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Live Projects

One semester. One real business problem. Something that actually gets used.

A company writes down something they genuinely have not got to. You and two or three others take it on for fourteen weeks, with a professor supervising. At the end you hand back something that works.

  • Paid
  • Counts for credit
  • Fourteen weeks

Why this beats almost everything else

Nobody has ever been impressed by a college project.

Recruiters have read a thousand descriptions of a library management system. What they have almost never seen is a student who spent a semester on a problem a real business could not solve, and handed back something the business went on to use.

You get paid

Typically ₹18,000 is shared across the team on a standard project, or a per-person stipend on a product ideation brief. Not a fortune, but this is not free labour either.

It counts for credit

The work is assessed as part of your course, at the highest levels the system recognises — building something new is worth several times more than reproducing what you were taught.

It usually leads somewhere

A company that has watched you work for fourteen weeks does not need to interview you. Most live projects with a small business end in an internship offer to at least one of the team.

Two kinds of project

One comes with a brief. The other comes with a hunch.

Scoped project

The company knows what it wants

A defined problem with a stated deliverable — an algorithm, a tool, a piece of analysis, a tested design. The company knows the shape of the answer; the interesting part is getting there.

  • Teams of three to five, faculty supervision required
  • Milestone reviews with the company at weeks 4, 8 and 12
  • Typically ₹30,000 total, with 60% going to the student team
Product ideation brief

The company has a hunch

A raw idea and some hard constraints — a price ceiling, a technical limit, a real user. No specification. Working out what to build is genuinely your job, which is why these are the most valuable projects on the platform.

  • Teams of two to four, cross-disciplinary encouraged
  • You submit a short proposal; the company picks the team
  • Typically a per-person stipend, a recommendation letter, and an internship offer for the strongest contributor

What fourteen weeks looks like

Structured enough that it does not fall apart in week six.

The reason most student-industry projects fail is that everyone is enthusiastic in week one and nobody has spoken by week eight. The checkpoints are not bureaucracy — they are what makes it finish.
  1. Weeks 1–2 — Understand the problem

    You interrogate the brief and sign the NDA. Most teams discover here that the problem is not quite what the listing described. That is normal and it is the point.
  2. Weeks 3–6 — Concept and design

    Your faculty supervisor runs checkpoints. You explore approaches and commit to one.
  3. Week 4 — First company review

    You show the company where you are going. They can redirect you cheaply now, which is much better than expensively in week eleven.
  4. Weeks 7–10 — Build

    The company gives domain input through two calls a month. This is where their knowledge of the real user matters most.
  5. Week 8 — Second review

    Pivots are permitted here with the company's agreement. Discovering the original approach was wrong is a legitimate outcome, not a failure.
  6. Weeks 11–13 — Test and refine

    Your build meets reality. Constraints get tested against what you promised.
  7. Week 14 — Present and close

    Final presentation to the company, submission on the platform, their rating, your credit, and the money.

The thing nobody tells you to ask

Who owns what you build?

Agreed before you start, stated on the listing, using one of four standard templates. You will never find out afterwards that the answer was different from what you assumed.
ModelWho owns itWhat that means for you
Institution-ledYour college owns it; the company gets a licenceMost common for MSME projects. You keep full rights to show and describe the work.
JointCompany and institution share a patentYou are named as an inventor if the work is patentable.
Company-ledThe company owns it outrightYour institution receives a payment and you receive a cash bonus, set out in advance.
Startup spin-offYour team forms a companyThe company invests, the institution takes equity, and you are a founder.
60%

of a standard project fee that goes to the student team

14 wks

aligned to your semester, so it does not run into your exams

Public

the company's feedback on your work — visible on your profile to every recruiter

Getting on one

Teams are chosen on fit, not on speed.

How the matching works

The platform looks at the combined strengths of a team against what the project needs. A team with complementary depth beats a team of four people good at the same thing — so it is often worth recruiting someone from another department.

What actually gets you picked

  • A proposal that shows you understood the problem, not one that promises a solution
  • Naming the faculty supervisor you have already spoken to
  • Any previous completed work on your profile — even one hackathon helps
  • Being honest about what you do not yet know how to do
When a million students a year are solving real business problems as semester projects — not textbook exercises — every solved problem becomes a potential product.
Why live projects matter nationally
  • Innovative Projects

    Real business problems. Real student teams. Real outcomes.

  • Co-working

    Universities and industry, working on the same problems at the same time.

  • Internships

    Structured, CO-linked, credit-bearing — not informal and forgotten.

Free for students

Spend one semester on something real.

Join the waitlist and you'll see project briefs from the founding partner companies first.