IEEE DTU has opened registrations for the Software Track of Vihaan X, the hackathon it describes as North India’s largest student-run event, hosted on campus at Delhi Technological University. Teams of one to four build a working product in a roughly 24-hour offline sprint on 14–15 November 2026, with an online screening round first. Eligibility is wide open (undergraduates, postgraduates, engineering, management and arts, commerce and science students can all enter) and registration closes on 9 November 2026.
Be clear about why this is worth your weekend, because it is not the money. The prize pool is ₹5,000, ₹3,000 and ₹2,000 for the top three teams: split four ways, a winning team member takes home ₹1,250. If you are weighing hackathons by prize value, this one does not pay. What it does give you is an offline build with industry mentors in the room, a judged demo in front of those mentors, and a finished project you can put on a resume and talk about for twenty minutes in an interview. For a second- or third-year student with nothing shipped yet, that is worth considerably more than ₹1,250.
If you want to compare it against what else is running, our Hackathons & Coding Competitions section has the current list.
Register Now — Vihaan X: Software Track, DTU New Delhi
Table of Contents
Quick Overview
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Event | Vihaan X — Software Track |
| Organiser | IEEE DTU (Delhi Technological University student branch) |
| Venue | Delhi Technological University, Delhi — offline finale |
| Team Size | 1 to 4 members (maximum 4) |
| Who Can Enter | UG and PG students — engineering, management, arts, commerce, sciences and others |
| Registration Deadline | 9 November 2026, 11:59 p.m. IST |
| Online Evaluation (screening) | 9 November 12:00 a.m. to 10 November 12:00 p.m. IST |
| Finale at DTU | 14 November 1:00 p.m. to 15 November 5:00 p.m. IST |
| Format | Roughly 24 hours — framed as 8 hours coding, 8 building, 8 debugging |
| Prizes | ₹5,000 (winner), ₹3,000 (1st runner-up), ₹2,000 (2nd runner-up) + certificates |
| Participation Certificate | Yes |
| Registration Fee | Not mentioned in the listing — confirm with the organisers |
| Registration Platform | Unstop |
| Organiser Contact | ieeedtupr@gmail.com |
Two Things to Get Right Before You Register
1. There is a screening round — registering is not attending
This is the detail most people skim past. Vihaan X Software Track is not open-entry to the venue. Everyone who registers first sits a general online evaluation between 9 and 10 November, and only shortlisted teams are invited to DTU for the finale on 14–15 November. If you were planning to register and then start thinking about it in the second week of November, you will have already missed the round that decides whether you get in.
2. The registration deadline collides with the screening round
Look carefully at the two timestamps. Registration closes at 11:59 p.m. on 9 November. The online evaluation window opens at 12:00 a.m. on 9 November and closes at 12:00 p.m. on 10 November. In other words, the screening round starts a full day before registration technically closes, so a team that signs up at the last legal minute has roughly twelve hours of the window left, and no margin if something goes wrong.
Treat 8 November as your real deadline. Register with a few days in hand, confirm all four members are on the Unstop team entry, and be ready to attempt the evaluation the moment the window opens rather than at the end of it.
The Schedule, and What “24 Hours” Actually Means
| Stage | When | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Registration closes | 9 Nov 2026, 11:59 p.m. | Entries shut on Unstop |
| Online Evaluation | 9 Nov 12:00 a.m. – 10 Nov 12:00 p.m. | General online round to shortlist teams |
| Finale Day 1 | 14 Nov, from 1:00 p.m. | Teams build, from core features to a working prototype |
| Finale Day 2 | 15 Nov, around 10:00 a.m. | Projects evaluated and judged |
| Final Round | 15 Nov, until 5:00 p.m. | Top teams pitch and demo to industry experts; winners announced |
Now do the arithmetic the listing does not do for you. The finale window runs from 1:00 p.m. on 14 November to 5:00 p.m. on 15 November: twenty-eight hours on paper. But judging begins around 10:00 a.m. on day two, which means your actual building time is closer to twenty-one hours, not twenty-four, and certainly not twenty-eight. The last seven hours are evaluation and pitching, not development.
