hackCBS - India's Largest Student-run Hackathon

The best mentor conversation we've watched at hackCBS wasn't from a senior engineer with 10 years of experience, it was from someone who'd participated two editions ago. They sat down with a team that was completely stuck, looked at their problem for about 30 seconds, and said "yeah we had almost exactly this issue, here's what we tried." No theory. No best practices lecture. Just someone close enough to the experience that they remembered what it actually felt like to be in that chair at 2am with 6 hours left. That's a different kind of help. and it's hard to get anywhere else. Industry mentors are valuable, we have those too. but there's something specific about being guided by someone who was in your exact position not that long ago. they haven't forgotten the panic yet. That makes them more useful than they probably realize. If you've been to a previous edition of hackCBS, this is an open invitation. Come back. Sit on the other side of the table for a change. The teams this year will be better for it!

hackCBS 2.0 happened when most of this year's participants were probably in middle school. That's a weird thing to sit with. Most college clubs don't survive one leadership transition. The founding batch graduates, institutional memory walks out with them, and the thing quietly dies. It happens constantly. You probably know a club or fest at your college that used to be a big deal and just... isn't anymore. hackCBS is at edition 8. Same college. Still student-run. Still growing. That didn't happen because of any ONE organizing team, it happened because something about this event made people want to come back. As mentors. As volunteers. As sponsors renewing without being chased. That kind of continuity is hard to manufacture. you either build something worth returning to or you don't. We think we have. Eight editions suggests we're not entirely wrong.

Something worth knowing before you apply to hackCBS. The sponsors aren't here just for brand visibility. Base44, Qyrus, Brave, Gigabyte, Intozi and many more. These aren't logos on a banner. They're companies with open roles, actively watching what gets built over the weekend. Hackathons are one of the few places where you skip the resume screen entirely. You just build something in front of people who are hiring. That's a different game than sending applications into a portal and waiting. We've had participants get noticed, get callbacks, get hired. Not because they won (sometimes they didn't), but because what they built was interesting enough that someone paid attention. If you're a student treating hackCBS purely as a competition, you're leaving half the value on the table. The companies figured this out already. Worth catching up!

here's something nobody tells you about hackathon themes. they're not simply categories. they're a map of where the jobs actually are. AI. Web3. FinTech. HealthTech. IoT. EdTech. Cloud. Open Innovation. every theme at hackCBS 8.0 was picked because real companies are hiring in these spaces right now. not in theory, not in 5 years. now! and here's the thing about building in these areas over a weekend vs. listing them on a resume: one of those things requires you to actually know what you're doing. we've seen it play out across editions. a team spends 24 hours building a FinTech prototype. it's rough, it's half-broken, but it's real. that project ends up in a portfolio. that portfolio gets a callback. no internship description does that for you. pick a theme. show up. build something you can point to!

"Wait, it's actually free?" We get that a lot. and yeah, it is. always has been. no registration fee. no hidden costs. just show up. But here's what free actually means at hackCBS: $220,000 in benefits flowing directly to participants. cash prizes. sponsor credits. tool licenses. mock interview access. domain hosting. things you'd actually use for the next year of your career, not just trophy shelf stuff. The model works because everyone's incentives are aligned. students want to build. sponsors want to find people who can build. we just create the room where that happens. nobody's paying to be here but everyone leaves with something. Eight editions of this. still works. If you've been on the fence about applying, this is probably the wrong thing to be on the fence about.

India has always had the talent. What it didn't have was a room where that talent could actually show up, build something overnight, and be taken seriously. That's why hackCBS exists. It started at Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, no corporate money, no institutional push behind it. Just a group of students who wanted the kind of event they'd never gotten to attend. So they built it themselves. Eight editions later, it's grown into India's largest student-run hackathon. Thousands of participants. Multiple colleges. Sponsors who keep coming back not because of obligation but because the talent here is real. And it's still run entirely by students. That part hasn't changed. We're not going to pretend we figured everything out in year one. We didn't. But across 8 years of pulling this off, the chaos, the 2 am problem-solving, watching strangers become teammates, we've learned a few things about what actually makes a builder community work. More on that this month. Stay tuned.

