October is almost over, but there's still time to ship something and maybe win something. Here's a short list of hackathons in India that were open when I checked (18 Oct 2026).
Deadlines move and listings go stale, so confirm on the official page before you register.
Online (join from anywhere)
- AI for All (Factly x Meta): Nationwide online hackathon with weekly prizes from 8 Oct to 30 Nov 2026. Open to students, startups, and researchers. Themes: data readiness, Indic language enablement, public data extraction, AI for social impact.
- Catalyst Hack 2026: Free, fully online, for student teams of 4 to 5. Three rounds, ₹20,000 prize pool.
- AFFECIO HACKS '26: Free and online, teams of 1 to 4, open to all. ₹10,000 prize pool.
- Hackcache'26: 48-hour online hackathon with four themes and ₹1.13 lakh+ in prizes.
- Multimodal AI Hackathon (IIT Mandi): Hosted by the KamandPrompt club, open across India, ₹1,00,000 prize pool.
Bengaluru and nearby (offline)
- Next Gen Hackathon 2026: 23 to 25 Oct, in person, ₹50,000 prize. The listing I found gave 23 Oct, 5 PM IST as the registration deadline, so double-check it's still live.
- Celestia (Rajarajeswari College of Engineering): Teams of 2 to 4, listed on Unstop with about 12 days left.
- Fullstackathon 2026: 24 to 25 Oct, a 20-hour workshop plus hackathon on full stack development.
Elsewhere (if you can travel)
- HackO'Ween (ALTA School of Technology, Sonipat): ₹200 fee, teams of 2 to 4, closing within days.
- Cypher (JC Bose University, Faridabad): Teams of 3 to 4 for undergrads, about a week left.
Where to find more
- Unstop hackathons: the biggest list, with filters for online/offline and team size.
- Reskilll hackathons: good for online and open-to-all events.
Pick one, form a team (or go solo where allowed), and start building. Good luck!
