The National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), in collaboration with the Innovation Cell of the Ministry of Education, is organizing the 36-hour Grand Finale of the national-level hackathon "STATATHON – A Data Journey for Viksit Bharat" on June 17-18, 2026 at Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies (MRIIRS) campus in Faridabad. This marks the third hackathon in the series organized by NSO, India, aimed at modernizing the national statistical ecosystem through adoption of emerging technologies and collaboration with academia, industry, and start-ups.
The hackathon focuses on five specific problem statements in Artificial Intelligence and modern digital technologies with direct relevance to India's official statistical system: AI-Powered Smart Survey Tool for enhanced survey data collection with real-time validation and multilingual capabilities; Application for Automated Data Preparation, Estimation and Report Writing to reduce statistical processing time; Evaluation and Enhancement of Data Encryption/Anonymisation for NSS Unit-Level Data with tool development; Creating an API Gateway to run SQL queries on survey datasets and retrieve results in user-friendly formats; and AI-Enabled Semantic Search for the National Classification of Occupations (NCO) to enhance discoverability through natural language-based search.
The event has generated significant participation with over 5,000 submissions from students and start-ups across India. After initial evaluation, 50 teams (ten per problem statement) were shortlisted and mentored by domain and technical experts. Following rigorous evaluation by government and industry experts, 25 finalist teams (five per problem statement) were selected for the Grand Finale, comprising 21 teams from academic institutions and four start-up teams. During the 36-hour event, participants will work intensively under guidance from NSO, academic, and industry mentors to develop innovative, scalable solutions, culminating in presentations and winner announcements on June 18, 2026.
The initiative represents MoSPI's commitment to building a robust, future-ready statistical system by fostering an innovation ecosystem around frontier technologies including Artificial Intelligence to enable intelligent analytics at scale, ultimately strengthening India's official statistical system in support of the Viksit Bharat vision.