Published: 23 October 2026
StartupFeed Quick Take
- IIMT University hosts a Hacktoberfest HackDay on October 27, 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM.
- The Fest is one of more than 300 running worldwide this October.
- Teams of 2 to 4 build with open-weight models; ideas close 11:59 PM on October 23.
Hacktoberfest Meerut opens at IIMT University on October 27, a one-day build sprint where student teams ship open-source AI projects in a single sitting.
E-Cell at IIMT University is hosting it. The event’s MLH listing puts the day at 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM in the Seminar Hall, B Block.
More than 300 Fests carry the Hacktoberfest banner worldwide this October. Most Indian ones sit in Bengaluru, Delhi or Mumbai. Meerut sits on this year’s list, in a year when the format changed completely.
Entry is free. The HackDay is open to university students and working professionals, and to people from outside IIMT, subject to campus gate rules.
Why Hacktoberfest Dropped Pull Requests in 2026
Because the old game broke. From 2014 onward, four merged pull requests in October earned a t-shirt. AI writing tools made that easy to fake, and maintainers drowned.
So the event changed hands. DigitalOcean started Hacktoberfest in 2014 and now sits as presenting partner. Major League Hacking and DEV now run it together, for the first time as full partners.
Pull requests count for nothing in 2026. What counts is a project built on open-weight models and open-source AI tools, under the theme “AI belongs to everyone”.
That change is what Meerut is hosting. Teams there may lean on Google’s Gemma 4, an open-weight model MLH has put learning resources behind.
Jess Lee, who wrote Major League Hacking’s announcement of the change, put the reasoning this way:
“We believe open innovation deserves the same priority as proprietary tools”
Jess Lee, who wrote the Hacktoberfest 2026 announcement, Major League Hacking. From the MLH announcement, August 19, 2026.
What Hacktoberfest Meerut Asks Teams to Build
An open-source AI project, and most of it before you arrive. The suggested areas are broad: education, accessibility, healthcare, sustainability, civic impact, Indian languages, and culture.
A team is 2 to 4 members and may enter one idea. The deck must answer one of the problem statements E-Cell has published, or go in marked as original work.
APIs are allowed, but the open-source part has to carry the work. E-Cell says fewer original-innovation ideas get picked, so a listed problem statement is the safer bet.
Sign-up runs in two parts. Every member registers alone on OrganizerHQ, the MLH platform. The team lead then files one Google Form with the deck, a short video and every member’s GitHub profile.
Ideas close at 11:59 PM on October 23, a midnight cut-off. Shortlisted teams hear the same day, by separate email.
Seven published criteria decide the shortlist. Among them: problem relevance, how the idea uses AI, how far it sits inside open source, social impact and a clear MVP.
How the Day Runs at IIMT University
Turn up with it working. E-Cell has said so twice in its own guidelines, both times in bold. The HackDay is for fixing a project you already built.
The guidelines promise about 2.5 hours for debugging. The published schedule is tighter: one two-hour block, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, covering refinement, hosting and submission together.
The 10:00 AM judges session is the part worth arriving early for. Judges tell teams what they want to see before scoring starts, which gives a weak project two hours to become a passable one.
Bring a laptop, a charger, a college ID and a government ID. Have the GitHub repository link and a hosted project link ready before you reach the gate.
| Time | Session | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Until 9:30 AM | Check-in | Check in on OrganizerHQ |
| 9:30 to 10:00 AM | Opening | Judges and sponsors introduced |
| 10:00 to 11:00 AM | Judges session | Judges set out what they want to see |
| 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM | Refine, host, submit | Teams fix the project and file the GitHub repo |
| 1:00 to 2:00 PM | Lunch | Lunch and networking |
| 2:00 to 3:00 PM | Activity and scoring | Judges score while teams take part |
| 3:00 to 4:00 PM | Final presentations | Top teams present to the room |
| 4:00 to 4:30 PM | Awards | Winners get their awards |
| 4:30 to 5:00 PM | Closing | Day ends |
One gap worth a call to E-Cell. The MLH listing runs the day to 6:00 PM, while the schedule above ends at 5:00 PM.
What a Global Fest Does for Meerut
It puts a western Uttar Pradesh campus on a map that usually skips it. Branded developer events cluster in three or four Indian cities. Meerut is not one of them.
E-Cell works alongside the IIMT Business Incubator Foundation, the university’s non-profit incubator. The foundation runs mentoring, funding access and workspace for early-stage teams. E-Cell itself runs meetups, tech talks and hackathons through the year.
The same campus ran DevHack 2026 in September through its Google Developer Group chapter. Two student-run hackathons in two months is a pace most tier-2 campuses do not keep.
Four students are listed as hosts: Sheezan Naseer Bhat, Mohd Kaif, Mukesh Pal and Zoya Naaz. Questions go to ecell@iimtindia.net, and E-Cell runs a WhatsApp community for updates.
What this means for you: If you are a student or working developer in western Uttar Pradesh, this is an official Hacktoberfest Fest within commuting distance of Meerut. Register on OrganizerHQ, have your team lead file the idea form by 11:59 PM on October 23, and bring a working build on October 27.
StartupFeed Insight
The format is the story here, not the turnout. A Fest that asks for a working build at the door, rather than a 36-hour all-nighter, filters for teams that already ship. That suits a campus with an incubator attached and a Google Developer Group chapter already running. The judges session at 10:00 AM is the quiet innovation: feedback before scoring, which is unusual. Watch two things on October 27. Whether E-Cell publishes how many shortlisted teams turned up with a hosted link. And whether any project survives past November as a public repository.
By Sagar Prajapati, Contributing Writer
Disclosure: StartupFeed is a media partner for this event.
Have a tip? Write to us at editorial@startupfeed.in.
Liked this story? Follow StartupFeed on Google so our reporting reaches you first.
