Questions, answered

Any current undergraduate of the University of Vavuniya, from any of the three faculties (Technological Studies, Applied Science, Business Studies) and any academic year. Each member registers with their student ID, and student cards are checked at check-in.

No. Strong teams mix builders with designers, analysts and people who understand the problem. The judges expect a working prototype, and AI tools make that reachable for far more people than before, but at least one member should be comfortable running, debugging and explaining code.

Three or four members, from any mix of faculties and years. One person creates an account and fills in the registration for the whole team, and one member is named team leader as the primary contact.

No. Each student ID can be registered in one team per edition, and team names must be unique. The form tells you straight away if either is already taken.

Yes, until registration closes. Sign in, open your dashboard and choose Edit registration. After the deadline the details are locked for review.

The team leader's number is verified with a code by SMS, and every member gets the registration confirmation and the shortlist result by text. We don't use the numbers for anything else.

Registration is open innovation: your team picks any real problem with real people behind it, in any domain, and pitches how you would solve it. The finale is different: its theme and problem statements stay sealed in the Vault and are revealed live at the opening ceremony on 5 November. Nobody sees them earlier, so nothing can be pre-built.

From the registration form: your team, your skills and past work, and above all your idea pitch. The panel looks at how well you understand the problem, whether your approach is realistic and whether your team can build it. No prototype or code is needed. Up to 20 teams are shortlisted with a waitlist; if places are tight, closely placed teams may sit a short logic quiz as a tiebreaker.

Every member gets an SMS. The team leader then signs in and confirms the team's place from the dashboard by giving each member's meal type (vegetarian or non-vegetarian), the name for the certificate and an emergency contact. Places not confirmed by the date shown on the dashboard pass to the waitlist.

Yes, and we expect you to: for ideas, code, tests, design, copy, debugging and the pitch. Bring your own accounts. List the tools in your README. What is judged is the result and your understanding of it: any member may be asked to explain what the system does and why you built it that way. Using AI to build the solution before the problem is revealed at 08:00 counts as pre-built work, same as writing it yourself.

You may use public boilerplates, UI kits and open-source libraries you published before the theme was announced. Domain-specific code for the problem is not allowed. Every team starts from a fresh repository created at the reveal, uploads progress checkpoints during the event, and walks the judges through the build in the final pitch.

Winner: LKR 30,000, medals and certificates for every member, plus a surprise gift revealed at the closing ceremony. Runner-up: LKR 15,000, medals and certificates. 2nd runner-up: medals and certificates. Every finalist receives a certificate of participation, AccroNex 2026 stickers, and meals through the day.

Thursday 5 November 2026 at the Faculty of Technological Studies, University of Vavuniya. Check-in opens at 07:00, the opening ceremony is at 07:30, the Vault opens at 08:00, and the day runs through to the awards at 20:30 and close at 21:00. It is a single-day event: no overnight stay.

No. Participation and meals during the event are free, thanks to our sponsors, and every finalist gets AccroNex stickers.

Your team does. Sponsors and organisers get no rights to your code or idea beyond showcasing it as part of the event. See the rules page for the full IP policy.