Over 10 million school students of classes 6 to 12 attended two-hour long live tinkering innovation session as part of Viksit Bharat Buildathon (VBB), 2025, inaugurated by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi, officials said on Monday.
Students from over 300,000 schools across the country worked in teams of three to five to ideate and design innovative solutions and build prototypes around four themes — vocal for local; ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India); ‘swadeshi’ (indigenous); and ‘samriddh Bharat’ (prosperous India) — in India’s largest synchronised innovation hackathon for school students, the education ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry, the highest participation came from Uttar Pradesh, with students from 78,206 schools joining the live event, followed by 41,198 Maharashtra schools and 20,017 Gujarat schools.
VBB 2025 is a joint initiative of the department of school education and literacy (DoSEL) under the education ministry and NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), aimed at encouraging students to ideate, design, and build prototypes of the products in alignment with the vision of Viksit Bharat (developed India) at 2047.
During his address to the inaugural session, Pradhan said, “I am confident that the innovative ideas germinated from here will pave the way for creating new global models and finding solutions to pressing domestic and global challenges. A Viksit and Samriddh Bharat will be built on the shoulders of our talented school students.”
{{/usCountry}}During his address to the inaugural session, Pradhan said, “I am confident that the innovative ideas germinated from here will pave the way for creating new global models and finding solutions to pressing domestic and global challenges. A Viksit and Samriddh Bharat will be built on the shoulders of our talented school students.”
{{/usCountry}}During the inaugural session, Pradhan also interacted with the students of PM SHRI Government High School, Khorda, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He also visited Delhi Public School, Mathura Road, and PM SHRI Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 2 in Delhi Cantt. to interact with students and teachers, and observed a range of innovative student projects. He also sat in a Class 1 classroom among the students and “learnt” the art of numbers.
Sanjay Kumar, secretary, department of school education and literacy, ministry of education, said in his address that this one-of-a-kind movement would enhance the learning capabilities and will strengthen the innovative approach of students.
Schools can submit their entries on the VBB portal till October 31, which will then be evaluated by a panel of experts from November 1 to December 31, followed by the announcement and felicitation of top teams in January 2026. The Union education ministry has announced a ₹1-crore prize pool to reward the most creative and impactful entries, including 1,000 district-level, 100 state-level, and 10 national-level winners.