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Submit a Project

Have a technology project that could benefit from developer collaboration?

Ubujima welcomes selected projects from individuals, founders, startups, agencies, nonprofits, community organizations, research groups, and other partners that want to collaborate with developers across the Ubujima ecosystem.

Projects may be open source, community-led, experimental, research-oriented, nonprofit, or commercial.

Submitting a project does not automatically make it an Ubujima project or guarantee acceptance into the developer ecosystem.

Each submission is reviewed before publication or contributor participation begins.


Who Can Submit

Project submissions are open to:

  • Individual founders
  • Independent developers
  • Startups
  • Development agencies
  • Nonprofits
  • Community organizations
  • Educational institutions
  • Research teams
  • Companies
  • Ecosystem partners

Projects should have a clearly identified owner or responsible organization.

Anonymous or unowned projects will generally not be accepted.


What Kind of Projects Are We Looking For?

We are particularly interested in projects that:

  • Solve a meaningful problem
  • Have a clearly defined purpose
  • Can benefit from developer collaboration
  • Provide useful learning or contribution opportunities
  • Have clear project leadership
  • Have defined ownership
  • Can support a transparent development process
  • Follow responsible security and privacy practices
  • Have clear licensing or intellectual-property arrangements
  • Can be broken into meaningful technical tasks or milestones

Projects do not need to be complete.

Early-stage projects may be accepted if the scope, ownership, goals, and development needs are sufficiently clear.


Types of Projects

Projects may include:

  • Web applications
  • Mobile applications
  • APIs
  • Developer tools
  • Open-source software
  • Community platforms
  • Artificial intelligence projects
  • Data projects
  • Blockchain infrastructure
  • Civic or community technology
  • Educational technology
  • Research tools
  • Nonprofit technology
  • Experimental software
  • Infrastructure projects

Other technology projects may also be considered.


What You Will Need to Submit

Project owners should be prepared to provide:

Project Information​

  • Project name
  • Project description
  • Problem being solved
  • Target users or community
  • Current project status
  • Website, demo, or product link where available

Project Ownership​

  • Individual or organization responsible for the project
  • Primary project contact
  • Ownership of the underlying product or intellectual property
  • Existing partners or stakeholders where relevant

Technical Information​

  • Technical overview and primary technologies
  • Existing repository, if available
  • Current architecture
  • Hosting or infrastructure
  • APIs or third-party services
  • Current development status

Contribution Needs​

Describe what kind of support you are looking for.

Examples include:

  • Frontend development
  • Backend development
  • Mobile development
  • DevOps
  • Infrastructure
  • UI/UX
  • Testing
  • Documentation
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Data engineering
  • Blockchain
  • Security
  • Research

Where possible, identify specific features, issues, milestones, or deliverables contributors could work on.

Repository Information​

If the project already has a repository, provide:

  • Repository URL
  • Repository visibility
  • Current license
  • Contribution guidelines
  • Issue tracker status

A project does not need to be hosted within the Ubujima GitHub organization to participate.


Open Source and Licensing

Projects are encouraged to use clear licensing.

Where a project is open source, the repository should include an appropriate open-source license.

Project owners should clearly state:

  • What is open source
  • What remains proprietary
  • What contributors are permitted to use
  • What rights contributors grant when submitting code
  • What rights the project owner retains

Ubujima may request clarification before publishing a project.

The absence of a clear intellectual-property or licensing arrangement may prevent a project from being accepted.


Intellectual Property

Submitting a project does not transfer ownership of the project to Ubujima.

The project owner remains responsible for establishing and maintaining ownership of the project and its intellectual property.

Likewise, contributors should understand how their contributions will be licensed or assigned before substantial work begins.

Depending on the project, additional agreements may be required.

These may include:

  • Contributor License Agreements
  • Intellectual-property assignment agreements
  • Confidentiality agreements
  • Partnership agreements
  • Commercial development agreements

The exact requirements depend on the project.


Open Source and Commercial Projects

Both open-source and commercial projects may be considered.

However, the contribution model must be transparent.

For example:

Open-Source Project​

Contributors participate through a public repository under a defined open-source license.

