Powered by Sefaria Contestתחרות פיתוח תוכנה

Sefaria offers a free digital dataset of Jewish texts, translations, and interconnections that is open for anyone to reuse in novel ways. Last year, we received over 50 innovative Powered by Sefaria projects using our open data or API (see the winners and honorable mentions!). We’re eager to see what else our community can dream up to advance the frontiers of Torah and technology in this year’s contest!

What you create is up to you. It could be a functioning web app or just a compelling demo; an interactive visualization, or just a question that digs into data quantitatively in search of an answer; something useful and impactful to the world of learning, or just a crazy experiment that fascinates you without a clear application. The only requirement is that your project must prominently make use of the data that Sefaria has to offer.

To get your ideas flowing, here are three great examples from last year’s Powered by Sefaria contest. You can find dozens more projects on our Powered by Sefaria list on GitHub and on the Powered by Sefaria 2020 Winners & Honorable Mentions page.

The contest is open from Sunday, June 13th through Tuesday, August 31st. Registered participants will receive a form to submit their projects. The contest deliverable must be in the form of a URL where our judges can directly access your work. For many projects, this will be a running demo of an app on the web. For other projects, your URL may point to a description and summary of the work you've done, much like a poster for a research project presented at a conference. For desktop or mobile apps, you will need to host your app on a web-based emulator (like Appetize.io) so our judges can interact with it without downloading executables.

A jury will select three projects to win cash prizes: $5,000 for the grand prize, $5,000 for the Women in Tech prize, and $3,600 for the youth prize.

A selection of completed projects will also be featured on a contest page and shared with our community.

The Contest is open to applicants from the United States and Israel. All participants are eligible to enter the grand prize. Eligible participants for the Women in Tech prize include a) individuals who identify as women or b) groups of 3 or more, the majority of whom identify as women. Participants who are eligible for the Women in Tech prize may submit their project into both the Women in Tech prize and grand prize categories, and the youth prize category if eligible. Eligible participants for the youth prize include people under the age of 23. Participants who are eligible for the youth prize may submit their project into both the youth prize and grand prize categories, as well as the Women in Tech category if eligible. All entrants under the age of 18 must obtain permission from their parent or guardian before entering the contest. To learn more, see our official Contest Rules.

Winners will be selected by a panel of three judges. The judges will evaluate each project on the basis of four criteria:

1. Highlighting of Jewish texts and their unique value
2. Technological accomplishment
3. Potential for impact or inspiration
4. Creativity

Projects that existed prior to the call for submission may enter on the basis of additional work added since the time the contest began. Judges will evaluate the projects on the basis of the additional work. Projects don’t have to be 100% complete or polished to enter either; our judges will be happy to see the potential in a promising start.

Interested in participating in the contest? Sign up for updates and resources, including office hours with the Sefaria engineering team. We'll share a link for project submissions with you in the coming weeks!