Project CodeGen is not about disruption or MVPs. 

It’s about play.

We’re inviting builders to drop the pitch decks and pick up crayons.

This 48-hour hackathon is your chance to build like a kid — weird ideas, silly interfaces, joyful logic.

Make tech feel fun again.

🌈 VIBE + THEME
  • Inspired by notebooks, toys, science fairs
  • Feels like: building with Legos, drawing in class, early Scratch projects
  • Serious design allowed. Serious tone? Nope.

You’re not building for VCs. You’re building for your younger self.

👾 WHO SHOULD JOIN?

  • Teen builders
  • First-timers
  • Designers + no-coders
  • Scratch veterans
  • Makers who like bright colors, fun ideas, and zero stress

    🧪 HOW IT WORKS
    1. Think of a playful idea (the sillier the better)
    2. Build a working version or prototype in 48 hours
    3. Prototype should be made within the hackathon time-period
    4. Submit your work with a short write-up
    5. Optional: add a 1-min fun demo video

    Examples:

    • A chatbot that gives advice as a pirate
    • A Pomodoro app that screams at you
    • A game where the tutorial is more fun than the game
    • A tool that turns your voice into emojis 

      Results will be annouced during the Grand Indian Hackathon Ceremony (November)
      Timeline
      Date Event
      Oct 11, 12 AM IST Hackathon Begins
      Oct 12, 11:59 PM IST Hackathon Ends
      Nov 2025 Results Ceremony
🌏 Part of the Grand Indian Hackathon Season

This hackathon is part of the Grand Indian Hackathon Season (GIHS) — a three-month sprint featuring 10 unique hackathons.

All prizes feed into an ever-expanding season-wide prize pool, currently at ₹17,00,000+. Each hackathon has its own winners and shoutouts, but the bigger rewards are revealed at the Grand Indian Hackathon Ceremony in November, where the best projects from across all events are celebrated together.

Because the prize pool grows as we bring in more partners, sponsors, and communities, we encourage participants to join the Discord server for the latest updates on prizes, collabs, and surprise drops throughout the season.

Requirements

  • Link to prototype (GitHub, Notion, Figma, no-code, etc.)
  • Write-up:
    • What were you trying to build?
    • Why is it playful?
    • What’s surprisingly smart about it?
  • Optional 1-min demo video (can be silly or rough)

Hackathon Sponsors

Prizes

₹ 166,000+ in prizes
+ other prizes
Doodle Award
1 winner

₹8200 worth of tech credits.
For the project that looks like a doodle in a notebook brought to life — messy, silly, but charming in its own way. Winners get a certificate, Maximally platform shoutouts, and an optional LOR.

Toybox Surprise
1 winner

₹8200 worth of tech credits.
Awarded to the most unexpected, random idea — the one nobody thought of but that feels like finding a weird toy at the bottom of the box. Winners get a certificate, a Maximally feature, and the option of an LOR

Scratch Spirit Badge
1 winner

₹8200 worth of tech credits.
This award honours the best beginner project, built in the spirit of Scratch or early coding — scrappy, colourful, and full of learning energy. Winners get an official certificate, Maximally-wide shoutouts, and an optional LOR.

Joy Factor Mention
1 winner

₹8200 worth of tech credits.
Sometimes the build doesn’t need to be “useful” — it just needs to make people laugh, smile, or say “this is fun.” This award celebrates pure joy. Winners receive a certificate, Maximally features, and an optional LOR.

Kid-at-Heart Recognition
1 winner

₹8200 worth of tech credits.
For the hacker who coded like they were 6 years old but shipped like they were 16 — embracing chaos, fun, and curiosity. Winners earn a certificate, shoutouts across Maximally’s platforms, and an optional LOR.

Big Kid Genius Award
₹ 102,000 in cash
1 winner

For the project that captures pure *childhood wonder turned real*. The kind of thing that feels playful, colorful, and maybe even a little silly — but hides real creativity and clever logic underneath. Whether you built with code, no-code, or pure chaos, this one’s for the dreamers who never grew up.

Perks: ₹3,000 cash,₹1,02,000 worth of tech credits. official Maximally certificate, platform shoutouts, and a personalized LOR on request.

Candy Chaos Trophy
₹ 64,000 in cash
1 winner

Awarded to the build that feels like a *sugar rush in motion* — bright, bold, and impossible to ignore. Think Lego logic, crayon creativity, and playground-level fun, all hacked together with hacker energy.

