Pune's developer scene keeps showing up. Good to see hackathons happening outside the usual Bangalore-Mumbai axis.

#WATCH | India is rapidly emerging as a global innovation powerhouse, moving from adoption to creation across key sectors like AI, semiconductors, deep tech, and digital public infrastructure. Driven by strong policy vision, industry collaboration, and startup momentum, India is bridging critical gaps in R&D, accelerating research timelines, and strengthening intellectual property creation. From DPI and smart hackathons to large-scale industry participation, innovation is now a national mission. With growing global partnerships and a focus on Make in India for the world, India is positioning itself as a key architect of the next industrial and technological revolution. #IndiaInnovation #StartupIndia #DeepTech #AI #Semiconductors #DigitalIndia #MakeInIndia #FutureTech

btw i vibecoded my first project Envoy is my website where i collect all the current ambassador programs (hackathons and other contests are coming soon too) i wanted to make something actually useful for people who want to monetize their X - everything fresh and relevant in one place. That’s how the idea for this little dashboard was born envoyhq.vercel.app/ what should i add to my website?

well no, Its not only about luck, its about the things you do today, the dots gets connected, in first year I participated 20 hackathons, I didn't even qualify for offline rounds but today I am in second year, I won 4 national hackathons in a row, and now intern @ uk startup

the reason most hackathons fail is that they're solving for the prize, not the problem. the mpp hackathon at least lets teams build something that might actually change the game.

Love you bro ❤️ But honesty, I just having the most fun in programming for my whole life since i started building on Cardano. Starting with our Portal solution, build my Catalyst proposal, won 3th & 1th Place in the two Hackathons i participated in. Got the opportunity to talk 1h on the Cardano Foundation Developer Hours about my stuff. Got the chance to contribute in several Open Source Repositories. Don’t know where all the negativity comes from 🤷🏻‍♂️

#WATCH | Friends, this is also a great inspiration for all of you present here. Innovation is in India’s DNA. For thousands of years, India has guided the world through its knowledge and innovation. From mathematics to astronomy, from medicine to yoga—India’s contributions have been a foundation for the progress of all humanity. Today, we have given this legacy new momentum and a new direction. Friends, in the last 11–12 years, India has built a strong ecosystem for innovation. From patent filing to incubation networks, from Startup India to policy support—this entire journey has progressed in mission mode. Today, India is the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. But our thinking is not limited to big cities. We have taken innovation to the grassroots level. Atal Tinkering Labs have been set up in schools. Youth are being engaged through hackathons and innovation challenges. Incubators and research institutions are being expanded across the country. And especially, women innovators are being connected with new technologies. Because of all this, a major transformation is taking place in India. From Drone Didis to startup founders, our women power is writing new success stories: PM @narendramodi @MEAIndia @IndiaembFrance @MIB_India @PIB_India @EduMinOfIndia #BharatInnovates2026 #PMModiInFrance #IndiaFrance #France

nowadays hackathons are just like token burning competitions

nice.. do checkout hackathons on kaggle.. it will help a lot

People laughed when we said we’d build a casino. Then we won hackathons. Then we got grants. Then we launched products. Then we crossed 1,000 community members. Now we’re becoming one of the most watched launches in GambleFi. 🔥 @movement_xyz Foundation Grantee 🔥 @Aptos Foundation Grantee 🔥 15 Global Hackathon Wins 🔥 Live Product 🔥 $APTC Launching June 15 We’re not launching a meme. We’re launching the token behind an ecosystem. If you’ve been sleeping on AptCasino… This is your final warning. June 15. $APTC enters the market. ♠️ aptcasino.fun ♠️ aptcasino.fun/litepaper ♠️ t.me/apt_casino

