Hefty-Hacks

Hefty Hacks is a fully-online Finance × Trading hackathon presented by TechZap. Over one intense sprint, engineers, quants and designers turn market chaos into working product — trading systems, market predictors, fintech, risk engines, DeFi and everything in between. Pick a niche. Go absurdly deep. Ship something the street hasn't seen yet. Exclusive Career Opportunity: The Top 10 teams will get a chance to participate in direct hiring rounds with leading companies and fast-growing startups. Selection for interviews and hiring is solely at the discretion of the participating companies and subject to their individual eligibility criteria and recruitment policies. Finance. Trading. Innovation. — one laptop, a thesis worth defending, and 36 hours to prove it. The markets never sleep, and neither do great builders. Hefty Hacks challenges you to build at the intersection of finance and trading — from high-frequency execution engines to market predictors, robo-advisors, fraud radars and on-chain quant tooling. There's one rule that decides winners: go narrow. Anyone can build "a trading app." The teams that win pick a niche so specific it sounds obsessive — then own it. 100% Online — hack from anywhere in the world Teams of 2–6 — no solo entries; finance is a team sport Final Hack Day: 31 Oct – 1 Nov — a 36-hour build sprint ₹75,000 prize pool + free Azure credits + elite mentorship Build on either track — or fuse them into something nobody has shipped yet. 01 · Finance Reinvent how money moves, grows and stays safe — on-chain or off. Payments, lending & neo-banking Personal finance & wealth autopilot Fraud, AML & risk intelligence Insurance, credit scoring & RegTech Decentralized finance (DeFi) — on-chain lending, tokenization & protocols 02 · Trading Turn market microstructure into a working edge. Algo, HFT & execution engines Futures, options & derivatives tooling Market prediction & alt-data signals Backtesting & portfolio optimization 03 · Fusion (the boldest bets score highest) Combine both tracks into something genuinely unique. Sentiment-to-signal fintech apps On-chain quant & DeFi execution Embedded trading inside consumer finance Your own uncharted crossover Bring the idea. Let AI sharpen it. Generating your idea straight from an AI is strongly discouraged — judges can smell a generated pitch, and a borrowed thesis has no conviction behind it. Instead: 1. Pick a niche narrow enough to defend in one sentence. 2. Write your own thesis first — the bet nobody else is making. 3. Use AI to attack it: what breaks, what's been tried, what's missing. 4. Refine, prototype, and ship the version only your team could build. Your niche, AI's leverage. Originality is the edge we score for. Timeline Phase | When | Milestone ---|---|--- 01 | 06 Jul | Registrations Open — lock your team of 2–6 | 02 | 10 Oct | Idea Submission — one crisp problem, one bold bet | 03 | 15 Oct | Soft Shortlisting — shortlisted teams unlock mentorship + Azure credits | 04 | 18 Oct | Mentor Matching — get paired with operators, quants & founders | 05 | 25 Oct | Prototype Checkpoint — show a working core | 06 | 31 Oct – 1 Nov | Final Hack Day — 36 hours, ship the build | 07 | 1 Nov | Demo & Judging — pitch live to the panel | Everyone starts on the same floor. Submit your idea, clear the first soft shortlisting, and the war room opens: Mentor matching with people who've shipped in markets Free Azure credits dropped straight into your build Prototype reviews to stress-test your thesis before the clock really starts Demo-day prep to sharpen the pitch until the numbers speak for themselves How We Judge Originality of the niche — how sharp and defensible is the bet? Technical depth — did you actually build the hard part? Working demo — does it run and hold up under questions? Market insight — do you understand the problem you're solving? A sharp, unique idea executed well beats a broad idea half-built. Presented by TechZap Hefty Hacks is built and run by TechZap — bringing builders together to disrupt finance. Build. Innovate. Disrupt. ---