Isourse Technologies hosted the grand finale of AlgosQuest’25, its flagship national hackathon at New Delhi, bringing together young innovators from across India to solve real-world industry challenges across artificial intelligence, economic modelling, and enterprise technology.
The event saw participation from leading industry experts and policymakers, with Arvind Kumar, Entrepreneur Educator at Stanford University, USA, Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship at ABVSME, and Placement Cell Director at JNU, present as the Chief Guest, underscoring the growing intersection of technology, data, and policy in India’s innovation landscape.
Now in its third edition, AlgosQuest is designed to bridge the gap between academia and industry by presenting students with real, unsolved business and technology problems. The competition primarily attracts participants aged 20–22, including final-year undergraduate and early postgraduate students, placing them at the intersection of academic learning and professional readiness.
Unlike conventional hackathons that focus on theoretical challenges, AlgosQuest centres on real, enterprise-grade problem statements with direct industry relevance.
The event saw participation from a distinguished jury panel comprising leaders from industry and consulting, including Puneet Chhabra of PepsiCo, Abhineet Sood of Alvarez & Marsal, Akshay Kashyap of NatWest Group, Nilabh Kumar of Gartner, along with other experts from technology, consulting, and policy domains.
Following a rigorous national selection process, six finalist teams from cities including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Kolhapur advanced to the grand finale, representing leading engineering institutions across the country.
The competition saw Team NullPointer from KIT’s College, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, emerge as the winner for its solution ‘SoMail’ under the Smart Email Solutions category.
Team Dhurandhars from K.J. Somaiya, Mumbai, secured the first runner-up position for ‘NOVA’, developed under the AI Employee Insights problem statement, while Team Cipher from Amity University, Bengaluru, was named second runner-up for its ‘AI Email Assistant’ solution addressing smart email automation.
Commenting on the initiative, Raj Kumar Banerjee, Founder and Managing Director, Isourse Technologies, said:
“AlgosQuest is built on the idea that when young talent is given real-world problem statements, the solutions they create go beyond theory and become immediately applicable. What stood out this year was not just participation, but the level of execution, with teams building solutions across AI, economic modelling, and enterprise systems that closely mirror real industry challenges.”
He added:
“What we are seeing here is not just participation, but execution at a level that closely mirrors industry environments. These teams are working with technologies like AI, economic simulation, and distributed systems to solve problems that companies actively face, which significantly shortens the distance between academic learning and real-world impact.”
Adding to this, Puneet Chabra, Associate Director (Program Management & Product Delivery) at Pepsico said:
“The ability of students to engage with complex domains such as economic modelling, workforce analytics, and enterprise automation at this stage reflects how rapidly talent in India is evolving. Platforms like AlgosQuest are playing an important role in preparing this next generation to contribute meaningfully to real-world decision-making and industry needs.”
The solutions presented at the finale reflected a strong alignment between academic learning and real-world industry needs, with several teams developing working prototypes across three key problem areas.
These included AI-powered employee insights platforms designed to help organisations predict burnout, identify high-performing talent, and improve workforce retention; smart email automation solutions that use natural language processing and large language models to prioritise communication, extract actionable tasks, and streamline workflows; and economic policy simulation tools based on Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling, enabling users to analyse how policy changes can impact sectors, employment, and overall economic output. Together, these solutions highlighted how India’s next generation of innovators is increasingly equipped to address complex, real-world challenges.
AlgosQuest’25 is further strengthened through its academic collaboration with SARC, IIT Bombay, which served as the knowledge partner during the initial rounds, ensuring technical depth and evaluation rigour.
Participants competed for cash prizes exceeding ₹2.2 lakh, along with opportunities for pre-placement offers from industry leaders present at the event.
Beyond competition, the initiative positions itself as a talent pipeline, connecting emerging technology professionals with real-world opportunities. By combining industry-relevant problem statements with hands-on solution development, AlgosQuest continues to evolve as a platform for innovation, collaboration, and early career acceleration.
