One of the world’s largest hackathons—the Smart India Hackathon (SIH) 2025, organized by the Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell (MoE), Government of India and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), commenced on Monday at Vardhaman College of Engineering (VCE), Hyderabad one of the 60 nodal centers nationwide and one of the five centers in Telangana. 

The two-day software and the five-day hardware edition were launched by Prof TG Sitharam, Chairman, AICTE, in a virtual inaugural, in which 8,160 finalists participated from across India. The physical event was inaugurated by Dr Nikhil Kant, Deputy Director, AICTE.  Prof Sitharam termed the students as India’s nation builders and change makers. He further highlighted APF—an initiative supporting engineering students and recent graduates in converting innovative ideas into market-ready products through a fellowship of Rs 37,000 per month and project funding up to two years. 

Dr Nikhil Kant, speaking at VCE, stated that Hyderabad is probably the largest city in India to host SIH across five nodal centers. VCE is hosting 151 finalists working on five problem statements sponsored by the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. The 151 students, divided into 25 teams at VCE were given 5 challenges. A winning team will be selected for each challenge, receiving a cash prize of Rs 1.5 lakh from the Government of Jammu & Kashmir.

Welcoming the participants, Prof JVR Ravindra, Principal & Nodal Centre Head, VCE, remarked, that Smart India Hackathon is not a competition but a contribution to your country. The inauguration at VCE was also graced virtually and physically by Dr Sandeep Shukla, Director, IIIT Hyderabad; Dr Sachin Agarwal from PepsiCo; Purnachander Goli from TCS; Dr Rajender, Dean Academics, VCE and Prof Krishna Chaithanya Janapati, Nodal Centre SPOC. SIH is India’s largest open-innovation platform where students work on real problems submitted by Government Ministries, PSUs and State Governments (this year Jammu & Kashmir.)