India Launches Massive School Hackathon to Foster Youth Innovation

India has officially launched the Viksit Bharat Buildathon 2025, an unprecedented national event designed to ignite the creative and problem-solving talents of its youngest minds. Billed as the country's largest-ever school hackathon, the 13-hour innovation marathon aims to engage over one crore students from classes 6 to 12. This ambitious initiative represents a concerted effort to shift education from theoretical knowledge to practical application, empowering students to become active participants in building the nation's future.

Organized as a strategic collaboration between the Ministry of Education, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), and NITI Aayog, the Buildathon is more than just a competition. It is framed as a national mission to cultivate a foundational culture of innovation and design thinking at the school level. The event directly aligns with the government's long-term vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2047, placing the unfiltered creativity and energy of its youth at the very heart of that goal.

The entire event is being live-streamed to ensure maximum accessibility, allowing students, teachers, and mentors to join from anywhere in the country. The core challenge for participants is to ideate, design, and build prototypes that offer tangible solutions to real-world problems. These solutions must be aligned with four pivotal national themes that encourage self-reliance and indigenous innovation. The themes are Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India), Swadeshi, Vocal for Local, and Samriddh Bharat (Prosperous India).

To fuel the competitive spirit, a substantial prize pool of Rs 1 Crore has been allocated. The awards are structured in a tiered system to recognize and celebrate talent at multiple levels, making the goal of winning feel achievable for students from every corner of the nation. The recognition will be distributed among 10 national-level winners, 100 state-level winners, and 1,000 district-level winners. This structure ensures that outstanding ideas are identified and rewarded from the ground up. As this massive innovation marathon unfolds, the nation watches with anticipation to see the blueprints for a self-reliant India being built by its next generation of leaders.

The Viksit Bharat Buildathon 2025, India's largest school hackathon, has been launched to engage over one crore students from classes 6 to 12.

The initiative, organized by the Ministry of Education and NITI Aayog, aims to foster a culture of innovation and practical problem-solving.

Participants will develop solutions based on key national themes like Atmanirbhar Bharat and Vocal for Local.

A substantial prize pool of Rs 1 Crore will be distributed among winners at the national, state, and district levels to incentivize broad participation.