🎤 Speaker Spotlight: punit gupta Meet 𝐏𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭 𝐆𝐮𝐩𝐭𝐚, our Lead Platform Engineer at Qyrus, who’ll be leading a hands-on workshop at hackCBS - India's Largest Student-run Hackathon. In his session, “𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓, 𝑭𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑾𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝑽𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒅𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒕𝒐𝒕𝒚𝒑𝒆,” Punit will dive into the world of API testing showing how qAPI, powered by Qyrus, helps developers and innovators test, automate, and validate their prototypes faster and with greater precision.  Whether you’re debugging your first API or scaling your next big idea, this session is packed with real-world insights and practical takeaways. 📅 Virtual Workshop: Nov 6 | 🕘 9:00 PM IST  📍 Live Workshop: Nov 8 | 🕘5:30 PM IST | Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, New Delhi Get ready to learn, build, and test smarter with qAPI, the smarter way to validate APIs and bring ideas to life.  #HackCBS #Qyrus #qAPI #SpeakerSpotlight #Hackathon #TechnologyPartner #Innovation #Automation #Testing 

Happening Tonight: hackCBS 8.0 Workshop on Prototype Validation with Qyrus Join us this evening for another valuable pre-event workshop as we prepare for hackCBS 8.0. We are honored to host Punit Gupta, Lead Platform Engineer at Qyrus, for an exclusive session on "The Smarter, Faster Way to Validate Your Prototype." This workshop is designed to equip participants with critical strategies for iterating and validating their projects - a key differentiator in any hackathon. Date: TODAY, November 6, 2025 Time: 09:00 PM IST We look forward to welcoming you to this insightful session. #hackCBS #Qyrus #Workshop #Prototyping #Validation #TechTalk #Leadership #Innovation #Networking #StudentOpportunity

Announcing the Qyrus 'Best Use of qAPI' High-Tech Prize Track We are thrilled to announce another exceptional prize track for hackCBS 8.0, focused on innovative API integration and high-value tech prizes. Introducing the "Best Use of qAPI" prize, powered by our valued sponsor, Qyrus. This track is designed to reward the teams that demonstrate the most effective and creative use of the QAPI platform. The prizes for this challenge are: 1st Prize: Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses 2nd & 3rd Prize: boAt Fitness Bands 4th & 5th Prize: 5000 qAPI virtual users'credit This unique prize category is in addition to our ₹1.25L cash pool, $900 Base 44 track, $225 AWS track, and $75 Devfolio Competition, all contributing to our $220k+ in total perks. We extend our sincere gratitude to Qyrus for providing these highly sought-after tech prizes and for investing in our community of innovators. #hackCBS #Qyrus #Sponsor #Prizes #API #Hackathon #PrizeMoney #TechEvent #Innovation #RayBan #SmartTech #Networking #StudentHackathon

Announcing an Exclusive Internship Drive at hackCBS 8.0, Powered by Intozi We are thrilled to announce a significant career opportunity for all hackCBS 8.0 participants. We have partnered with Intozi to host an Exclusive Hiring Drive during the hackathon. This is a prime opportunity for student innovators to connect directly with a cutting-edge company and secure a career-launching internship. Intozi is hiring for two key roles: SDE Intern Marketing Intern This initiative aligns perfectly with our mission to bridge the gap between student talent and industry-leading opportunities. We are immensely grateful to Intozi for their commitment to fostering the next generation of tech and marketing professionals. Prepare your resumes and get ready to showcase your talent. Register to participate: https://hackcbs.tech #hackCBS #Intozi #Hiring #Internship #SDE #Marketing #TechEvent #CareerDevelopment #Networking #StudentOpportunity #Tech #Innovation