Dear Brmlab,

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom will start with a new round on January 1st, 2025. Registration is now open for teenagers between 14 and 18 years who are currently living in Europe. Run by the Free Software Foundation Europe, Youth Hacking 4 Freedom [https://yh4f.org] is a programming competition for young Europeans between 14 and 18 years old that offers the opportunity to design and develop their own project using Free Software and win up to 4,096 Euro.

Please help us to spread the message to as many young Europeans as possible to make them aware of YH4F.

Everybody participating in Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is getting something out of the competition. Participants have the chance to meet our Free Software experts of the jury and discuss their project ideas with them. The teenagers can also interact with each other, meet other like minded and nerdy teenagers from Europe and build friendships that can last a lifetime.

The 2025 competition starts on January 1st 2025, and ends on June, 30th 2025.

Participants can register here for the opening event and Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2024: https://yh4f.org/register

Throughout the competition the FSFE guides the teenagers through the 6 month programming period. We have regular Thursday evening meetings in which we discuss how to use git, how to document your software, and many more subjects with the participants. At Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, participants not only improve their programming skills from beginner to advanced, but also learn how to work on a 6-month project, developing organisation, time management and project planning skills. It also gives them a chance to be creative and develop something they really like, as well as the pride of developing their own project.

You can find all the information in the YH4F media kit on our download server: https://yh4f.org/mediakit

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom in a nutshell. • Participants must be born between January 1st, 2005 and December 31st, 2009. • Participation is free, but registration is mandatory: https://yh4f.org/register • The opening event takes place on January 9th, 2024, online. • The programming period runs from January 1st to June 30th 2025. • During the programming period, participants are free to attend our online meetings and workshops every first Thursday of the month • The first, second and third place winning projects will receive €4,096, €2,048 and €1,024 respectively. There will also be three special prizes of €1,024. • Each participant who submits a project will also receive a certificate of participation. • The competition will be conducted remotely, except for the award ceremony, which will take place in Brussels during a weekend in October 2024 (to which the winners and a family member will be invited on an all-expenses-paid basis).

For more information, please visit: https://yh4f.org or send an email to yh4f@fsfe.org. You can also find more information about the successful previous editions here: https://yh4f.org/mediakit

Best regards, Alexander Sander and Bonnie Mehring

[0] https://yh4f.org/register [1] https://yh4f.org [2] https://yh4f.org/faq [3] https://yh4f.org/mediakit