Deep Hackathon 1.0

Deep Hackathon 1.0 is open to all college students pursuing undergraduate, postgraduate, or doctoral degrees in any discipline. While technical skills are beneficial, we encourage students from all backgrounds to participate as diverse perspectives lead to innovative solutions.

You can participate individually or form teams of up to 4 members. Cross-institution teams are welcomed and encouraged!

Thanks to our generous sponsors, there is a minimal registration fee of ₹500 per team. This fee helps cover part of the event expenses, including meals, accommodation, and event materials. We believe this small investment ensures committed participation.

Limited fee waivers are available for students who may need financial assistance. Please contact us at support@deephackathon.org for more information.

Participants should bring:

• Laptop with charger
• Student ID card
• Personal toiletries
• A change of clothes
• Any specific medication you might need
• A spirit of innovation and collaboration!

We'll provide accommodation, meals, Wi-Fi, power outlets, and basic stationery. If you have specific hardware or software requirements for your project, please let us know in advance.

Projects will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Innovation (25%): Originality and creativity of the solution
• Technical Complexity (25%): Implementation quality and technical depth
• Impact & Practicality (25%): Real-world application and potential impact
• Presentation (25%): Quality of the demo and project explanation

Each track will have specific evaluation metrics that will be shared at the beginning of the hackathon.

Deep Hackathon 1.0 offers a prize pool of over ₹1,00,000, distributed across various categories:

• Overall Winner: ₹30,000 + Internship opportunities
• 1st Runner-up: ₹20,000 + Internship opportunities
• 2nd Runner-up: ₹10,000
• Track Winners (5): ₹5,000 each
• Best Freshman Team: ₹5,000
• Innovation Award: ₹5,000
• People's Choice Award: ₹5,000

Additionally, all participants will receive certificates, and selected teams may receive incubation support for their projects.

No, all projects must be developed entirely during the 48-hour hackathon period. You can come with ideas and discuss concepts beforehand, but no code or design work should be started before the official kickoff.

You may use open-source libraries, frameworks, and publicly available APIs. However, you must disclose all such resources used in your project documentation.

We offer various sponsorship tiers with different benefits. To discuss sponsorship opportunities, please contact Yaqoob Shaikh at contact@mercyfoundation.org or visit our Sponsors section.

Sponsorships can be monetary or in-kind (providing services, products, or expertise). We're open to customizing sponsorship packages to meet your organization's objectives.

Participants retain full intellectual property rights to their projects. However, as part of the registration, teams agree to make their projects available as open source for educational purposes.

Promising projects may receive:

• Incubation support through partner organizations
• Mentorship to further develop the solution
• Connections to potential investors or industry partners
• Opportunity to present at future Mercy Foundation events