Divide and Conquer Challenge Sponsored by Jane Street

Guidelines Eligibility: Open to all school and college students .

Team Size: Teams can consist of 2–4 members .

Inter-college teams: Allowed.

Inter-specialization teams: Allowed.

Track Allocation: Each team must have at least 1 and at most 2 members in each track. 2 members: 1 in Track A + 1 in Track

B 3 members: 1 in Track A + 2 in Track B, or 2 in Track A + 1 in Track

B 4 members: 2 in Track A + 2 in Track B Track A -

DSA Round: A competitive programming round consisting of 2–3 coding questions .

Track B - Maths Round: A mathematics-based problem-solving round.

Duration: Track A and Track B will be conducted simultaneously for 1.5 hours .

Break: A 1–1.5 hour break will follow the preliminary rounds.

Final Round: The Grand Finale will be conducted for 1 hour , with all members of qualifying teams participating together.

Qualification: The top 20 teams based on their combined scores from Track A and Track B will qualify for the Final Round.

Venue: The event will be conducted on the premises of IIIT Hyderabad (IIITH) .

Event Date: October 2, 2026 . Rules The DSA and Maths tracks will be conducted simultaneously under supervision. Participants must compete in their respective assigned tracks during the preliminary round. The preliminary rounds will be conducted on laptops under high supervision. Mobile phones must be submitted before the preliminary rounds begin. Participants are expected to use only the resources and systems permitted by the organizers. Cheating or use of unauthorized resources is strictly prohibited. Any participant found cheating will be disqualified, and their team's score for that round will be forfeited. The scores from Track A and Track B will be combined to determine the preliminary ranking. The top 20 teams will advance to the Final Round. All members of a qualifying team will compete together in the Final Round. Once an answer is submitted in the Final Round, it is locked and cannot be changed . The Final Round will be 1 hour long.

Winner Decision: The Final Score is calculated as Track A (150) + Track B (150) + Grand Finale (300) = 600 points . In the event of a tie between teams, time taken to achieve the score will be used as the tie-breaker, with the team completing the required performance in less time ranked higher. The total prize pool is ₹2,00,000 , with prizes of ₹1,00,000 for Overall Champion, ₹50,000 for Overall Runner-up, and ₹25,000 each for the Best Track A and Best Track B teams.

Prizes are non-stackable: a team can win at most one cash prize. If an Overall Champion or Runner-up is also eligible for a Best Track prize, that track prize passes to the next eligible team.