Code for a Billion: Bharat Agentic AI Hackathon 2026

Code for a Billion is a 90 day online hackathon run by Code for India, a civic tech nonprofit. Teams build AI agents that work as open digital public goods. The total prize pool is ₹18,00,000, given out per track or category. First place gets ₹1,50,000, second place ₹1,00,000 and third place ₹50,000.

There are also sponsor awards for the best use of AgentFoundry agents and the best xSpan CareHub integration. Standout projects can get a fast track into the Code for India open source incubation program.

The page says anyone, anywhere can take part. Students, professionals and indie developers can enter alone or in a team. You choose your own problem inside one of ten areas: education, sanitation, waste management, clean air, clean water, health, timely justice, transport safety, livelihood for people without formal education, and tech jobs for young people.

To enter, sign up on AgentFoundry.me and create your project in its IDE, then register with Code for India on the hackathon registration page. Projects are submitted through a GitHub issue form linked on the hackathon page.

The hackathon started on 15 August 2026. Submissions close on 15 November 2026, and winners are announced on 5 December 2026. Judges give equal weight to four points: how big the problem is, how severe it is, the quality of the solution, and proven impact from real deployment data.

Quick answers

Who owns the code?

Projects are released under Apache 2.0 or MIT in the Code for India GitHub organization so NGOs and government bodies can adopt them. You keep attribution as a contributor.

Does the project have to be live?

Yes. Projects must be deployed on any cloud and open sourced by 15 November, and real deployment data counts in judging.

Does it cost anything?

No. Entry is free, and each participant gets 1 million smart code tokens on AgentFoundry.me.