

Warming Up: Workshops, Mini-Events, and Community Learning

Two Tracks, Six Winners, and a Whole Month of Creation

1. Hackathon Track (Month-Long)

Unlike typical 24/48-hour hackathons, this one ran the whole month. Teams had all of October to conceptualize, build, refine, and polish their open-source projects. This format allowed deeper thinking, better collaboration, and more meaningful output.

2. Open Source Contribution Track

Participants submitted pull requests to open-source repositories — especially Cebu-based projects — helping improve tools and projects made by the local dev community.

By the end of the month, we had six outstanding winners across both tracks:

🏆 Hackathon Winners

• **Best Overall Project — Totoo Ba Ito?**
• **Best Use of Blockchain — Barangay Konek**
• **Best Use of AI — Quiz Attack**
• **Best Easter Egg — BayanihanCebu**

🛠️ Open Source Contribution Winners

• **Yurii Yankin — Outstanding Contributor**
• **Neil Vallecer — Outstanding Contributor**

Hacktoberfest Cebu 2025 Winners

Community Support That Made Everything Possible

Hacktoberfest Cebu 2025 would not have been the same without the help of our partner tech communities. Each one contributed in its own way — mentoring, promoting the event, co-hosting workshops, or simply showing up and supporting the participants.

Participating communities included:

• JavaScript Cebu
• ETHPH
• PizzaPy Cebu Python Users Group
• PHPxCebu
• Laravel Cebu
• Cebu Tech Communities
• AWS User Group Cebu
• CEBUXD
• Cebu GNU/Linux Users Group
• DEVCON Cebu
• UP Computer Science Guild
• Juantronics
• START — DOST
• DOST Region VII

Seeing all these groups collaborate is exactly what Hacktoberfest stands for.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

This year’s month-long program was made possible with the support of our sponsors, who helped with venue, prizes, logistics, and workshop resources.

Gold Sponsors

• Yello Hotel
• Lisk
• CoDev Philippines
• LegalMatch Philippines
• The Company Cebu
• lyf Cebu City
• Innodata Knowledge Services, Inc.

Silver Sponsors

• VBP Careers & Culture
• NEC Philippines

More Than an Event — It’s a Growing Movement

Hacktoberfest Cebu continues to prove that the Cebu tech community is creative, passionate, and willing to help one another grow. For an entire month, we saw:

• first-time contributors shipping real PRs
• students and professionals teaming up to build open-source products
• mentors guiding participants through challenges
• developers exploring new frameworks and tools
• communities collaborating instead of competing

This is what makes Hacktoberfest Cebu special — it’s not just about code; it’s about people.

Until Next Year

Thank you to everyone who joined us — whether you contributed, built a project, mentored, volunteered, or attended our workshops.

October may be over, but the spirit of open-source collaboration continues all year long. See you again in Hacktoberfest Cebu 2026.