Nasscom introduces Makers Honor, an accolade honoring India's exceptional engineers.
The Makers Honor, an initiative by NASSCOM, aims to celebrate exceptional engineers, developers, and technologists across five core categories within India's $224 billion tech export industry. This award was launched at the Nasscom Tech Developers Confluence in August 2025, with the goal of recognising contributions to key industry and national challenges through hackathons and developer engagements.
The recipients of the Makers Honor award will be honoured in five foundational domains:
- The Innovators: These are the visionaries creating transformative technologies and new business models that are impacting sectors like healthcare and sustainability.
- The Scale Builders: These engineers power platforms with billions of users and critical national digital infrastructures.
- The Open-Source Titans: Contributors enhancing global ecosystems through indigenous AI/ML frameworks and open infrastructure.
- The AI & Deep-Tech Pioneers: Builders advancing frontiers in AI, space tech, life sciences, autonomous systems, and advanced materials.
- The Problem Solvers: Engineers developing impactful solutions for societal and environmental challenges, such as inclusion and water security.
In addition to these categories, a special Jury Spotlight Award recognises extraordinary engineering contributions with significant national importance that might not fit the above categories.
This initiative is co-curated by author and journalist Pankaj Mishra, inspired by the engineers behind it and driven by a shared belief that great engineering deserves to be seen as a cultural and social force. Nasscom's network spans the entire spectrum of the industry, from startups to multinationals, and GitHub is the outreach partner for the Makers Honor, focusing on engineering excellence across AI and DeepTech, large-scale digital infrastructure, open-source innovation, and societal impact solutions.
Nasscom represents the voice of a $284 billion technology industry in India and champions the need for diversity and equal opportunity. Two dedicated hackathons were announced earlier last month, offering developers the opportunity to build real-world solutions around critical industry challenges.
The Makers Honor honors engineers addressing societal, environmental, and civic challenges through impactful digital solutions for inclusion, water security, disaster resilience, and more. Notable figures such as Nandini Harinath from ISRO, Kailash Nadh from Zerodha, Ankit Mehta from IdeaForge, and Anand Deshpande from Persistent Systems are part of the initiative's guiding council.
The Makers Honor honors builders pushing the frontiers of science and advanced technologies across AI, space tech, life sciences, autonomous systems, and next-generation materials. The inaugural award will be presented at the Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum 2026.
Martin Woodward, VP of Developer Relations at GitHub, notes that India is leading the charge in software development, with more than 18 million developers building on GitHub, and the second-largest contributor to open source. Nasscom's strategic imperatives include accelerating skilling, strengthening innovation, creating new market opportunities, driving policy advocacy, and building the industry narrative with a focus on Trust, and innovation.
In conclusion, the Makers Honor is an exciting new initiative that aims to celebrate the engineers, developers, and technologists who are driving innovation and technological scale in India's technology export ecosystem. By recognising and celebrating these individuals, the Makers Honor hopes to inspire future generations of engineers and foster a culture of excellence in the industry.
- The Makers Honor initiative, led by NASSCOM, acknowledges the exceptional work of technologists and engineers across various domains, such as education-and-self-development, by highlighting the Problem Solvers category, which focuses on building solutions for societal and environmental challenges like inclusion and water security.
- In the realm of lifestyle, technology, and general news, the Makers Honor recognizes AI & Deep-Tech Pioneers, a category dedicated to honoring builders who are advancing frontiers in AI, space tech, life sciences, autonomous systems, and advanced materials, impacting sectors like healthcare and sustainability.