Commercial Project​

A commercial project may expose selected components, issues, or development areas for collaboration while retaining proprietary parts of the platform.

Partner Project​

A project may operate under a separate agreement between Ubujima and the project owner.

Commercial participation does not automatically create a paid engagement between the project owner and individual contributors.

Any compensation, employment, contract, bounty, equity, revenue-sharing, or other financial arrangement must be stated separately.


GitHub and Repository Structure

Accepted projects may use:

  • The project owner's existing GitHub organization
  • A public repository
  • A private repository where appropriate
  • A repository within the Ubujima GitHub organization where specifically approved

Acceptance into the Ubujima Developer Hub does not automatically result in repository creation within the Ubujima GitHub organization.

Repository placement will depend on factors such as:

  • Project ownership
  • Licensing
  • Partnership structure
  • Maintenance responsibility
  • Security
  • Long-term governance

Project Review

Every project submission may be reviewed based on:

  • Project purpose
  • Technical feasibility
  • Development readiness
  • Project leadership
  • Ownership
  • Licensing
  • Intellectual property
  • Security
  • Privacy
  • Contributor experience
  • Documentation
  • Technical scope
  • Community suitability
  • Ability to define meaningful contributor work

Ubujima may request additional information before making a decision.


Possible Review Outcomes

A project may be:

Accepted​

The project is approved for inclusion within the Ubujima Developer Hub.

Accepted With Conditions​

The project may need additional documentation, licensing clarification, repository preparation, technical scoping, or other changes before contributors are invited.

Referred for Partnership Discussion​

Some projects may require a broader commercial or strategic partnership before they are included.

Not Accepted​

A project may not currently fit the developer ecosystem.

Project submission does not guarantee acceptance.


After Acceptance

Accepted project owners may work with Ubujima to prepare the project for contributors.

This may include:

  1. Confirming project ownership.
  2. Confirming licensing and contribution terms.
  3. Preparing the repository.
  4. Creating contribution documentation.
  5. Defining initial issues or milestones.
  6. Identifying maintainers.
  7. Defining contributor access.
  8. Publishing the project within the Developer Hub.
  9. Inviting contributors to participate.

Project owners remain responsible for actively supporting their project.

Projects without active leadership or maintainers may be removed from active opportunities.


Preparing Issues for Contributors

Projects should make it easy for developers to understand what they can work on.

Good contributor tasks should have:

  • A clear title
  • Description of the problem
  • Expected outcome
  • Relevant technical context
  • Acceptance criteria
  • Dependencies
  • Required skills
  • Estimated scope where possible

Projects may also use labels such as:

good-first-issue
help-wanted
frontend
backend
mobile
devops
documentation
testing
design
research


# Contributor Access

Project owners should follow the principle of least-privilege access.
Contributors should receive only the access necessary for their work.

Public contributors should not automatically receive access to:

- Production systems
- Production databases
- Customer information
- Private credentials
- Internal business systems
- Confidential repositories
- Sensitive infrastructure

Development, staging, sandbox, and test environments should be used wherever possible.

# Compensation and Incentives

Projects may offer compensation or incentives, but this must be clearly disclosed.
Examples may include:

Paid contracts
Bounties
Internships
Employment opportunities
Revenue sharing
Equity
Community recognition
Contributor rewards
Other project-specific incentives

Participation in the Ubujima Developer Hub does not by itself create a right to compensation.
Any compensation arrangement must be separately defined by the responsible project owner or program.

# Project Governance

Every accepted project should identify at least one responsible maintainer.
Maintainers are expected to:

- Respond to contributor questions
- Review pull requests
- Manage issues
- Clarify technical direction
- Protect repository security
- Maintain contribution standards
- Communicate changes to contributors

Ubujima may provide ecosystem support, but project owners remain responsible for the operation and governance of their projects unless otherwise agreed.

# Submit Your Project

We are currently preparing the project submission workflow.

The submission form will request information about:

- Your organization
- Your project
- Ownership
- Technical architecture
- Repository
- Development needs
- Licensing
- Contribution model
- Security
- Project leadership

Selected projects may then be invited for a review discussion before publication.