The latest round of Cognizant Technoverse Hackathon 2026 concluded with 62 per cent women participation and over 1,100 out of more than 5,600 teams were women-only in Pune, far exceeding the company’s expectations.
The top five cities by participation were Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Coimbatore and Pune. In line with Cognizant’s commitment to inclusion, the hackathon required a minimum of two women per four-member team.
The hackathon saw participation from over 22,000 pre-final year engineering students, 62 per cent of whom were women, from more than 450 colleges, including IITs, NITs, and IIITs, spanning over 160 cities across India.
The hackathon, which began in April, culminated with 24 shortlisted teams competing in a 24-hour challenge to build and present their Minimum Viable Products to an expert jury. For this phase, Cognizant partnered with AWS to provide students with the necessary environment and tools to develop their solutions.
The winners of the hackathon, Team AeroFyta from Chennai Institute of Technology, were awarded prizes worth ₹3 lakh. The first runner-up, Team Owlgorithms from Techno Main Salt Lake, Kolkata, and the second runner-up, Team Devtronix from Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Coimbatore, received prizes worth ₹2 lakh and ₹1 lakh.
Rajesh Varrier, President – Global Operations and Chairman & Managing Director, Cognizant India, said the company knows that bridging the gap between AI and enterprise value will be possible only when talent advances alongside technology.
With thousands of students from across the country and 62 per cent women participants, the hackathon event stands as proof that India’s engineering talent is not only deep but richly diverse, he added.
Published on May 8, 2026