It began with a simple idea.

What if a hackathon didn’t end with demos and applause, but with real outcomes?

That idea turned into Hacktimus 2025, a week-long build sprint that brought together aspirational engineers, practical issues and a hiring-first mentality. For all those involved, what transpired over the course of seven days was intense, cooperative and incredibly fulfilling.

Setting the direction early

From the earliest planning discussions, Hacktimus was designed with intent. The goal was to ensure participants weren’t experimenting in isolation but building with clarity around real product workflows. Boltic, Fynd's automation platform that helps developers in connecting services, automating tasks and building workflows without worrying about backend infrastructure, was positioned as the core platform. With participants encouraged to design automation-led solutions using serverless architectures and real integrations.

This clarity helped shape everything that followed, from learning modules and mentorship to evaluation criteria and final outcomes.

Theme and direction

Human–AI collaboration was the theme of the hackathon, encouraging participants to create solutions that blended artificial intelligence and human judgment. This theme allowed for flexibility in use cases and implementations while offering a distinct direction.

Preparing builders before the build

To avoid friction and dropouts during the event, Hacktimus implemented a mandatory pre-hack learning period. Participants had to complete organized lessons from Fynd Academy that covered the Fynd ecosystem, Boltic fundamentals, serverless best practices and example project walkthroughs.

Live training sessions and technical Q&A sessions ensured that participants joined with a common foundation of knowledge. The hackathon week itself was able to concentrate on building rather than onboarding.

Aligning expectations

It marked the official start of Hacktimus 2025. More than 200 participants joined both on-site and online to kick off the week. The session focused on setting expectations, walking through the event structure and validating development environments.

The opening address from Fynd’s leadership played a key role in setting the tone, emphasizing execution, learning and ownership. Participants also engaged in initial idea discussions and mentor introductions, ensuring they were ready to move into the build phase with confidence.

Participation at a glance

Hacktimus 2025 saw strong participation from engineering students. The event received:

• 755 registrations from across India, including top engineering institutions
• 212 attendees (55 in-office + 157 online)
• 118 selected for the 7-day build phase

A week of building and iteration

Participants went on to the week-long build phase after the start. With ongoing mentor help, they started putting their solutions into practice while working independently. The focus remained on major backend automation with Boltic, aided by serverless architecture and clear connectors.

A prototype checkpoint throughout the week worked as a vital filter. It was expected of participants to 

• show deployment progress
• functional prototypes 
• clear utilization of Boltic workflows

This checkpoint reduced the pool to those prepared for the last stage and assisted in keeping serious contributors.

The final stretch

The final stage brought together 38 participants for an intense 24 hours build and polish sprint. During this phase, builders focused on 

• refining their solutions
• improving user experience
• fixing issues 
• preparing documentation and demos

The evaluations highlighting solutions

Submissions were evaluated based on their architecture, utilization of Boltic workflows, depth of execution and presentation clarity.

• 7 finalists were selected from among these submissions to show their work to the judges
• 5 winners were chosen following extensive reviews

The competition at this stage was fierce, reflecting the quality and depth of work created during the week.

Beyond winners: Real outcomes

Hacktimus 2025 delivered results that went beyond awards and rankings. 

Key outcomes from Hacktimus 2025:

• Increased hands-on adoption of Boltic
• Multiple production-ready solution concepts
• Identification of nearly 15 potential hires for future roles

Further, several solutions built during the event showcased practical use cases for Boltic, offering valuable insights into how developers interact with automation workflows and where future improvements could be made.

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Curious how these solutions were built? Learn more about Boltic and how it enables automation across real use cases

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The people who made it possible

Fynd’s leadership played a crucial role throughout Hacktimus 2025.

• Founder Farooq Adam’s speech energized the participants, while Co-founder Sreeraman Mohan Girija joined the last day to deliver awards. Throughout the planning and execution phases, our CXOs or C suite leaders from Fynd continued support during both planning and execution

• Lead Partner Trainer Diwakar Prithviraj & Program Manager Raghav Mehra made a substantial contribution to the event's preparation, organization and execution, providing flawless coordination and team cohesion

• The design team created the event’s visual identity, creatives and participant swag

• The motion team produced the Hacktimus promotional video

• The Webflow team built and maintained a clean, functional website that guided participants throughout the event

• Marketing, events, content, admin, IT and finance teams ensured smooth operations behind the scenes, with WeWork supporting the on-ground setup

• Special recognition goes to our CTPO Jigar Dafda & Developer Experience Manager Vivek Patwari for guiding the initiative from early planning discussions through the final moments of the hackathon

• The DevEx team acted as the backbone of Hacktimus 2025, managing brainstorming, planning, mentorship, reviews, evaluations and day-to-day execution during the event

Looking back

Hacktimus 2025 showed that a hackathon can be more than a short-term experiment. The results? From talent discovery to product adoption, demonstrated the value of planning hackathons with long-term objectives, structure and purpose in mind.

Hacktimus was designed as a build-focused, learning-first hackathon with well-defined objectives, quantifiable success measures, and a concentration on planning and execution.

Build. Automate. Get Hired.

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