We had a chance to host Build India Hackathon in partnership with Anthropic, Replit and Lightspeed in Bengaluru on 15th February 2026.

For a long time, building meant writing logic, connecting APIs, designing interfaces, and hoping users would adapt to the product. Now, intelligence is part of the foundation. Small teams can build things that once required serious scale That shift is still unfolding, and no one has fully figured it out yet. And that’s what makes the present interesting.

Build India was a focused sprint with dedicated hours to think clearly, build seriously, and ship something real using Claude and Replit. It was about building something beyond a mockup, something that functionally works.

What followed was an 7 hour hackathon of teams working with AI to build something for India and from India.

Setting the Stage

Starting from builders showing up at 8:00 AM for registration, the day kicked off with a fireside chat featuring Irina Ghose (Managing Director, Anthropic India), Jeff Burke (Replit), and Hemant Mohapatra (Partner, Lightspeed India).

Their keynote went beyond generic AI hype: they discussed how Anthropic and Replit are collapsing the gap between ideas and production software, what it really takes to move from chatbots to reliable agents, the metrics that predict whether an AI product will stick, and why India’s developer ecosystem is now central to that future.

They also shared their views on where AI is still too brittle to be trusted without human oversight, and what would make a weekend hack at Build India feel like the seed of a real company rather than just a clever demo and just after few session from Anthropic and Replit the hackathon started.

The Build Hours

As the opening wrapped and the timer began, ideas went up on a shared tracking board. Teams posted what they were building and updated their progress in real time.

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Then laptops flipped open, Idea board filled up, and the entire venue settled into deep focus. Builders locked in fast. From solo devs with laser-sharp prototypes to full teams debugging across three terminals, the room was alive with intent.

People of Build India

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Team members from Anthropic and Replit were present throughout the day, helping teams troubleshoot, refine prompts, and push their builds further. Credits from both platforms were provided so participants could fully experiment without constraint.

The feedback was direct and practical, often sparking the kind of small insight that completely changes a product’s direction.

Prize Breakdown

The prize pool was divided between cash awards and platform credits.

🥇 First Prize
- Cash Prize: $2,500
- Credits from Anthropic: $7,000 worth
- Credits from Replit: $7,000 worth

🥈 Second Prize
- Cash Prize: $1,500
- Credits from Anthropic: $5,000 worth
- Credits from Replit: $5,000 worth

🥉 Third Prize
- Cash Prize: $1,000
- Credits from Anthropic: $3,000 worth
- Credits from Replit: $3,000 worth

Winning Projects

🥇 Grand Prize ($16,500) - Chat2cash by @swayyaam
Millions of small businesses rely on WhatsApp for sales, but most still manage orders manually. Chat2Cash helps them turn chats into invoices, tracked payments, and recovered revenue.

🥈 First Runner-Up ($11,500) - Claude clip by @adithya_s_k and @spratyey
ClaudeClip is a video editor where AI and humans co-edit together: you describe the video you want, Claude assembles a first cut from your footage with text, clips, and graphics, and you fine‑tune it on a familiar timeline.

🥉 Second Runner-Up ($7,000) - AI Battle Royale by @ArshanKaudinya
AI Battle Royale is a competitive arena where LLM agents fight to survive, exposing their real-time strategic reasoning under pressure. It transforms response speed, spatial tactics, and survival decisions into a live, interpretable benchmark for multi-agent AI behavior.

Check out the rest of the projects here → buildindia2026.devfolio.co/projects

👀 What’s Next

📸 Photos!
The full event gallery can be found here: Build India 2026
And the BTS will be dropping soon on Devfolio’s X.

Relive the energy, spot your team, and share your favorite moments!

Keep Building

Build India 2026 ran on energy you could feel in the room. The focus, the last minute pivots, the random sparks of clarity. It all added up to something special.

Maybe you shipped something you are proud of. Maybe you hit a wall and learned more than you expected. Either way, that momentum is real. The ideas you started here do not have to end here.

Keep iterating. Keep testing. Keep talking to the people you met this weekend. The best part of any hackathon is not just what gets submitted. It is what keeps growing after everyone goes home.

When the next Build India opens, you will hear from us first. Until then, we will keep sharing updates, builder spotlights, and new opportunities to jump into. If you are already thinking about your next challenge, explore what is live on Devfolio at devfolio.co/discover.

If you built something during the hackathon, post it on X and tag us. We would love to see what you shipped.

Until next time,
Never Stop Building

P.S. - We’d like to give a special shoutout to all the contributors for helping make Build India 2026 a smooth and seamless experience.