MAXIMALLY STEAL-A-THON is the anti-hackathon where originality is illegal and creativity is criminal. For 24 chaotic hours, your mission is simple: pick a project, steal it, flip it, and ship it.
This isn’t about plagiarism — it’s about remix culture, about seeing what happens when you shamelessly grab someone else’s idea and make it yours. Faster, funnier, bolder, worse — doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not the same.
Think of it as “theft, but with taste.”
By the end, you’ll have something absurd, brilliant, or broken… but yours.
Tagline: Good artists copy. Great hackers steal, make it awesome and ship.
Tone: Mischievous, playful, unashamed.
Visual Style:
- Ransom-note typography
- Sticker-style icons (copy-paste, lightning bolts, lock & key)
- Bright red + yellow + black palette
- Fun chaos, but competition-coded
WHO SHOULD JOIN?- Coders, no-coders, designers
- First-timers who want to join for the fun of it
- People who think “good artists copy, great artists steal”
- Meme builders, indie hackers, and chaos coders.
FORMAT- Start: Nov 9, 12:00 AM IST
- End: Nov 9, 11:59 PM IST
- Solo or teams up to 4
- Global participation
- Any stack, no-code tools, or creative workflow allowed
This hackathon is part of the Grand Indian Hackathon Season (GIHS) — a three-month sprint featuring 10 unique hackathons.
All prizes feed into an ever-expanding season-wide prize pool, currently at ₹17,00,000. Each hackathon has its own winners and shoutouts, but the bigger rewards are revealed at the Grand Indian Hackathon Ceremony in November, where the best projects from across all events are celebrated together.
Because the prize pool grows as we bring in more partners, sponsors, and communities, we encourage participants to join the Discord server for the latest updates on prizes, collabs, and surprise drops throughout the season.
Requirements
- Link to your build (GitHub, Notion, Figma, etc.)
- Link to the original project you based it on
- Short write-up: what changed and why it’s better
- Optional: 1–2 min demo video
Prizes
Judge’s Loot
₹8200 worth of tech credits.
Special recognition from the judges for a project they personally admired — whether for humour, craft, or sheer audacity. Winners get a certificate, social spotlight, and optional LOR.
Copy-Paste Kingpin
₹8200 worth of tech credits.
For the team that leaned the hardest into the spirit of blatant theft-shameless, raw, and hilarious. Winners receive a certificate, Maximally-wide shoutouts, and an LOR on request.
Meme Heist Award
₹8200 worth of tech credits.
This one celebrates the funniest stolen project that instantly turned into meme material. Winners earn a certificate, Maximally features, and optional LOR.
Robin Hood Recognition
₹8200 worth of tech credits.
Awarded to the team that stole something and made it more accessible, useful, or community-friendly — like giving it back to the people. Winners get a certificate, Maximally spotlight, and optional LOR.
The Master Forgery
₹8200 worth of tech credits.
For the project that looked almost identical to the original but with a twist so good it fooled people at first glance. Winners receive a certificate, Maximally shoutouts, and the option to request an LOR.
Grand Heist Architect
Perks: ₹3,000 cash,₹1,02,000 worth tech credits, Maximally certificate, platform spotlight, and a personalised Letter of Recommendation (LOR) on request.
For the hacker who pulled off the perfect digital heist, snatched an idea in plain sight, disguised it beyond recognition, and left everyone applauding instead of pressing charges. A masterclass in innovation laundering.
Copycat Alchemist
Perks: ₹2,000 cash,₹62,000 worth tech credits, Maximally certificate, social features, and an optional LOR.
For the hacker who turned imitation into gold. Took a tired concept, worked some hacker magic, and made it sparkle like new. Proof that originality isn’t about where you start — it’s about how brilliantly you steal.
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Rishul Chanana
Bohdan Churik
Software Engineer at VoiceLove
Ruslan Ibrahimov
Senior Software Engineer at VoiceLove
Venkataram Poosapati
Senior Data Engineer, Atlassian
Prateek Batla
Product Manager at Meta
Senthilkumaran Rajagopalan
Tech Lead Manager, Video Recommendations, Meta
Ashwini Joshi
Senior Machine Learning engineer @Warner Bros. Discovery
Sahil Deshpande
Software Engineer @ Meta
Tanmay Kejriwal
Founder @ MakeX
Raja Sekhar Rao Dheekonda
Distinguished Engineer @Dreadnode
Rakesh Pullayikodi
Principal Software Engineer @Palo Alto Networks
Shreesh Agarwal
Sr Business Analyst, McKinsey and Company
Nikita Klimov
Sr. Software QA Engineer contractor at ADP, Inc.
Vikranth Kumar Shivaa
Founding Engineer @ Fig
Vishal Padh
Sr. Software Architect
Sergey Polyashov
Principal Software Engineering Manager @ Microsoft
Jay rungta
Engineering Manager @ Google
Ashish Singh
Sr. IT Architect @ Global Payments
Sai Charan Reddy Nevuri
Software Engineer @ AWS
Pablo Rios
Software Engineer @ Metal
Abhishek Shrivastava
Senior Staff Software Engineer @ Google
Yogiraj Awati
Engineering Manager@Instacart
Krishna Arjun Saravanan
Senior Software Engineer @ Bloomberg
Abhinay Kumar Reddy Seella
Sr Software Engineer @ Roku
Jay Bharat Mehta
Senior Software Engineer @ Snowflake
Yahor Barkouski
Engineering Lead @ The Network
Alexandr Dergunov
Software Engineer @Meta
Anastasia Glavatchi
Head of Marketing
Aleksandr Ruban
Marketing Expert in the Game Industry
Assiya Jaisheva
Design Lead
Aleksandr Karavanin
Production Engineer at Meta
Oleg Skliarenko
Co-founder, Chief Product Officer at DRCT
Dmitry Bobolev
Founder of Froxy Labs
Sumit Saha
Software Engineer at Microsoft
Puneet Ramaul
Senior Sales Director at HCLTech
Akash Jindal
Product Owner at Llyods Banking Group
Karthikeyan Sundaram
Backend Software Engineer at WithU
Anil Kumar
Software Engineer at Paua
Arvind K Gautam
ASEAN Lead at Avaya
Alexander Rumyantsev
Software Engineer
Konstantin Berezin
Back End Developer @Rapyd
Judging Criteria
-
Boldness of Theft (25%)
Did you snatch that idea with savage confidence or play it safe? -
Execution & Improvement (25%)
You stole it, but did you glow-up the stolen goods or just copy-paste? -
Humor / Branding (20%)
Does it make us LOL and stick in our heads, or nah? -
Creativity in Rebranding (20%)
Can you flip the script so it feels fresh, not recycled? -
Presentation (10%)
Did you sell it like a pro, or drop it like a half-baked meme?
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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