Hackathon New Delhi: Build AI Agents, ship by EOD

Register via Luma: https://luma.com/xmn74jyd

Four hours. One working agent. A real problem worth solving.

This is a builder-first, in-person hackathon from Elastic x GDG Cloud New Delhi supported by community partner KNOTIC. The premise is simple: you've got your coding agents, Elastic, GCP Cloud services and a 4-hour build window. The plumbing is no longer the hard part, judgment is.

When you arrive, you'll pick from a set of curated problem themes, all rooted in things New Delhi actually deals with every day. Civic services. Commute. Housing. Health. Things that affect real people. We'll reveal the themes in person so the playing field is level: nobody pre-builds, everybody starts from the same line.

This is not a workshop. There are no step-by-step tutorials. Mentors are around when you're stuck, but the direction is yours. Solo or team, beginner or advanced, the only rule is: ship something that adds value and with solution.

Why problem-first

Most hackathons measure tool fluency. This one measures judgment. With coding agents in the room, anyone can wire up a vector index in 20 minutes. The hard part is knowing what to build, where to find the data, how to cite it, and how to make an agent that earns a real user's trust. That's where the four hours actually go.

Bring your own data — no starter pack

We won't hand you a pre-staged index. Find your sources, ingest them properly, cite them, credit them. Part of the judging is whether you treated the data and the people behind it with respect.

What to bring

Your laptop. An open mind. A coding assistant subscription if you have one (Claude, Cursor, Codex, Kiro, Copilot, bring your own). Energy.

What's on the line

₹30,000 in swags. Food and coffee on us, served at your desk so you don't lose build time. And bragging rights for shipping something that actually matters.

See you at 09:00 IST.

Requirements

Each submission must include:

1. A working demo. Live, hosted, or recorded but it must run. No demo, no judging.

2. A short write-up covering:

  • Which theme you picked (revealed in person)
  • The specific problem you targeted
  • The data sources you used, with links and credit to the original publishers
  • Which Elastic and GCP components you used, and where they fit in your architecture
  • One paragraph on what's hard about this problem that an off-the-shelf chatbot wouldn't get right

3. A code repository (public or private with judging access). Solo or team, doesn't matter, judging is on outcome, not team size.

4. An architecture sketch. A diagram, a whiteboard photo, a Mermaid block in your README, anything that shows the data flow.

5. Proper Citations of the resources, give appropriate credits where its due. Also, when your agent answers, it must cite where the answer came from. Hallucinations get docked.

Optional but encouraged:

  • A 60–90 second demo video
  • A short list of what you'd build next if you had two more days

Submission deadline

15:30 IST sharp. Submissions close on the dot, judges need 60 minutes before winners are announced at 15:30 to 16:00 IST.

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

1 non-cash prize
Prizes Based on Themes
1 winner

Total Prize Pool - ₹30,000 in swags.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Judge 1

Judge 1
Elastic

Judging Criteria

  • Real-world Impact and relevance
  • Data effort
  • Elastic usage
  • GCP Usage
  • Actionability & Security Practices
  • Demo quality & Storytelling

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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