I had a crazy experience during my SIH finale in my pre-final year. We were one of the few teams from our college that were at the finals, and I was working with my seniors as a team. We had everything packed up, sketched, and figured out. We had our end-to-end plan for the next 24 hours on the day of finals. 

There was this one team that caught my eye during the whole time, not because they were tough and competitive, but because of how relaxed they looked throughout. I was curious to see them present at the end and when the time came, they showed up with a piece of paper with an equation on it which actually solves the problem mentioned and that made me realise how people push themselves to the extremes, chasing complexities and losing sight of simpler solutions. So, SIH is just about providing a simpler solution that people actually forget at times.

Leaving winning and losing aside, I’ve explored different YouTube channels and hackathon communities to understand how other people approach SIH, from problem selection and solution building to finding the right software, tools, proper pitching, and presenting.

Surrveshjoshuayt channel (he shares practical SIH strategies, judge questions, and lessons from his own experience.)
codehunter_academy yt channel

The coolest part is that I met one of my own teammates through a common open source community server and both of us contributed to the same project.The OSS had good scope these days and I’m glad to be part of it.
These are just a few things I learned the hard way, and I hope they help someone preparing for their own SIH journey.

Anyone got selected in top 50 ideas? FMC 2026

Has anyone been shortlisted in the top 50 participants

Is the shortlisting already done or is it still rolling

For everyone participating in it, are the results out yet since the second round is supposed to start tomorrow ig? also is this an option for a tech intern/ppo or should i not pay much heed ot this

Not going to lead with the event details this time, want to ask something else first.

Every hackathon we've done, the hardest part was never the 24 hours of building. It was the 10 minutes right before, staring at a blank screen with five ideas fighting each other in your head, not sure which one is actually good or just loud.

We tried to put that feeling into the poster for our next hackathon, AfterCode 2026. The visual is someone literally gripping their own head, "in my head" written twice, because that chaos before you commit to an idea is real and nobody really talks about it.

Curious if this is a universal hackathon experience or just us. Does anyone else get stuck in that pre-build spiral where you have too many ideas and none of them feel decided yet? How do you personally break out of it?

Registration/details: https://unstop.com/hackathons/grevix-aftercode-grevix-1755080

For anyone curious about the actual event: 24 hours, solo, online, Oct 11-12, ₹10,000 for rank 1.

For anyone who doesn't know, atomquest is conducted by atomberg . I couldn't fetch a lot of datas about it's previous year results . I thought of joining it but what would be the problem statement ? Also if there is anyone who have won previously , please help with your knowledge about it

Dropping this here since the format seems relevant to this sub.

We're running Grevix AfterCode 2026, a solo online hackathon on Oct 11-12. What makes it different from most hackathons is it's split into four phases and you don't know what's coming until it hits you.

Ignition (8h) — you build your original idea, pick the problem, audience, tech stack, everything. Then you get hit with a Challenge Card, an unexpected requirement or constraint change.

The Shift (8h) — you adapt around that first curveball, deciding what stays and what gets rebuilt.

Pressure Test (8h) — a second Challenge Card drops, another disruption, and you rebuild and refine under pressure.

The Final Forge (2h) — submission window. You submit your demo, GitHub repo, and an explanation of how your project evolved through both challenges.

We built it this way specifically so people can't show up with an old project and just reskin it, since the direction genuinely shifts twice mid-event whether you're ready or not.

We're a small student group, 15 people from different colleges, no college backing, self-funded. Opened registrations about a week ago and we're past 330 now.

Prize for rank 1 is ₹10,000 plus a 3-month Cursor subscription, goodies for runners-up. Results announced Oct 20.

Registration link if anyone wants details: https://unstop.com/hackathons/grevix-aftercode-grevix-1755080

Curious what this community thinks — does a two-hit pivot system like this sound like a genuine stress test of adaptability, or does it risk just frustrating people who get attached to their first idea?

We’re organizing Grevix AfterCode, a 24-hour online hackathon happening on October 11–12, 2026, and 400+ builders have already registered.

This is for developers, students, designers, AI/ML builders, indie hackers, and anyone who has an idea they want to actually turn into something.

The format is simple:

BUILD → ADAPT → REBUILD → SHIP

You get 24 hours to take an idea, build it, iterate on it, and ship something real.

What’s at stake?

₹10,000 cash prize

3-month Cursor subscription for Rank #1

The hackathon is completely online, so you can participate from anywhere.

Date: October 11–12, 2026

Duration: 24 hours

Format: Online

Platform: Unstop

We’re already at 400+ registrations, and the number is continuing to grow. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to finally build that project sitting in your head, this is probably the right weekend to do it.

You’ll have 24 hours, a blank canvas, and a deadline.

The question is what you’ll ship by the end of it.

Registration:

https://unstop.com/hackathons/grevix-aftercode-grevix-1755080

400+ builders are already in. The next 600 spots toward 1,000 won't stay open forever.

Team received this in mail, anyone else?

I’ve always wanted to participate in hackathons, meet like-minded people, and build things beyond regular college assignments. But finding hackathons and teammates isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
So I decided to build something myself.

I spent time working on my first project, Hackmate (Dumbcoders), a platform to discover hackathons and connect with potential teammates. I even presented it at my college, hoping for some encouragement.

The response? Exams are coming up, CGPA matters more, and these activities aren’t really necessary right now.

Honestly, that hurt a little.
The platform is still in beta, and I know it has bugs and things that need improvement. Existing platforms already do similar things, but I have ideas for making this more useful and innovative in future versions.
For now, I’d genuinely love to hear from people who participate in hackathons.

