The dotJS Prize is a $10,000 award to the most innovative frontend & backend open source projects written in JavaScript.

Selection timeline

  • September 12th - October 10th: Nomination period (Open to everyone)
  • October 11th - November 10th: Voting period (Open to dotJS attendees)
  • November 17th: Winner announced on stage at dotJS

The Prize

The dotJS Prize is made possible by our partner Zengularity. The most innovative frontend and backend open source JS projects will receive $5,000 each in cash.

The winning projects will also benefit from increased visibility through dotJS relays and from a public call to contributions in the dotConferences community. We will generally try to help out in any way we can!

Most innovative frontend JavaScript project winner:

pixi.js, 2D webGL renderer with canvas fallback

Most innovative backend JavaScript project winner:

gulp.js, The streaming build system

Nomination guidelines

The dotJS prize aims to reward and stimulate innovation in open source. Projects that can be nominated must:

  • Be less than 2 years old (since their first public release)
  • Be related to JavaScript, frontend or backend. This includes frameworks, Node modules, frontend libraries, ...
  • Use one of the OSI-approved licenses

There are no requirements on being able to attend dotJS or being a physical person, company or foundation.

Voting process

While everyone can nominate a project, the top 10 submitted projects will be open to a vote by the dotJS attendees. This ensures votes are unique and representative of this community.

A vote should answer the question "Which project has the potential of helping me the most in the next 12 months?"

F.A.Q.

Why aren't projects over 2 years old eligible?

We want to focus on projects that will benefit the most from the $5,000 prize, and make sure small projects don't compete against large foundation-backed projects.

Can I nominate a project written in CoffeeScript or TypeScript?

Yes, based on community feedback we have decided to allow these 2 languages in the dotJS Prize because they are very close to JavaScript and used in some popular projects. However we won't allow other languages that compile to JavaScript (for instance C/C++ apps compiled with Emscripten).

How is Zengularity involved in this prize?

Our platinum partner Zengularity shares our values and showed great interest in giving back to the community. Zengularity supplies the prize money. Of course, neither Zengularity nor dotConferences will be involved in the voting process.

I have feedback or questions on this prize. Where do I send them?

This is the first time we are awarding the dotJS prize and we are sure there are things to improve. Please send us all your feedback to contact@dotconferences.com. Thanks!

About Zengularity

Zengularity's founders didn’t choose the “large IT consulting” / “selling people” kind of business mode, but the one that matches typical great successes in the United States: a community of experts that are passionate and wholeheartedly convinced by a vision.

Zengularity employees, which they call Zengulars, are always together in Zengularity’s agency. They work on R&D projects, with the CTO, or on clients’ projects.