🟩 Virtuals vs 🏦Bankr: Which Launcher Is Better for Founders? To be fair, every launcher has its own strengths. Founders choosing between @virtuals_io and @bankrbot should not focus on which platform is "better". The real question is which model fits their goals, fundraising strategy, and long-term vision. 1. Fundraising 🟩 Virtuals: ■ Strengths: Virtuals keeps a large allocation under team control and only adds around 5% of supply into LP at launch. This gives projects a higher starting mc, making them look more established and credible from day one. The ACF mechanism also allows liquidity to be added on the sell side, generating revenue for the team without directly selling tokens into the main pair. As a result, founders have more resources to keep building over the long term. ■ Weaknesses: The model benefits the team more than buyers. Buying is usually easy, but selling large size can be difficult because liquidity remains relatively low. Whales are less willing to enter with large positions when exiting becomes a challenge. A single trade >$5k can create significant price volatility. With low liquidity, projects depend heavily on founder execution. If the team fails to deliver, liquidity risks can become a major issue later on. 🏦 Bankr: ■ Strengths: Bankr uses a fair launch model. All tokens are minted and added to LP from the start, giving everyone the same entry opportunity once the contract is live. Liquidity is always good because LP is locked, cannot withdraw. Founders raise capital mainly through trading fees. These fees are paid in both WETH and project tokens, meaning more volume leads to more revenue and a larger ownership stake for founders. Bankr also has the unique "pls bro" culture. The community actively searches for promising developers, encourages them to launch on Bankr, and delegates fees to them. This creates a strong grassroots system for attracting builders without relying on a large BD team. ■ Weaknesses: The model is highly dependent on trading volume. Once hype fades and the flywheel slows down, fee generation drops quickly. Founders may lose motivation if revenue declines and they do not hold a meaningful percentage of the supply. The "pls bro" culture also creates strong speculative behavior. Many trenches accumulate tokens early while waiting for a developer to accept the project. Once that happens, they often take profits on later buyers. As a result, projects face heavy distribution pressure early on. If they cannot maintain attention or show progress fast enough, they can lose momentum and die quickly. 2. Attention In the current climate of low liquidity and high speculative capital flows, attention is the most important factor in generating volume for a project. 🏦 Bankr: ■ Strengths: @0xDeployer is currently one of the biggest yappers of attention within the Bankr ecosystem and on @base also. A single tweet, quote, or reply can generate significant volume and visibility for projects. Much of Bankr's recent growth has been fueled by his influence and ability to rally the community. For founders seeking rapid growth, this is a major advantage. ■ Weaknesses: A large portion of ecosystem attention is concentrated around one person. If engagement or influence declines, the ecosystem's ability to generate attention could also weaken. 🟩 Virtuals: ■ Strengths: Virtuals takes a more structured approach to ecosystem promotion through weekly updates and project spotlights. This helps projects maintain visibility and build reputation over time. ■ Weaknesses: Virtuals currently lacks a single KOL or personality capable of creating immediate fomo and driving large volumes from retail. Its amplification is more focused on information sharing than creating instant buying pressure. This makes it less effective than Bankr at generating explosive volume. Also, Virtuals has many core members, but some of them sometime promote farm projects, leading to a loss of trust within the community. In terms of generating attention and volume for a project, Virtuals is significantly weaker than Bankr. They often fail to appear at crucial moments when the project needs them, for ex: when a project has a big update. They lack the resources to amplify the information at the peak of organic volume and only release the news later, something they cannot match Bankr in. 3. Infrastructure 🟩 Virtuals: ■ Strengths: After years of development, Virtuals has built one of the most complete agent ecosystems in crypto. Programs and standards such as ACP, ERC-8183, aGDP, Degen Claw, Eastworld, and EconomyOS provide founders with a strong foundation to build on. Teams can leverage existing tools, standards, and networks instead of starting from scratch. Technical contributors like @celesteanglm, @miratisu_ps, @0x02yang... are also known for actively supporting builders. ■ Weaknesses: None tbh. 🏦 Bankr: ■ Strengths: Although Bankr only started building its ecosystem a few months ago, it has already launched initiatives such as hackathons, funding programs, LLM Gateway, and Webhooks. Its execution speed has been impressive. ■ Weaknesses: Its infrastructure is still far behind Virtuals in terms of maturity. Projects launching on Bankr need a clear business model and the ability to operate independently. Success depends more on the founder's own execution than ecosystem support. 4. Case Study I'm not speaking based on emotions, this is number talk. The fundraising difference becomes clearer when looking at two standout projects. @StrikeRobot_ai ( $SR ) on Virtuals > 9 weeks live > $6.73M lifetime volume > Founder receives 70% of trading fees: ~$47k in $cbBTC @AskSurplus ( $surplus ) on Bankr > 3 weeks live > $36.3M lifetime volume > Founder receives 57% of trading fees: ~$207k in $WETH and $surplus Despite receiving a lower fee share, Surplus generated roughly 4.4x more founder revenue than Strike Robot. More importantly, it achieved this in only one-third of the time. This suggests that, today, Bankr provides a much stronger fundraising environment for founders. The combination of attention, community participation, and trading activity creates a powerful short-term capital formation engine. However, this is still a short-term observation. Virtuals has been building its ecosystem for years, while Bankr's ecosystem is only a few months old. The bigger question is not who can generate more revenue in the first few weeks, but which model can continue supporting founders and projects 6 months, 12 months, or even years later. ( personally, it's quite disheartening that I built $CAP @Capminal for 13 months and the fees we earn were only one-third of what a Bankr's project built in 3 weeks earned 😂 ) 5. Conclusion Today, Bankr clearly has the advantage in short-term fundraising. This advantage is gained by leveraging community effort through the 'pls bro' meta and large speculative flows that allow founders to raise significant funds in a short period. Virtuals leveraged community effort during the Virtuals Genesis era, but that meta is now over, and they truly need something different to revive.

ngl nigeria might onboard more users than half these hackathons lol

Hackathons are now just claude prompting battles

Now we need to up the ante and have TOE hackathons.

Govt. Of Pakistan Does Not Have Hackathons Tradition, It Fully Relies On Baboos For Brain Storming & Policy Making, Meanwhile Govt. Jobs Are Not Lucrative Enough For Intelligent People Who Do Not Want To Do Corruption. Announce Monetry Prizes For Problem Solving.

Back in my day, hackathons were just pizza and sleepless nights in a college basement.

That’s all for this time. Thanks again to @payathepapaya @jamdac @zhenthebuilder @MarHershenson @sara_desh @mariusbl @connerphillippi @cirospaciari for judging Took a break from hackathons but will hopefully be posting more this year. Follow @AlexReibman for more

Although I have a strong interest in programming and have worked on programming-related tasks, I have never participated in a hackathon before and have very limited knowledge about how hackathons work.