Perks:₹2,000 cash,₹62000 worth of tech credits. Maximally certificate, social spotlight, and an optional LOR.

Devpost Achievements

Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:

Judges

Rishul Chanana
Founder @ Maximally

Bohdan Churik

Bohdan Churik
Software Engineer at VoiceLove

Ruslan Ibrahimov

Ruslan Ibrahimov
Senior Software Engineer at VoiceLove

Venkataram Poosapati

Venkataram Poosapati
Senior Data Engineer, Atlassian

Prateek Batla

Prateek Batla
Product Manager at Meta

Senthilkumaran Rajagopalan

Senthilkumaran Rajagopalan
Tech Lead Manager, Video Recommendations, Meta

Ashwini Joshi

Ashwini Joshi
Senior Machine Learning engineer @Warner Bros. Discovery

Sahil Deshpande

Sahil Deshpande
Software Engineer @ Meta

Tanmay Kejriwal

Tanmay Kejriwal
Founder @ MakeX

Raja Sekhar Rao Dheekonda

Raja Sekhar Rao Dheekonda
Distinguished Engineer @Dreadnode

Rakesh Pullayikodi

Rakesh Pullayikodi
Staff Software Engineer @ Graphite Health

Shreesh Agarwal

Shreesh Agarwal
Sr Business Analyst, McKinsey and Company

Nikita Klimov

Nikita Klimov
Sr. Software QA Engineer contractor at ADP, Inc.

Vikranth Kumar Shivaa

Vikranth Kumar Shivaa
Founding Engineer @ Fig

Vishal Padh

Vishal Padh
Sr. Software Architect

Sergey Polyashov

Sergey Polyashov
Principal Software Engineering Manager @ Microsoft

Jay rungta

Jay rungta
Engineering Manager @ Google

Ashish Singh

Ashish Singh
Sr. IT Architect @ Global Payments

Sai Charan Reddy Nevuri

Sai Charan Reddy Nevuri
Software Engineer @ AWS

Abhishek Shrivastava

Abhishek Shrivastava
Senior Staff Software Engineer @ Google

Yogiraj Awati

Yogiraj Awati
Engineering Manager@Instacart

Krishna Arjun Saravanan

Krishna Arjun Saravanan
Senior Software Engineer @ Bloomberg

Abhinay Kumar Reddy Seella

Abhinay Kumar Reddy Seella
Sr Software Engineer @ Roku

Jay Bharat Mehta

Jay Bharat Mehta
Senior Software Engineer @ Snowflake

Alexandr Dergunov

Alexandr Dergunov
Software Engineer @Meta

Anastasia Glavatchi

Anastasia Glavatchi
Head of Marketing

Aleksandr Ruban

Aleksandr Ruban
Marketing Expert in the Game Industry

Assiya Jaisheva

Assiya Jaisheva
Design Lead

Aleksandr Karavanin

Aleksandr Karavanin
Production Engineer at Meta

Oleg Skliarenko

Oleg Skliarenko
Co-founder, Chief Product Officer at DRCT

Dmitry Bobolev

Dmitry Bobolev
Founder of Froxy Labs

Sumit Saha

Sumit Saha
Software Engineer at Microsoft

Puneet Ramaul

Puneet Ramaul
Senior Sales Director at HCLTech

Akash Jindal

Akash Jindal
Product Owner at Llyods Banking Group

Karthikeyan Sundaram

Karthikeyan Sundaram
Backend Software Engineer at WithU

Anil Kumar

Anil Kumar
Software Engineer at Paua

Arvind K Gautam

Arvind K Gautam
ASEAN Lead at Avaya

Alexander Rumyantsev

Alexander Rumyantsev
Software Engineer

Konstantin Berezin

Konstantin Berezin
Back End Developer @Rapyd

Judging Criteria

  • Imagination (30%)
    Think unique, create it. Be new, be original.
  • Execution (25%)
    build like playing with legoos, drawing in class, early Scratch projects.
  • Usefulness in Disguise (20%)
    It's playful, it's fun,sure but can it be useful?
  • Presentation (15%)
    Be the master of presentation, but don't forget to not give super serious vibes.
  • Joy Factor (10%)
    Joy, yup, that's important, you get joy from it, people get joy from it.

Questions? Email the hackathon manager

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