−320 M · MESOPELAGIC · THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Down here, things
make their own light.
Sunlight gives out around 200 metres. Below that, everything you see is bioluminescent — built, not borrowed. These are the nights that were won, not just attended.
−420 M · SPECIMEN 01
1st place · Gen-AI domain
CodeStorm 2026 — first light
Lanternfish — travels in shoals, lights the way for others
A national hackathon at Narsimha Reddy Engineering College, January 2026 — first place in the Gen-AI domain, built and shipped inside the event's own clock.
- Competed and placed first against teams building across every AI track, not just one narrow category.
- ₹5,000 prize — the kind of hackathon where the judging panel actually pushed back on the architecture.
Gen-AI01/2026₹5,000
−640 M · SPECIMEN 02
Top 10 of 1,866+
Drishti-Ne — the deep field
Comb jelly — near-invisible until it catches the light just right
An AI innovation challenge run by IIM Shillong, February 2026 — a national field of over 1,866 registrations, and a top-10 finish out of all of them.
- Business-school-run challenge — judged as much on viability and pitch as on the engineering underneath it.
- The scale of the field is what makes this one count: 1,866+ teams entered, ten made the final cut.
AI InnovationIIM Shillong02/2026
−940 M · SPECIMEN 03 · FLAGSHIP
1st place
WebNova — Convergence 2025
Anglerfish — carries its own light where nothing else survives
A web development competition at the Institute of Aeronautical Engineering's Convergence 2025 — first place, built and defended live in front of a panel.
- Full build-and-defend format: ship it, then explain every decision under direct questioning.
- ₹5,000 prize, and the first of what became a run of first-place finishes through 2025–26.
Web Dev11/2025₹5,000
