Build Season 2026 · July – September 2026 · Applications open
Build with AI. Win prizes. Stand a chance at a paid fellowship.
A season for people who love to build. Apply in minutes and build from home, winning prizes and Claude Code credits along the way. Standout builders earn a spot at a four-day finale in Dharamshala — and when the season wraps at the end of September, the strongest builders win a paid fellowship. The brief throughout: the best possible uses of AI for real people and real problems — not just another commercial app.
Easy to enter. Earned all the way up.
Why apply
What’s in it for you
A lot to gain, little to lose. Here’s what you walk away with — much of it whether or not you make it all the way to Dharamshala.
A room full of exceptional builders
Real time with ambitious, talented people building with AI — the peers you learn the most from, and friendships that outlast the season.
Mentors and founders in your corner
Office hours, workshops, and design critiques with people who’ve built and shipped — feedback you can’t get from a tutorial.
Real cash prizes, up to ₹1 lakh
Win a Silver tier (₹10k cash), an AI prize (a 3-month Claude Pro subscription), or the Gold tier (₹1 lakh cash) — plus credits and partner perks. Gold and Silver are prize tiers; the reward is cash. Several Silver and AI prizes mean plenty of ways to come out ahead.
A Himalayan finale to earn
Standout builders in the online hackathon are invited to the in-person finale in Dharamshala, Aug 23–26 — a rare experience in a beautiful place; stay, meals, experiences, and a travel stipend (up to ₹20k) covered.
Proof of work for your portfolio
Ship a real, deployed, open-source web app, share your workflow, and get featured to the community — signal that speaks louder than a résumé.
A shot at a paid fellowship
Go the distance and the strongest builders earn three months of funding to turn a prototype into a real product.
Want the hackathon in full detail? See the Hackathon page →
- 1 Apply
- 2 Build & submit
- 3 Earn your seat
- 4 Dharamshala
- 5 Ship for real
- 6 Fellowship
Easy to get started — the application takes minutes. From there, what you build earns each step forward: a seat at the Dharamshala finale, then a shot at the Fellowship.
The whole journey
Four simple phases. One season.
The whole thing is just four phases — here’s each one, start to finish, so you know exactly what you’re signing up for.
Get in
July-
Apply
A lightweight application built to spot motivated builders — not polished résumés. Your name, your links, and why you want to build. That’s it.
Your moveSend a short application. It’s the whole ask to get started.
Apply now → -
Welcome to the season
Accepted builders get an invite, join the Discord, introduce themselves, and finish a quick Builder Onboarding within seven days. You’re officially in.
Your moveSay hi, meet the community, complete onboarding.
Build & submit
Aug 1 – 10-
Build & submit your app
This is where the season really begins. Take an idea off the Idea Wall or bring your own, work solo or with collaborators, and build a real web app — deployed, open source, solving a clear purpose. Build in public and engage daily in Discord.
Your moveShip a working web app, then submit your product and a screencast of how you built it by Aug 10. Submit early — the sooner it’s in, the sooner it can win.
Browse the Idea Wall → -
Selection & invites
We review submissions and, on Aug 13, invite standout builders to the Dharamshala finale. The Silver and Gold cash prizes, and the AI prizes, are decided on the strength of your app, with a follow-up interview about your process and goals.
Your moveSubmit by Aug 10 and share a screencast of how you built it. Everyone who submits is in the running — the strongest, most complete apps earn invites and the biggest prizes.
Dharamshala
August 23 – 26-
In-person Build Week
An immersive building sprint in the Himalayas. Most of the time is heads-down shipping, wrapped in mentor office hours, AI workshops, founder talks, and design critiques. The talks serve the builders — never the other way around.
Your moveShip hard, in a room full of people doing the same. Stay, meals, and the Dharamshala experiences are covered for invited builders, plus a travel stipend of up to ₹20k.
-
Demo Day & awards
Demo Day: builders present and the awards are announced — Silver (₹10k cash) and Gold (₹1 lakh cash), plus cloud & AI credits and partner perks. Builders in Dharamshala demo in the room; anyone who couldn’t make the trip demos online the same day. The strongest builds carry on to the public Demo Day in September.
Your moveShow what you shipped — in person or online — win prizes, and get real feedback.
Go real
September →-
Product Month
The event isn’t the finish line — it’s the start. Builders keep building remotely, shifting from prototype to product: launch publicly, land first users, iterate fast, and validate real demand.
Your moveTurn the prototype into a real product. Keep the progress updates coming.
-
Demo Day
The main showcase. Every builder presents a month-hardened product to the world — funders, partners, and the whole community online. This is the showcase that opens the door to the Fellowship.
Your movePresent your product publicly. A strong Demo Day is your case for the Fellowship.
-
The Fellowship
Applications open for the Best Possible Fellowship. The strongest builders are selected for funding, mentorship, founder support, partner access, and help reaching real users. This is where long-term company-building begins.
Your moveApply with your traction, learnings, and roadmap.
Explore the Fellowship →
What we’re looking for
What earns a seat in Dharamshala
It’s not about pedigree or a perfect résumé — it’s about how you build, and how you show up for the people building alongside you. Here’s what stands out.
Consistency
You showed up and shipped — daily updates, steady progress, not a last-night sprint.
A working app
Something real and deployed — a good UI, works on phone and laptop, ideally with login and a real backend.
Originality
A real idea, approached in a way that isn’t the obvious one.
Helpfulness
You lifted the people around you — unblocked others, shared what you learned.
Your workflow
How you actually build with AI — prompting, debugging, thinking. Share it as a short demo; it’s the clearest window into your craft.
Seriousness
You’re here to build something real, not to collect a line on a résumé.
The season starts with an application.
A few minutes now puts you on the trail. Build from home, earn your seat, and see how far you can take it.