Digital Ocean's 6th Annual 'Hacktoberfest' Celebrates Open Source and Environmental Projects

"It's that time of year again when we come together to support and celebrate the open source technologies we use and love," announces a post on Digital Ocean's blog.

Hacktoberfest is a monthlong celebration of open source software. It was started at DigitalOcean as a way to foster a sense of community and encourage more participation in open source projects. To reward Hacktoberfest contributors, we've designed a limited edition T-shirt for those who complete the challenge each year. This year, the first 50,000 participants will be eligible to receive the limited edition shirt...

One of the enticing elements of this celebration is that you don't have to leave the comfort of your office or home to participate. But each year, more and more Hacktoberfest events have been organized since we introduced the Event Kit. In 2018 alone, there were 251 Hacktoberfest events. All of these took place during October and happened in 50 countries. With October five days away, we're already expecting to exceed last year's number of events! Wow... if you're in or around New York City, we invite you to join us at the Hacktoberfest kickoff celebration at the DigitalOcean headquarters...

This year, we're also hoping to drive awareness of the negative impacts many people around the world are experiencing due to the many environmental crises we're faced with -- and encourage participation in projects that are targeting these causes. We've identified a handful of projects on GitHub that focus on supporting the environment, which you can find in our Climate section. We hope you'll consider contributing to some of the impactful work being done by activists, scientists, and mission-driven organizations around the globe... Let's join forces to make a difference!

Last year's Hacktoberfest saw 401,231 pull requests on GitHub, according to the blog post.