Applications Open for Vishwakarma Awards 2026 – Deadline Extended to September 20

Ashoka University is anchoring a theme track at this year's Vishwakarma Awards, India's National Hardware Innovation Challenge for STEM and Design Students, instituted by the Maker Bhavan Foundation in partnership with IIT Indore and IIT Hyderabad. Now in its 5th edition, this year's challenge is shaping up to be the largest yet, and the application deadline has been extended to September 20, 2026 (11:59 PM), giving interested students more time to apply.

Teams of 2 to 5 students, across Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD programmes, are invited to apply. Multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. Selected teams will spend the next several months building a working, demonstrable hardware prototype addressing one of nine themes spanning health tech, sustainability, AI in manufacturing, and more. Ashoka is proudly anchoring three of these themes: Physical AI for Resilience & Inclusion, Frontier Diagnostics: The Next Vital Signs, and HCI 2.0: Designing Interaction Beyond Chat. Teams are free to apply to any of the nine themes, including the six anchored by IIT Indore and IIT Hyderabad.

An added incentive for Ashoka applicants: winners across the various themes will get a direct shortlisting into the next round of TechSparks, organised by the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Ashoka Innovation Hub – giving Vishwakarma winners a head start into Ashoka's own innovation and entrepreneurship pipeline.

No prototype is required at the application stage – only an idea. The application is free of cost, and students may submit multiple ideas, across multiple themes, and be part of multiple
teams.

Winning teams in each theme will receive cash prizes of ₹2,00,000 for first place, ₹1,00,000 for second place, and ₹50,000 for third place, along with a ₹30,000 prototyping grant awarded to every finalist team.

For any questions or help forming a team, students may reach out to the Makerspace team at makerspace@ashoka.edu.in

Apply Now: www.vishwakarma-awards.org