The practical consequence is simple and it is the single most useful thing in this post: plan to be feature-complete and demo-ready by 10:00 a.m. on 15 November, not by 5:00 p.m. Teams that pace themselves against the end of the event instead of the start of judging are the ones demoing a half-working build. Work backwards from 10 a.m., leave the last two hours before it for nothing but fixing what breaks, and freeze new features well before that.
Tracks and Domains
You pick one of nine problem domains:
- HealthTech
- FinTech
- Education
- Web3 & Blockchain
- E-Sports
- Women’s Safety
- Security
- Sustainability
- Open Innovation
The presence of Open Innovation matters more than it looks. It means you are not forced to bend an idea you already care about into a category that does not fit, which is where a lot of hackathon projects lose their coherence in the first three hours. If you have a half-built side project in a domain nobody listed, Open Innovation is your route in.
The organisers describe the track as covering everything from AI-powered platforms and full-stack web apps to mobile and system-level solutions, and emphasise shipping real products rather than prototypes. If you are still assembling the skill set for that, our full stack development roadmap is the most direct preparation for a web-app build, and the Git and GitHub roadmap is worth an evening before the event: four people committing to one repository under time pressure is where a surprising number of hackathon teams actually lose hours. For the AI-heavy domains, our breakdown of the skills required for AI/ML jobs as a fresher covers the ground the mentors will probe.
How Projects Are Judged
The organisers publish five criteria: innovation, functionality, user experience, scalability and real-world impact. That list is worth reading as a strategy document rather than a formality.
Most teams optimise hard for the first two: a clever idea with as many features as they can cram in. The marks are quietly lost on the other three. User experience means a judge should be able to use your app without you narrating over their shoulder; a rough but coherent interface beats a powerful one nobody can navigate. Scalability means you can answer “what happens at ten thousand users” without inventing an answer on the spot: have a real one, even if it is just “the bottleneck is here, and I would fix it this way”. Real-world impact means you can name who specifically uses this and what they do today instead.
The honest advice for a 21-hour build: ship fewer features that actually work. Three solid flows that demo cleanly will outscore eight half-wired ones every time, and they will survive the questions afterwards.
Who Should Enter?
- Students in Delhi/NCR who can get to the DTU campus for a full overnight event without logistics being a problem
- Second- and third-year students with nothing substantial shipped yet. This is one of the fastest ways to get a real, demoable project with your name on it
- Teams that already exist and have built something together, even badly. A team that has shared a repository before will outperform four strangers of equal skill
- Non-CS students. The eligibility explicitly covers management, arts, commerce and science students, and a team of four with someone who can actually design a flow and present a pitch is better balanced than four backend developers: given that user experience and impact are both judged
- Anyone who wants direct mentorship from industry experts, which is the part of this event that costs nothing and is hardest to get elsewhere
- Students who learn by building under pressure rather than by course-following
Who Should Skip It?
- Anyone entering for the prize money. ₹10,000 total across three teams is a token, not a payout, and you should go in knowing that
- Outstation students for whom the trip is a stretch: the listing mentions no travel or accommodation support, so budget for both before you commit
- Complete beginners who have not yet built a small working project end to end. A 21-hour sprint is a bad place to learn your first framework; you will spend the night fighting setup instead of building
- Anyone who cannot do a genuine overnight. This is an offline, continuous event, and performance on day two depends on how you handled the night
- Students who already have a clashing commitment on 14–15 November: note that these are the same dates as the NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 at NIT Raipur, so if both were on your list, you are choosing between them rather than doing both
- Teams hoping to arrive with a finished product. Work is expected to happen at the venue. This is a build event, not a submission contest
Prizes and Rewards
| Position | Reward |
|---|---|
| Winner | ₹5,000 cash + certificate |
| 1st Runner-Up | ₹3,000 cash + certificate |
| 2nd Runner-Up | ₹2,000 cash + certificate |
| All participants | Participation certificate |
The organisers also mention goodies and exclusive rewards for winning teams alongside the cash, without specifying what those are. Treat the certificate and the project as the real takeaway. A participation certificate from a named university hackathon is a small line on a resume; a working project you built in a day and can walk an interviewer through is a whole answer to “tell me about something you have built”: and that question comes up in almost every fresher software interview. Our guide to the software engineer resume format for freshers shows where a project like this belongs and how to describe it so it survives a screening system.
