Famous Hackathons That Every Engineering Student Must Participate In!

If you daydream of making a prototype or an application, then you are meant to be a part of the hackathon especially designed for engineering students. The word 'hackathon' is often correlated with coding challenges. But it's way more than coding. A hackathon is a big innovative competition where engineering students come together to pitch their ideas to solve real-life problem statements. Though hackathons are open to all, a few of them are meant primarily for engineering students.

Here is a list of Hakcahtons in 2022 that you must not miss out on- Updated: Upcoming Hackathons 2022 Every Engineering Student Must Know!

Why should you participate? A hackathon brings more opportunities to you as many recruiters offer internships/ full-time opportunities to fresh talented engineering students via these competitions. It is an awesome way of getting exposure to show off your talent and to meet and network with the right people to get either internships or full-time job offers in your desired company. 

If you are also an engineering student who is seeking detailed insights into these hackathons, you’ve landed at the right spot. Here are the four corporate-organized hackathons for engineering students and working professionals that you need to know before you participate in them.

Uber HackTag

Uber believes in hunting for exceptional talent by giving them complex problems and to do so the company hosts its annual hackathon Uber HackTag. Uber Hacktag brings real-world experience to engineering students & working professionals through its hackathon as they go on a journey of building valuable products.

Conducted usually between February and March, the competition invites registrations from students and working professionals of engineering background degree holders B.Tech./ B.E./ M.Tech./ M.E. (all years) across branches.

• The three-round competition structure includes an online coding challenge, prototyping at the ideation stage, the grand finale to create the best working solution to the problem. 
• This year the winning team won cash prizes ranging from INR 2,10,000 to INR 3,50,000 
• There are chances that the company will hire talented students for internships or full-time jobs at Uber.

Uber recently conducted Uber HackTag 2.0, a cash pool prize of INR 5 lakh, and PPI opportunities for internships and full-time roles up for grabs.

Myntra HackerRamp

Myntra is an undoubted leader in the fashion e-commerce industry. It is a place surrounded by tech enthusiasts to nurture futuristic technologies to revolutionize the e-commerce industry. Myntra conducts its hackathon HackerRamp at the beginning of every year. For the year 2021, it brings the HackerRamp WeForShe hackathon campaign.

• This year the competition is open to female candidates with an engineering background.
• The four-round competition starts from the ideation phase, moves to giving life to an idea, creating a working model, and finally pitching the idea. 
• This year the cash rewards range from INR 25,000 to INR 1,00,000
• Pre-Placement Interview (PPI) opportunities for teams that make it to pre-finale and certificate of merit and participation. 

Myntra through the WeForShe campaign, is inclined towards creating equitable growth for women. It brings opportunity for all women coders from engineering colleges across the country to create and innovate through technology. 

Flipkart GRiD 

Flipkart brings opportunities for budding engineers via Flipkart GRiD calling for smart innovators to ideate, innovate and solve live problem statements by applying their technical knowledge.

• Invites students pursuing B.Tech/B.E./M.Tech programs across selected engineering colleges in India.
• Participants go through four to five rounds and work on problem statements to create the prediction model.
• Winners get Flipkart EGVs starting worth from 1,50,000 
• PPIs for tech Internships and full-time roles are offered.

Flipkart hackathon helps in instilling the entrepreneurial spirit in the engineering community as it believes in novel innovations that benefit society at large. Flipkart GRiD 4.0 culminated in August 2022, where the winner had the opportunity to walk away with a prize pool of INR 4.5 lakhs and get exciting career opportunities.

Optum Stratethon

Optum, part of United Health Group Family is the world’s leading healthcare products and services innovation brand. It brings Stratethon, a strategy competition for high-performing students of B-schools and E-schools.

• Open for participation to full-time B-Schoolers and E-schoolers.
• Comprises of the preliminary phase, the second preliminary and grand finale
• There is a different preliminary stage for business and engineering students.
• Winners and first runner-up get cash prizes of INR 2,00,000 and INR 1,00,000 respectively
• Offers pre-placement interviews from the company.

Stratethon hackathon brings imaginative thinkers to fully optimize the technologies to provide modern and smarter integration strategies to streamline operations for a better healthcare ecosystem. Optum Stratethon 3.0 gave participants of the E-Track the opportunity to showcase their talent and walk away with a pool prize of USD 9700 and bag PPI opportunities. 

Conclusion 

Undoubtedly, hackathons are fun but they are grueling too as they will challenge you to the core. It is all about creating and thinking of undefeatable ideas and pitching them to the panel of judges by explaining what you did, why you did it, how you came up with this idea, and why it would be great to implement your idea, ultimately showing the reach and value of your solution. 

Interested in being a part of such hackathons? Check out the below articles for more interesting reads on hackathons:

1. Hacks to help you crack your first Hackathon!
2. What it takes to become the National Winners of Optum Stratethon -By Team Symbi Ideators from SIBM Pune
3. Flipkart GRiD 2.0; Robotics Challenge with an exciting payload!
4. How a coding challenge got me an internship at Myntra -By Biswajit Nayak from NIT Rourkela