DevDays Nerd Award

Unleash your nerdiness and win the DevDays Nerd Award 2025 

Why simply switch on a light when you could use a Wi-Fi Smart Light Switch with Cloud API?  

Why water your plants with a boring old watering can when you could program a hydroponic system and monitor environmental impact and horticultural metrics on a fancy digital dashboard? Your nerd submission doesn’t need to include software at all. In 2023, Brian Kaney submitted a device to stick his phone to his fork so he could film himself while eating. He didn’t win, by the way…
In 2024, Andy Bond was the winner with his ‘Internet of House”.

It’s time to put on your geek chic and demo your latest over-the-top home application for the DevDays Nerds Award.  

Here are the rules:

• Submit your presentation before June 3, using the form below.
• If selected, pitch your nerd thing in 10 minutes and 0 seconds in one of sessions. (If you win, you get to do it again on the central stage.) 

The winning criteria:

The winner walks away with the DevDays Nerd Award, plus a free ticket to DevDays 2026. 

• A blatant imbalance between the time needed to implement the nerd thing, and actual utility.
• Added value of your solution over the obvious solution, where zero or negative is excellent.
• Expected admiration from other nerds (more = better).
• Suppressed laughter from friends and family. Bonus points for eye-rolling.
• The problem you are solving is real, the solution is overkill to the extreme.

The jury selects the presenters and the winner. The jury members are: Andy Bond, Magentus (winner Nerd Award 2024), Maria Ryzhikova, Health-Samurai and Ewout Kramer, Firely.

Non-male nerds

Last year, we had three male nerds. Yes, men tend to have a lead on women in uselessness. A shout-out to all ye non-male participants: this is your chance where you for once won’t have to break through a glass ceiling but just sink through the floor and end up in the basement with the male nerds. 

What else do I need to know?

• If your application has been selected for presentation, we will let you know by June 3.
• Apply via the form below.

Questions? Please reach out to us by sending an email to devdays@fire.ly.