Bomb-defusing robot to smart glasses: School students win Viksit Bharat Buildathon

Ten Indian school students emerged victorious as the top national-level winners at the Viksit Bharat Buildathon 2025, showcasing their innovative projects. The Department of School Education and Literacy, in collaboration with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and the All-India Council for Technical Education, organized the hackathon targeting students from Classes 6 to 12 across the nation.

Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary felicitated the winners, emphasizing the importance of nurturing confidence, creativity, innovation, and independent thinking in children to shape them into future leaders. The Buildathon initiative encouraged students to identify and solve problems independently, without predefined ideas or solutions.

The Ministry of Education recorded a record-breaking 2,87,967 project submissions for the competition, entering the Guinness World Records as the largest innovation solution competition. A rigorous three-tier assessment framework evaluated the solutions at district, state, and national levels, with multidisciplinary expert panels.

Ten national awardees, 100 state awardees, and 1,000 district awardees were selected. A total cash prize of Rs 17.50 lakh was awarded to the 10 national winning teams, with each of the five top teams under the prototype track receiving Rs 2.5 lakh for their functional working models. The five winning teams under the idea track were awarded Rs 1 lakh each to encourage the incubation and scaling of their creative concepts.