Gemma 4 Challenge

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Build and write with Google's latest open models

Challenge Status: Live Ended

Local AI is having a moment, and we want you to be part of it!

Running through May 24, the Gemma 4 Challenge invites you to explore open models. With the release of Gemma 4, Google's most capable open model family yet, we now have access to native multimodal capabilities, advanced reasoning, a 128K context window, and models that range from running on a Raspberry Pi, to phones, to powering large-scale deployments.

Whether you love to build or love to write, there's a prompt for you and a $3,000 prize pool up for grabs!

There will be ten chances to win across two tracks.

Five Build With Gemma 4 winners will each receive:

$500 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive winner badge

Five Write about Gemma 4 winners will each receive:

$100 USD
DEV++ Membership
Exclusive winner badge

All qualifying participants receive a completion badge.

Key Dates

Contest start: May 06, 2026
Submissions due: May 24, 2026
Winners announced: June 04, 2026

Badge Rewards

Find Out More

Ask questions and share your ideas on the Gemma 4 Challenge Launch Post.

View Launch Post

Challenge Prompts

Build With Gemma 4

Your mandate is to build something useful or creative with any Gemma 4 model. The scope is wide open — you can build anything from an IoT integration to a multimodal tool to a long-context reasoning app. What matters is that Gemma 4 is doing real work at the heart of your project.

Which Model Is Right for You? 🤔

Gemma 4 comes in three flavors. Pick the one that fits your use case:

Gemma 4 model family spans three distinct architectures tailored for specific hardware requirements:

Small Sizes: 2B and 4B effective parameter models built for ultra-mobile, edge, and browser deployment (e.g., Pixel).
Dense: A powerful 31B parameter dense model that bridges the gap between server-grade performance and local execution.
Mixture-of-Experts: A highly efficient 26B MoE model designed for high-throughput, advanced reasoning.

No matter which you choose, judges will be looking for intentional model selection — show us why your model was the right tool for the job.

Submission Template

The most compelling submissions will make a clear case for why you chose the model you did and what that model unlocked.

Judging Criteria:

Intentional and effective use of Gemma 4
Technical implementation and code quality
Creativity and originality
Usability and user experience

Write About Gemma 4

Your mandate is to publish a post about Gemma 4 that educates, inspires, or sparks curiosity. There's no single right format — what matters is that your post offers something genuine and useful to the community.

Not sure what to write about? Here are some ideas:

How-to guide: Walk through setting up and running a Gemma 4 model locally, fine-tuning it for a specific task, or integrating it into a real project
Comparison piece: Break down the three Gemma 4 model variants and help readers decide which one is right for their use case
Personal essay or opinion piece: Share your experience building with Gemma 4, or make a case for something — what does a model this capable running locally mean for the future of AI?
Deep technical breakdown: Explore a specific capability like multimodal input, the 128K context window, or reasoning mode

Submission Template

Need inspiration? Check out how Google's own team fine-tuned Gemma 4 with Cloud Run Jobs. That's the kind of hands-on, shareable knowledge is exactly what we're looking for.

Note: If you are primarily showing off a project, please submit to the Build with Gemma 4 prompt instead! Each submission is only allowed to be eligible for one of the two categories.

Judging Criteria:

Clarity and depth of explanation
Originality of perspective or insight
Practical value to the community
Quality of writing

How To Participate

In order to participate, you will need to publish a post using the above submission template associated with the prompt.

Helpful Links & Resources

Gemma 4 is open — you have several ways to get started, including completely free options:

Gemini API via Google AI Studio: Access Gemma 4 through the Gemini API.
Run locally (free, no credit card required): Download any Gemma 4 model directly from Hugging Face or Kaggle. The E2B model runs on high-end phones — or even a Raspberry Pi 5.
OpenRouter (free tier available): Access Gemma 4 31B via OpenRouter's free tier — no credit card required.

Frequently Asked Questions

Participation

Can I submit to multiple prompts?

Yes, you are welcome to submit to multiple prompts.

Can one submission qualify for multiple prompts?

No. Each submission is only eligible for one prompt. If you'd like to participate in both tracks, you'll need to publish a separate post for each.

Can I submit to a prompt more than once?

Yes, you can submit multiple submissions per prompt but you'll need to publish a separate post for each submission.

Can I work on a team?

Team submissions are only allowed for the Build With Gemma 4 prompt. Teams of up to four people are welcome.

If you collaborate with anyone, you'll need to list their DEV handles in your submission post so we can award a badge to your entire team! Please only publish one submission per team.
DEV does not handle prize-splitting, so in the event that your submission wins, you will need to split the prize amongst yourselves. Thank you for understanding! The Write about Gemma 4 prompt is for individual submissions only.

How old do I have to be to participate?

Participants need to be 18+ in order to participate.

If I live in X, am I eligible to participate?

For eligibility rules, see our official challenge rules.

Submission

Can my submission include open source code?

Riffing on open source code and borrowing and improving on previous work/ideas is encouraged but it's important your changes are significant enough to ensure your submission is valid.

When does riffing become plagiarism?

It will depend, but transparency is important, license compatibility is important. You can use someone else's code to give you a jumpstart to demonstrate your ideas on top of someone else's base, but not just re-package the base. It should be clear to the judges what you added to the project in terms of the code and conceptual inspiration. This means, you should clearly state what you were building on and what elements are original to this new submission. When building on existing code, we expect a significant change that adds something tangible to the output. i.e. a new animation, and new sprite, a new function, a new presentation. Not just changes to the source - i.e. changing colours, changing one sprite, changing one function.

What happens if my submission is considered plagiarized or invalid?

Anything deemed to be plagiarism will not be eligible for prizes. Incidental plagiarism may simply result in your disqualification from the challenge (regardless of the number of other valid submissions you have published). Egregious plagiarism will result in your suspension from DEV entirely. Any non-generic, non-trivial usage of prior work, including open source code must be credited in your submission.

Do submissions have to be in English?

Non-english submissions are eligible for a completion badge but not eligible for prizes due to the current limitations of our judges. We will not be judging on mastery of the English language, so please don't let this deter you from submitting if you are not a native English speaker! We hope to evolve this in the future to be more accommodating.

Do I need a license for my code?

You are not required to license your code but we strongly recommend that you do. Here are some you may consider: MIT, Apache, BSD-2, BSD-3, or Commons Clause.

Can I use AI?

Use of AI is allowed as long as all other rules are followed. We want to give you a chance to show off your skills in realistic scenarios. If you use AI tools to help you achieve your submission, all the power to you.

Judging and Prizing

Can there be ties?

In the event of a tie in scoring between judges, the judges will select the entry that received the highest number of positive reactions on their DEV post to determine the winner.

How will I know if I won?

Winners will be announced in a DEV post on the winner announcement date noted in our key dates section.

When will I receive my DEV badge?

Both participation and winner badges will be awarded, in most cases, the same day as the winner announcement.

When will I receive my prizes?

The DEV Team will contact you via the email associated with your DEV profile within, at most, 10 business days of the announcement date to share the details of claiming your prizes.

What steps do I need to take to receive my cash prize?

The winner (including each member of a team) may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility and publicity/liability release, and provide any additional tax filing information (such as a W-9, social security number or Federal tax ID number) within seven (7) business days following the date of your first email notification.