TechZap Presents
FINANCE · TRADING · INNOVATION
00 · The Brief
Hefty Hacks by TechZap is a fully-online sprint where engineers, quants and designers turn market chaos into working product — across trading desks, fintech and DeFi. Pick a niche on the Finance and Trading tracks, go absurdly deep, and ship something the street hasn't seen yet.
No auditorium, no dress code — just a laptop, a thesis worth defending, and 36 hours to prove it.
TECHZAP · PROMISSORY NOTEHH · 2025 · ₹75KTECHZAP PROMISES TO PAY THE WINNING TEAMS THE SUM OF SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND RUPEES
01 · The Tracks
Two tracks, one bold instruction: go narrow. The teams that win don't build "a finance app" — they build the one weird, sharp thing nobody else dared to.
TRACK 01
Reinvent how money moves, grows and stays safe — on-chain or off.
TRACK 02
Turn market microstructure into a working edge.
TRACK 03 · FUSION
Combine both tracks into something nobody has shipped yet — this is where the boldest ideas win.
02 · Find Your Niche
Anyone can build "a trading app." Winners pick a niche so specific it sounds obsessive — then own it. The sparks below are launchpads, not briefs to clone. Take one, twist it, or ignore them entirely.
Sub-millisecond order routing with a latency budget you actually measure.
An autonomous strategy that survives funding, slippage and a bad night.
Alt-data → signal. Earnings calls, order flow, satellite, sentiment.
Live options pricing and an implied-volatility surface you can feel.
Goal-based investing that rebalances without the ₹1,000-cr minimum.
Catch the anomaly in the stream before it clears settlement.
DeFi arbitrage, yield routing, MEV-aware execution across pools.
A personal-finance agent that negotiates, sweeps and never forgets.
Asking an AI to hand you a hackathon idea. Judges can smell a generated pitch, and a borrowed thesis has no conviction behind it.
Start from your own insight, then use AI to pressure-test it, explore edge cases, prototype faster and refine the rough edges. Your niche, AI's leverage.
03 · The Pot
Real cash, split across the top five teams — plus free Azure credits and mentorship for everyone who clears the shortlist. Trade sleep for equity in yourself.
1st · Champion
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2nd · Runner-Up
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3rd · Second Runner-Up
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4th · Finalist
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5th · Finalist
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Every shortlisted team gets
Cloud, ML and data services to power your build — on the house.
Operators, quants and founders in your corner after shortlisting.
Verified recognition for every participant who ships.
Get seen by the people who hire, fund and build in fintech.
04 · After the First Cut
Everyone starts on the same floor. Submit your idea, survive the first soft shortlisting, and the doors open: elite mentorship and free Azure credits land in your team's corner to turn a sharp idea into a shipped one.
Backed By
The platforms and partners fueling Hefty Hacks — from applications to Azure credits.
Want to back the next class of finance builders?Become a sponsor →
05 · The Timeline
Every milestone is a candle. Ride the trend from registration to payout — the market closes green.
Lock your team of 2–6 and claim your slot on Devfolio.
Last call. Teams must be registered to be eligible for shortlisting.
First cut based on idea proposal. Shortlisted teams unlock mentorship + Azure credits.
Mentors help you refine your build, validate assumptions and provide feedback.
Show a working core. Mentors stress-test your assumptions, The 2nd cut is made here.
36 hours. Ship the build. Trade sleep for signal.
Pitch live to the panel. Defend the numbers, own the vision.
Winners announced. ₹75,000 will be distributed within 2 weeks. Markets close green.
06 · The Fine Print
Everything you'd read in the terms & conditions of a note you'd actually want to hold. Entry is absolutely free. Still stuck? Ping us below.
A fully-online hackathon by TechZap built around one theme: Finance × Trading. You pick a niche — trading systems, market prediction, fintech, risk, DeFi — and ship something real over the event window.
100% online, end to end. Register, get mentored, hack, and demo from anywhere. All you need is a laptop and an idea worth building.
Yes — Will be disclosed soon. This small fee helps ensure serious entries and cover event costs.
Between 2 and 6 members. No solo entries — finance is a team sport. Mixed-skill teams (builders + quants + designers) tend to go furthest.
₹75,000 in cash split across the top five teams, plus free Azure credits to build your hack and elite mentorship for shortlisted teams.
After the first soft shortlisting. Clear that cut and you're matched with mentors — operators, quants and founders — and handed Azure credits to power your build.
Generating ideas straight from AI is strongly discouraged and hurts you in judging. Bring your own thesis, then use AI to refine, pressure-test and accelerate it. Originality is the edge we score for.
No. Curiosity beats credentials here. Plenty of past winners were engineers who fell down a markets rabbit hole a week before. Pick a niche, go deep, and let mentors fill the gaps.
Anything on the Finance and/or Trading tracks — HFT engines, futures bots, market predictors, robo-advisors, fraud detection, and decentralized finance (DeFi & on-chain) tooling. The strongest entries combine tracks into something genuinely unique.
Whatever you're fastest in. Python, Rust, TypeScript, C++, Solidity — your call. Azure credits mean cloud, ML and data services are on the table.
On originality of the niche, technical depth, working demo, and market insight. A sharp, unique idea executed well beats a broad idea half-built.
07 · Open a Position
Sponsorship, press, a question the FAQ didn't cover, or you just want to tell us your niche is the best one — the desk is open.
EMAIL THE DESKadmin@hefty-hacks.techThanks — your inquiry is in the book. We'll get back to you at the email you provided.
The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.
Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
The four most dangerous words in investing are: ‘this time it’s different.’
The best way to predict the future is to build it.
Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
It’s not whether you’re right or wrong, but how much money you make when you’re right.
In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.
The trend is your friend — until the end when it bends.
Know what you own, and know why you own it.
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary.
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.
