Pet Projects: The 2026 Edition is a mid-year showcase where developers, founders, designers, and builders present projects they started in 2026. It provides a space to share what they've been building, the decisions they've made, the obstacles they've encountered, and how their ideas have evolved over time.

The focus is on the journey, not just the finished product. Speakers will take the audience behind the scenes of their projects, sharing what inspired them to build, the technologies they chose, the challenges they faced, and the lessons they learned along the way. Whether a project is still in development or already in production, every stage offers valuable insights for the community.

This year's lineup showcases a diverse range of technologies and real-world applications:

• Momment: One Photo a Day for People Who Matter — Mark Karimov shares the product thinking behind a social app designed to encourage meaningful connection through intentional constraints. Using Flutter and Supabase, Momment challenges conventional social media design by prioritizing participation over endless scrolling and engagement metrics.

• Beyond CRUD: Building FleetHub as a Fleet Rental Management System — Thamsanqa Ndelu shares how a personal business challenge evolved into a comprehensive fleet management platform. His session explores database design with Prisma and PostgreSQL, role-based workflows, and translating complex business operations into scalable software.

• GreenGuard: Transforming Raw IoT Sensor Data into Accessible Community Farming Insights — Thapelo Vundla and Vhutali Tsanwani discuss building an IoT solution during a hackathon using affordable sensors, MicroPython, and real-time environmental data to support small-scale farmers with practical, data-driven insights.

• CyberBuddy: Building an AI-Powered Personal Security Coach for Everyday Users — Linford Musiyambodza demonstrates how he built an Android application that combines Gemini-powered AI, offline-first design, and cybersecurity education to help users develop better digital security habits.

More than a series of technical talks, Pet Projects is designed to encourage open sharing, discussion, and constructive feedback. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn from different approaches to problem-solving, discover new technologies, and connect with others building products across AI, Android, IoT, web development, product design, data science, and mobile development.

As we reach the middle of the year, the event also serves as a checkpoint—a chance to reflect on progress, celebrate what has been built so far, and gain inspiration for the next stage of your own project.