Open Call for Tinkerers, Hackers and Community Leaders

We’re paying builders, hackers, and vibe coders to make projects about San Francisco. Could be a tool. Could be a website, a bot, an installation, a game, an event, or something we haven’t thought of yet. The only requirements: you built it, it’s interesting, or at least makes them smile, stop or think about San Francisco and the people who are here.

If it’s good, we’ll pay you and publish it. If you keep making good stuff, we’ll keep paying you.

We’re looking for people who are already building things — not sending resumes. That includes:

• Community leaders with weird and fun ideas who design experiences, challenges, and events that get strangers off their couches and into the city
• Data scrapers and FOIA nerds who find public datasets nobody knew existed and make them usable or entertaining
• Weekend shippers who go from idea to live site before most people finish a to-do list — because the idea was too funny or too interesting to sit on
• Vibe coders who use AI tools to prototype fast and don’t care how the code looks as long as the thing works and people love it
• Hardware tinkerers who build physical things that capture data or create experiences in the real world
• Pranksters with a point who blur the line between satire and social commentary — the kind of person who sees a system and immediately thinks about how to question it

If your projects tend to go viral before anyone knows who made them — you’re who we’re looking for.

• A tool that takes something buried in public data and makes it visible, trackable, or searchable in a way nobody’s done before
• A stunt or installation that makes people stop, laugh, think, or share — and in the process reveals something true about the city
• A creative experience — online or offline — that gets San Franciscans to actually do something together
• A website, bot, or app that takes a frustrating civic process and makes it less painful or more transparent
• A data visualization or interactive that shows people something surprising about how their city actually works
• Something physical — a device, a sign, an object in public space — that captures information or creates a moment
• Honestly, something we haven’t thought of. The best submissions will probably be things we couldn’t have predicted.

The common thread: you made something, it worked, and people cared.

Commensurate to the project you’re submitting! Let’s talk.

Plus you get published by a real news organization. We’ll write up what you built and why it matters.

• Dashboards that repackage data that’s already easy to find
• Projects with no San Francisco angle
• Anything that targets private individuals or exposes personal information
• Proposals without working examples of past projects
• Pure concept decks with no ability to execute
• Applications with only a resume

Send either:

• Finished project: Link + how you built it + what data it uses + your background
• Pitch: What you’d build + why it’s interesting + timeline + links to past projects

We review everything. If it’s good, we’ll publish it and pay you.