One day. One idea. One product, live on the internet by the end of it.
Calcutta's AI hackathon for school students, Classes 8 to 12. No prior coding experience required — the mentors on the floor are there to make sure every team ships.
Most students apply with grades, Olympiad ranks and a debate trophy. They have nothing they built.
The strongest applications in the world are not built on marks. They're built on evidence — something made, shipped, and put in front of real people. Students in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore have had access to that for years. Calcutta hasn't.
Your child walks out of this room with a deployed AI product, a live URL anyone can open, and a story only they can tell.
Nobody will explain what AI is to your child. They'll spend the day using it, and finish with a product that works, live on the internet. You can open the link that same night and use it yourself.
The mentors and judges are AI entrepreneurs, ex-consultants, software engineers and business leaders. They sit with the teams all day. Your child gets told what works and what doesn't by people who do this for a living.
Plenty of students score well. Very few can be handed a problem, a blank screen and a deadline, and have something running by evening. That's what colleges and employers are actually trying to find out, and it's the hardest thing to claim without proof.
An activity on the Common App. A supplemental essay. A CV line with a link attached. An answer when an interviewer asks what they've done.
The strongest students are invited into the Builder Program, where the thing they built in a day gets real users and real mentorship behind it. The hackathon is how we find out who's serious.
Internship interviews are offered to members of the winning teams. Placement is subject to the interview and to parental consent. Roles are structured, mentored and remote-friendly, and are scheduled around school commitments.
A founder goes through the same three steps every time: work out what's worth building, build it, then convince someone it matters. There's a mentor in the room for each one.
Finding the problem actually worth solving, and pressure-testing whether anyone would use the thing you want to build. The part most people skip.
What to build and how to build it, with people who ship products for a living — and who make sure nothing ends the day sitting unfinished on a laptop.
Getting the idea across in two minutes: what to lead with, what to cut, and how to hold a room long enough for the work to land. The difference between having built something and being able to make someone care.
Timings are indicative and will be confirmed with every registered team ahead of the day. No prior coding experience required — teams are balanced across product, research, build and pitch, and every team is assigned a technical mentor.
Calcutta's largest AI community — 400+ builders, engineers and founders, led by Sahil Bahety and Swarnim Modi. They bring the technical bench. We bring the room, the mentors and the ladder that follows.
The invented NGO, the bought internship, the certificate from a course nobody finished — it reads as manufactured because it is. We don't do any of that. We put a student in a real room, with real mentors and a real deadline, and they leave with something that works and a link that proves it. What comes back to you is a student with something honest to write about.
Seats can be held for your students ahead of public release — events@thestudentboardroom.com
Yes. Teams are built with mixed skills on purpose — product thinking, research, design and pitching matter as much as code. Nobody builds alone, and every team has a technical mentor.
It's one day. If your child is applying this cycle, this is the fastest available source of an authentic supplemental essay. If they're in Class 8–10, this is the beginning of a profile, not a distraction from one.
Their product will be live on the internet at a URL, working, and open to anyone they send it to. Not a slide deck, not a mockup. We build deployment support into the day so every team gets there.
Yes. Winning team members get an interview — not an automatic placement. Roles are structured, mentored, remote-friendly and scheduled around school. Parental consent is required before any student begins.
Judged by industry, not teachers. Mentored by people who hire. And it ends with something that runs.
Yes — a full day at Open House, AC Market, with mentors present throughout. Drop-off and pickup details go to every registered parent ahead of the day.
₹12,500 plus GST per participant, charged only once a student has been accepted — applying costs nothing. It covers mentorship through the day, materials, deployment support, lunch and certification.
A laptop, a charger, and one problem they think is worth solving. Everything else is provided.
Selected participants are invited into the Builder Program, where the thing they built in a day gets real users and real mentorship behind it.
Forty-five seats, read in the order they arrive. Not ready to apply yet? Leave your details below and we'll keep you posted on this and everything else we run.
Questions in the meantime — events@thestudentboardroom.com