Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday unveiled ‘Viksit Bharat Buildathon 2025’, a nationwide innovation drive aimed at engaging 50 million students from classes 6 to 12 across more than 300,000 schools.
The joint initiative of department of school education and literacy (DoSEL) under the education ministry and NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is aimed at encouraging students to ideate, design, and build prototypes of the products around four themes — vocal for local, ‘aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India), ‘swadeshi’ (indigenous), and ‘samriddh Bharat’ (prosperous India) in alignment with the vision of Viksit Bharat (developed India) at 2047.
“The viksit Bharat buildathon will strengthen the culture of innovation at the grassroots by encouraging students to ideate and build products on four themes. The initiative will celebrate student innovations, engineer an innovation renaissance in the country, and ensure that the young generations become key drivers of samriddhi, viksit, and atmanirbhar Bharat,” Pradhan said.
Under the initiative, students can register on the VBB portal (https://vbb.mic.gov.in/ ) between September 23 and October 6. Schools will then have a preparation week (October 6 to 13), during which teachers will mentor teams of 5 to 7 students to shape their ideas.
{{/usCountry}}Under the initiative, students can register on the VBB portal (https://vbb.mic.gov.in/ ) between September 23 and October 6. Schools will then have a preparation week (October 6 to 13), during which teachers will mentor teams of 5 to 7 students to shape their ideas.
{{/usCountry}}A live two-hour innovation event is scheduled for October 13 in which students will brainstorm their ideas, after which teams can submit final entries until October 31. Expert evaluation of submissions will take place from November 1 to December 31, and the Buildathon will conclude in January 2026 with the announcement and felicitation of over 1,000 winners.
A prize pool of ₹1 crore has been earmarked for the VBB which will be shared among 1,000 district-level teams, 100 state-level teams, and 10 national winners.
“The buildathon aims to inspire creative thinking for national development, promote self-reliance and sustainable growth, engage schools in synchronised innovation, project India as a global innovation capital through a potential world record, and celebrate young problem-solvers on national and global platforms,” Sanjay Kumar, DoSEL secretary said.