Theme Open theme · AI for real problems
Build agents, automation and LLM apps that solve real problems, in any domain you choose.
Registration closes in
15 Nov, 11:59 pm IST
Overview
Edition 01 of the Homingo Hackathon is a national-scale AI Engineering hackathon for students and early-career developers across India. Build agents, automation and LLM apps that solve real problems, in any domain you choose, then get judged, mentored and rewarded by people who ship AI for a living.
Online · open to all of India. Take part solo or in a team of 2–4.
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Tracks
Autonomous agents that plan, use tools and finish real tasks end to end.
Judging focus
Pipelines and workflows that take busywork out of real operations.
Judging focus
Products built on large language models, shipped for real users.
Judging focus
Timeline
1 Oct – 15 Nov 2026
Sign up solo or with friends. It takes a few minutes and your progress is saved on your device.
What you do
1 Oct – 15 Nov 2026
Sign up solo or with friends. It takes a few minutes and your progress is saved on your device.
What you do
1 Oct – 18 Nov 2026
Go solo or build a team of 2–4. Create a team to get a code, or join one with a code a friend shares.
What you do
21 Nov 2026
A live online kick-off. Problem statements are released.
What you do
21 Nov – 6 Dec 2026
Build your system. Mentors check in with teams to unblock you and sharpen your approach.
What you do
4 Dec – 6 Dec 2026
Submit from your dashboard before the deadline (the team captain submits for a team): a public GitHub repository and a short demo video; a live link is optional, and so is a short deck. AI tools are allowed.
What you do
7 Dec – 12 Dec 2026
The judging panel reviews every submission against the criteria and shortlists finalists.
What you do
19 Dec 2026
Finalists demo live to the judges, online. Everyone can watch.
What you do
21 Dec – 31 Dec 2026
Winners are announced, certificates are issued and perks are shared.
What you do
Prizes
Recommendation Certificates from SurgeLabs for the top 3.
Winner
₹5,000
First runner-up
Recommendation Certificate
Second runner-up
Recommendation Certificate
Everyone who submits gets a verifiable participation certificate. Certificates & perks
Mentors
Build with AI for a living? Guide the next generation of AI engineers, online and at your own pace.
Become a mentorRules
Also read the code of conduct.
Judging
Problem fit & impact
Does it solve a real problem for the people who have it, and does it matter?
Technical depth
Quality of the AI engineering: orchestration, tool use, data and architecture.
Reliability & evaluation
How you measured it: tests, evals, guardrails and graceful failure.
Product & experience
Is it usable, clear and well thought through for the people who would use it?
Demo & communication
A clear demo video that shows the project working, and a live presentation.
FAQ
30 questions
General
Homingo Hack Days, the Homingo Hackathon, is an online, national-scale AI Engineering hackathon series for students and early-career developers across India. You build agents, automation and LLM apps that solve real problems, in any domain, and get judged, mentored and rewarded by people who ship AI for a living.
General
Yes. Entry is free, whether you take part solo or in a team. There is no registration fee.
General
The hackathon is part of the Homingo family and is powered by SurgeLabs, an AI and IT consultancy.
General
Yes. Every phase runs online, including the finals and demo day, so you can take part from anywhere in India.
General
Yes. If you’d like to bring the hackathon to your campus, apply for the campus ambassador role on the Campus ambassadors page. Your own referral link arrives straight away. Ambassadors get early access to new Homingo products, active ambassadors receive a campus ambassador certificate, and every confirmed registration through your link counts towards the public referral leaderboard, where the top three ambassadors are named.
General
Write to us at official@homingo.co.in. For a change to your registration, write from the email address you registered with.
Eligibility & teams
College students, school students and early-career developers based in India. You don’t need to be in college: the education details on the form are optional. If you’re under 18, you need a parent’s or guardian’s consent to register. Each edition’s rules are on its page.
Eligibility & teams
Yes, school students are welcome. If you’re under 18, a parent or guardian needs to give their consent before you register; the Terms explain how it works.