How to Register
- Open the Vihaan X Software Track listing on Unstop
- Sign in to Unstop, or create an account with your college email ID
- Click Register and either create a team or join an existing one: team size is one to four, and solo entries are allowed
- Make sure every member accepts the team invitation on Unstop before the deadline; an unconfirmed member is not on your team
- Complete the registration well before 9 November: ideally by 8 November, for the overlap reason explained above
- Join the official WhatsApp group linked on the listing page, since that is where the organisers post updates
- Watch for the online evaluation opening at midnight on 9 November and attempt it early in the window, not at the end
- If shortlisted, plan your travel to DTU for a 1:00 p.m. start on 14 November
Important Links
| Resource | Link |
|---|---|
| Register (Unstop) | Vihaan X: Software Track — Unstop listing |
| Delhi Technological University | dtu.ac.in |
| Organiser Help Desk | ieeedtupr@gmail.com |
About Vihaan X and IEEE DTU
Vihaan is the hackathon run by the IEEE student branch at Delhi Technological University, and this edition is billed by its organisers as North India’s largest student-run hackathon. The Software Track is one of its tracks, focused on building digital products (web, mobile, AI and system-level) in a compressed overnight format with mentorship from industry professionals throughout.
One standing caution for student events generally: registration for this one runs through Unstop and the organisers list a public help desk email. No legitimate student hackathon asks participants to pay an individual for a guaranteed shortlist, a problem statement in advance, or a prize. If anyone contacts you with such an offer, verify it against the official Unstop listing and the organiser email before responding.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Can non-engineering students participate in the Software Track?
Yes. The eligibility covers undergraduate and postgraduate students across engineering, management, and arts, commerce and sciences. For a team being judged on user experience and real-world impact as well as code, a non-technical member is genuinely useful rather than a liability.
Q. Can I participate alone?
Yes. Team size is listed as 1 to 4 members, so solo entries are permitted. In a 21-hour build judged on functionality and presentation, though, a team of three or four has a real structural advantage.
Q. Is Vihaan X online or offline?
Both, in sequence. The screening evaluation on 9–10 November is online. The finale on 14–15 November is offline at the Delhi Technological University campus in Delhi, and only shortlisted teams are invited.
Q. Is there a registration fee?
The listing does not mention one. Since no fee is stated, assume there is none, but confirm with the organisers at ieeedtupr@gmail.com before registering if it matters to you.
Q. What is the prize money?
₹5,000 for the winner, ₹3,000 for the first runner-up and ₹2,000 for the second runner-up, with certificates at each position and a participation certificate for everyone. The organisers also mention goodies and other rewards without specifying them.
Q. How much time do we actually get to build?
The finale window is 1:00 p.m. on 14 November to 5:00 p.m. on 15 November, but judging starts around 10:00 a.m. on the second day. That leaves roughly 21 hours of building time, so plan to be demo-ready by 10 a.m. rather than by the closing time.
Q. Do we need a finished idea before the event?
The domains are published in advance, so arriving with a chosen domain, a sketched idea and your development environment already set up is a clear advantage. Actual building is expected to happen at the venue during the event.
Q. Is travel or accommodation provided?
Nothing about travel or stay is mentioned in the listing. Outstation participants should budget for both and confirm arrangements with the organisers before committing.
Source & Verification
- Source: Official Vihaan X: Software Track listing on Unstop, hosted by IEEE DTU, Delhi Technological University
- Organiser Contact: ieeedtupr@gmail.com
- Last Checked: 4 October 2026: listing live, registrations open, no registration fee shown
Disclaimer: FreshersJob4U is not affiliated with IEEE DTU, Delhi Technological University or Unstop. This post is informational and compiled from the official listing as it stood on the date noted above. Dates, format, prizes and eligibility can be revised by the organisers. Verify all details on the official Unstop listing before registering.
Engineering graduate and founder of FreshersJob4U. I write detailed job guides, interview prep resources, and career roadmaps for freshers and early-career professionals in India. This site started from my own experience with the scattered, confusing fresher job search — I wanted to build something cleaner.