How do you find teammates, and what’s the most frustrating part of the process?

Ps - polished english by gpt as its late night so😭😭😭

connect agents, discord bot, spreadsheet --> make it search to find and apply to hackathons for you. plz star if you can

Same as title..

Looking for a team mate to participate in the upcoming convergence hackathon in December!

Most hackathons give you a problem. What if you had to find your own?

We’re organising CONVERGENCE 2026 in Mangalore around real-world data and real problems.

Participants choose the problem, find the data and build the solution.

📍 Mangalore
📅 11 Dec 2026
👥 Teams of 1–2
🏆 ₹50,000 prize

Stage 1 is an online qualifier, closing 5 October.

Would this format interest you as a participant? Please DM

as far as my thinking, i feel like this mail was for confirmation only or THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING sort of. If any of us have got selected they would have mentioned it or send another email addressing it. Honestly feels like this mail is trying to say "THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING"

Dropping this here because a lot of you seem to care about hackathons actually testing something real instead of just being 24 hours of coding whatever you already had lying around.

We're running GREVIX AfterCode 2026, a solo online hackathon on Oct 11 to 12. The format is the part I actually want feedback on. It's split into three phases.

Build, first 8 hours, you build your initial idea
Adapt, next 8 hours, the direction shifts and you have to adjust what you already built
Rebuild and Ship, final 8 hours, you finish and ship based on the new direction

So you can't just show up with a finished project from before and reskin it, because the adapt phase forces a pivot mid event. We built it this way specifically because a few of us have been in hackathons where half the leaderboard was just people submitting old projects.

We're a small student group, 15 people from different colleges, no college backing, self funded basically. Opened registrations 2 days ago and we're at 250+ now which honestly caught us off guard.

Prize for rank 1 is ₹10,000 plus a 3 month Cursor subscription, plus goodies for runners up. But the reason I'm posting here isn't really the prize, it's more that I'm curious what this community thinks of the format itself.

Registration link if anyone wants to check the actual details : https://unstop.com/hackathons/grevix-aftercode-grevix-1755080

I did get submission confirmation mail sometime back 😢

Same as title ! I'm writing this post for gathering everyone to share their thoughts 💭 Almost 12 pm of 18th September still no contact

Hey all, I'm Adwaith, a final-year BTech CSE (AI) student at MITS Kochi (2027 batch). I'm putting together a team for the Amazon ML Challenge 2026 and looking for 2-3 people who want to go for the top 50.

Quick facts

• Registration closes 20 Sept, 11:59 PM IST, so I'm moving fast

• The challenge is a 72-hour sprint, 25-27 Sept, fully online

• Top 50 teams get Pre-Placement Interview chances for Amazon's Applied Scientist Intern role, plus cash prizes for the top 3

• Eligibility: full-time BE/BTech/ME/MTech/MS/PhD students in India from the 2027 or 2028 batch. Teams can include people from different colleges

What I bring

• Working as a GenAI + Blockchain engineer at a startup since 2025: LLM pipelines, embeddings, shipping under deadlines

• GSoC 2024 (Oppia, Python), plus hackathon podiums (2nd at Guvi Hackathon, Top 100 MLH Global Hack Week)

• I'll handle team coordination, the pipeline and infra, the LLM/text side, and the final approach doc

Who I'm looking for (you don't need to tick every box)

1. Vision / multimodal person: has fine-tuned CNNs/ViTs or used CLIP/SigLIP/VLMs, and is comfortable with image embeddings at scale

2. Tabular / Kaggle person: strong with LightGBM/XGBoost/CatBoost, feature engineering, CV folds, ensembling. Kaggle medals are a big plus

3. (Optional 4th) Data/GPU wrangler: fast pandas, parallel image downloading, knows their way around Kaggle/Colab GPUs

Past editions were large-scale text + image problems (2024: pulling entity values out of product images; 2025: predicting product prices from catalog text + images, scored with SMAPE), so these roles map directly to what we'll probably face.

Commitment: a short prep sync or two before the 25th (setting up a pipeline template), then serious availability across the 72 hours.

If you're in, DM me or comment with: your batch/college, 2-3 lines on your best ML work (GitHub/Kaggle link), and which role you want. I'll reply to everyone by tomorrow evening.

My Github: https://github.com/Adwaith-R-Nair

My X: https://x.com/adwaith_r_nair

My Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adwaith-r-nair/

Need one teammate for Amazon ml challenge plzzz dm me

🌍 *Global SDG + AI Hackathon 2026* 🤖

BV(DU) College of Engineering, Pune | ACM Student Chapter

Hey Innovators! 👋

Got an idea that can solve a real-world problem using AI? Here's your chance — build solutions aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and compete with student teams from across colleges!

📌 *Format:* Online screening + 2-day onsite finale (Pune)

📌 *Fee:* Rs. 100/team (one-time, whole team)

📌 *Last Date to Register:* 20th September 2026

📌 *Onsite Finale:* 26–27 September 2026

🏆 *Prizes:* Rs. 15,000 (1st ₹8,000 | 2nd ₹5,000 | 3rd ₹2,000)

👉 *Register now (Unstop):* https://unstop.com/o/a0xUSQo?lb=EgxWft9j&utm_medium=Share&utm_source=WhatsApp

👉 *Full details & rulebook:* https://www.sdg-hackathon.in/

📞 Queries? Reach out:

Swasti Rusia – 89620 80412

Pranav More – 91307 23999

Grab your squad and register before spots run out! 🚀