On 1st February 2025, I served as one of the lead organizers for the Abhyudaya 25.0 Hackathon, hosted at IIIT Nagpur under Engineering India. The event brought together 100+ student teamsfrom across colleges to solve real-world challenges provided by industry. From early morning venue setup and participant registrations to coordinating volunteers and ensuring every session ran on schedule, I was involved in managing the event from start to finish.
One of my primary responsibilities was overseeing the complete participant journey. This included managing registrations, verification, team onboarding, mentor coordination, handling last-minute changes, resolving operational bottlenecks, and ensuring seamless communication between participants, volunteers, judges, and organizers. Working alongside multiple organizing teams taught me how to execute large-scale events under pressure while maintaining a smooth experience for everyone involved.
The hackathon featured 16 real-world industry problem statementscontributed by HCLTech. During the first round, teams presented their solution ideas before experts from the Vishwamanthan Research Foundation, after which shortlisted teams spent the rest of the day transforming their concepts into working prototypes. Coordinating technical evaluations, judging sessions, presentation schedules, and logistics while keeping the event running on time gave me invaluable experience in leadership, event management, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration.
Looking back, Abhyudaya 25.0 was far more than just a hackathon it was my first opportunity to organize an event at this scale. It strengthened my ability to lead teams, make quick decisions under pressure, communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders, and execute complex operations with confidence. The experience fundamentally shaped how I approach leadership and project execution today.