Cognizant will launch its third edition of Technoverse Hackathon 2026 in May.
The event will go from a regional initiative into a national platform, bringing together over 20,000 pre-final year engineering students from over 400 colleges across India to collaborate, innovate and demonstrate their AI-powered problem-solving skills.
Rajesh Varrier, President, Global Operations and Chairman and Managing Director, Cognizant India, said the company is deeply committed to developing the next generation of talent that will drive this transformation.
The platform will provide India’s brightest engineering minds an opportunity to analyse real industry challenges, think at an enterprise scale and take their first steps toward becoming the technology leaders of tomorrow, he said.
The hackathon offers students a unique opportunity to bridge academic learning with real-world applications, work on industry-aligned problem statements, engage directly with practitioners from Cognizant, and gain firsthand exposure to explore innovation.
Participants will build solutions across banking, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, retail, manufacturing, communications, media and technology, and energy and utilities.
In line with the company’s commitment to inclusion across its India operations, the hackathon reinforces equal representation with 50 per cent women participation.
Each participating college may field multiple teams of four members each, with a minimum of two women per team. The top three teams will be named winners at a felicitation ceremony hosted at a Cognizant facility in Pune.
As part of its broader commitment to empowering individuals with cutting-edge technology skills, including generative AI, Cognizant launched Synapse in 2023 — a skilling initiative that has already surpassed its original goal of upskilling one million individuals worldwide, well ahead of its 2026 target. Building on this momentum, the company has set a new goal to upskill a total of two million individuals by the end of 2030.
Published on April 20, 2026