CTE TechWeekend

2026

January CP Contest

AlgoManiaX

The AlgoManiaX January Induction Contest, in association with CTE. This contest decides who stays in Algo for the crew, as well as an induction opportunity for the others.

Date
Time

10th January
5:30-8:00PM

Finance Frenzy

SoFI

The quiz consists of two rounds. It begins with a written preliminary round of 20 questions, where 5 "starred" questions determine tie-breaks. The top 6 teams will advance to the final round, featuring 10 questions in a dynamic pass-and-play format.

Date
Time

9th January
7PM onwards

Training without Gradients

SAiDl

Gradient-based optimization has become the default approach for training machine learning models. However, many real-world systems are non-differentiable, black-box, or physically constrained, making gradients unavailable or meaningless.

In this competition, participants must train a machine learning model without using gradients of any kind. You are provided with a training dataset and a test dataset, exactly like a standard Kaggle competition, but backpropagation, automatic differentiation, and numerical gradients are strictly forbidden. Your task is to achieve the best possible performance on the test set using only gradient-free learning methods.

Date
Time

9th-12th January
12PM onwards

Crack the Case

ERC

Can you Crack the Case? Join ERC and CTE for the ultimate decryption challenge. Solve 8 rapid-fire tasks to uncover the digits and positions of a secret 4-digit password. You have three strikes to guess the code—the first to unlock it takes the trophy!

Date
Time

11th January
5PM onwards

TechWknd CTF

BITSKrieg

TechWeekend CTF is a high-intensity, jeopardy-style Capture The Flag competition organized by BITSkrieg in collaboration with CTE, crafted as an immersive overnight cybersecurity experience that pushes participants to think fast, collaborate effectively, and apply practical security skills under pressure. Running online for 12 continuous hours from 6:00 PM on January 9 to 6:00 AM on January 10, the competition features a carefully designed set of challenges spanning Web Exploitation, Reverse Engineering, Cryptography, Forensics, Binary Exploitation (PWN), and OSINT, with a dynamic scoring system that rewards both speed and ingenuity.

Date
Time

9th January
6PM onwards

The CEO Dilemma

DWDG

CEO Dilemma is a one-round strategy consulting competition that places participants in the role of trusted advisors to a company's CEO. Teams are given a realistic business situation involving a profitable but structurally challenged firm and are asked to diagnose the root causes behind declining performance.

The case mirrors the way top consulting firms approach real client problems — incomplete information, competing priorities, and limited time. Participants must structure an ambiguous problem, identify the few issues that truly matter, and recommend a clear, defensible course of action.

There is no single correct answer. Success in CEO Dilemma depends on clarity of thought, sound business judgment, and the ability to communicate insights succinctly. Designed to reflect the problem-solving style of McKinsey, Bain, and BCG, the competition tests how well you can think like a consultant and decide like a CEO.

Date
Time

10th January
8:30PM onwards

Insight Incubator

180DC

An interactive consulting-focused session featuring case discussions, real-world problem statements, and a challenge, offering participants direct induction advantages.

Date
Time

12th January
8:30PM onwards