Eligibility & teams
Yes. Take part solo or in a team of 2–4. Everyone registers individually, then creates or joins a team.
Eligibility & teams
When you register, either create a team (you get a team code to share with teammates) or join one with a code someone shares with you. If you registered solo, you can do either later from your dashboard. A team can add members until it has 4, until team formation closes on 18 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Once you are in a team, you cannot switch to another. A solo participant can create or join a team.
Eligibility & teams
Yes. Register solo now. You can still join a team with a code later. A team can add members until it has 4, until team formation closes on 18 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Once you are in a team, you cannot switch to another. A solo participant can create or join a team.
Eligibility & teams
Yes. From your dashboard you can create a team and share its code, or join a team with a code. A team can add members until it has 4, until team formation closes on 18 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Once you are in a team, you cannot switch to another. A solo participant can create or join a team.
Registration
Open the Register page and fill in the form: about you, education, team, track and skills, links, then review. It’s free, it takes a few minutes, and your progress is saved on this device until you submit.
Registration
Registration for Edition 01 closes on 15 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Each edition’s timeline shows every key date, and the countdown on the home page always shows the next one.
Registration
For Edition 01: registration closes on 15 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST, and team formation on 18 Nov 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Kick-off, with the problem statements, is on 21 Nov 2026 at 10:00 am IST, and the build starts then. The submission window runs from 4 Dec to 6 Dec 2026, 11:59 pm IST. Shortlisting runs from 7 to 12 Dec, finalists demo live online on 19 Dec, and results are announced on 21 Dec 2026.
Registration
On your dashboard. Log in with the email address you registered with, and My hackathons shows your ticket, your team, your submission, and later your results and certificates.
Registration
Yes, until kick-off. Write to us at official@homingo.co.in from the email address you registered with.
Tracks & building
Agents, Automation and LLM apps. All three are AI Engineering: you ship working systems on real problems, not slides.
Tracks & building
Edition 01 has an open theme: AI for real problems. Build in any domain you choose, within your track.
Tracks & building
At kick-off on 21 Nov 2026. You can also bring your own problem within your track. Until then, the practice statements are open questions to explore, and the Tracks page has examples of the kind of problems to expect.
Tracks & building
Yes, and you’re welcome to use them extensively: AI coding assistants, APIs and open-source models are all allowed. List what you used in your README, and make sure you understand your code and can explain it to the judges.
Tracks & building
No. Choose your experience level when you register. Mentors check in with teams during the build phase.
Submission & judging
A public GitHub repository with a README and a short demo video that shows your project working; a live link is optional, and so is a short pitch deck. You build from kick-off on 21 Nov, then submit from your dashboard (the team captain submits for a team) in the submission window, 4 Dec – 6 Dec 2026, 11:59 pm IST, and can edit it until the deadline. AI tools are allowed.
Submission & judging
The submission window opens on 4 Dec 2026 and closes on 6 Dec 2026, 11:59 pm IST. You submit from your dashboard, and you can edit your submission until the deadline.
Submission & judging
No. You submit a public GitHub repository and a short demo video; a live link is optional. The video is a short screen recording that shows your project working, shared as a link (for example YouTube, Loom or Google Drive with link sharing on). If your project is deployed, add the live link too.
Submission & judging
The judging panel reviews every submission against the published criteria and shortlists teams for the finals, where they present live at the online demo day.
Submission & judging
Judges are announced before kick-off.
Prizes & certificates
The winner gets ₹5,000. The top 3 teams (winner, first runner-up and second runner-up) each receive a Recommendation Certificate from SurgeLabs, and everyone who submits gets a participation certificate. There are perks too; see the Prizes page.
Prizes & certificates
Everyone who submits a project gets a participation certificate. In a team, the captain submits for the team and every member of that team receives a certificate. Every certificate has a unique ID and a QR code that anyone can verify, so you can add it to LinkedIn.
Prizes & certificates
Scan the QR code on the certificate, or enter its ID on the Verify page.