An open-door, non-degree evaluation challenge awarding one lakh rupees to the first innovator who can breach a deterministic autonomy safety gate or tamper with its audit log
Foundational innovation does not ask for an institutional pedigree, a coaching rank, or an entrance examination percentile. Some of the greatest breakthroughs in engineering history were made by individuals working outside established academic hierarchies.
The Break It Challenge is the Open Door of the Invent in India movement made concrete. There is no entry fee, no degree requirement, and no institutional restriction. Anyone with an idea, an adversarial attack vector, or a control theory algorithm is invited to test their capability against our reference systems.
Round one of the challenge, launched on 14 November 2026 in Pune, presents a concrete challenge: break the deterministic autonomy of a quadcopter drone running on our hardware-in-the-loop testbed.
An adversarial participant attempts to force the simulated aircraft to cross a strictly published virtual geofence boundary, or to tamper with the telemetry log without the hash chain detecting it. A bounty of one lakh rupees is awarded to the first individual or team that accomplishes either objective under verified witness review.
Every attempt is automatically ingested, executed, and recorded in a tamper-evident cryptographic ledger. To ensure absolute fairness, claimed breaks must reliably replay in simulation and on the physical hardware rig.
Evaluation is overseen by an independent three-member judging panel comprising one senior scientist from the centre for development of advanced computing, one independent academic control systems expert, and one representative of the innovation hub.
| Competition parameter | Specification and rule detail | Verification method |
|---|---|---|
| Prize bounty | One lakh rupees (inr 100,000) for round 1 | Awarded immediately upon verified panel replay |
| Eligibility criteria | Open to any individual or team; zero entry fee; no degree required | Identity verified for prize disbursement |
| Target physical boundary | Published 3D virtual geofence polygon (radius 500m, altitude 120m) | Kinematic telemetry coordinates logged at 100 hz |
| Primary victory condition 1 | Force vehicle to cross the published geofence boundary | Verified if vehicle position vector breaches boundary |
| Primary victory condition 2 | Alter flight log or telemetry without invalidating hash chain | Verified if sha-256 hash chain validates altered record |
| Reproduction requirement | Claimed break must replay identically on physical Jetson rig | Executed before 3-member independent judging panel |