HUL TechTonic Season 8 · AI and Technology Case · Team of 3
Most case contests want a deck. TechTonic wants a working agent.
HUL TechTonic is Unilever's annual technology case study competition for B-Schools, and Season 8 carried rewards worth ₹6,25,000 along with Pre-Placement Interviews and PPO consideration for ULIP 2027. What makes it different from every other flagship case competition on your calendar is the submission itself. Teams did not send a strategy deck. They sent a three slide PPT, a one minute prototype video and a link to a working app. This guide breaks down exactly how Season 8 ran, what the jury rewarded, and how to be ready when Season 9 opens.
Where the season stands
Season 8 registrations on Unstop closed on 21 August 2026 with over 4,100 registrations, and the Grand Finale at the Unilever campus in Bangalore was held on 31 August 2026. If you missed this cycle, read this as the prep brief for Season 9, because the format has been stable across seasons and the eligible campus list rarely changes.
What was on the table
₹6.25 lakhs, PPIs, and a PPO route into ULIP 2027
The reward structure of TechTonic Season 8 was unusually deep. The cash was top heavy, but the career access ran much further down the leaderboard than most competitions. The Grand Finale winner took ₹3,75,000, the first runner-up ₹1,50,000 and the second runner-up ₹1,00,000, each with a Pre-Placement Interview attached. Beyond that, all top five finalists were individually eligible for a Pre-Placement Offer with Unilever as part of the ULIP 2027 management trainee programme.
The detail most students overlook sits at campus level. The top two participants from each campus stood a chance to win goodies worth ₹50,000, and HUL reserved the right to extend PPOs to select candidates beyond the finalist set. In practice that means a strong opening round submission can put you on a recruiter list even if your team never reaches Bangalore.
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Winner
₹3,75,000 cash + PPI. Crowned National Winner at the Unilever campus in Bangalore.
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Runners-up
₹1,50,000 + PPI for the first runner-up and ₹1,00,000 + PPI for the second runner-up.
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Top 5 finalists
Individually eligible for a PPO with Unilever under the ULIP 2027 management trainee programme.
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Campus level reward
Top 2 participants from each campus stood a chance to win goodies worth ₹50,000.
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Team format
Teams of 3 members, entirely online until the Grand Finale.
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Eligibility
First year full-time MBA students from HUL's eligible campus list, which included FMS Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and other top institutes.
The part that filters teams out
A working app link was a submission requirement, not a bonus
Season 8 asked for a three slide PPT, a one minute prototype video, a link to a working application and an open Google Drive folder with all supporting files. Teams that treated the prototype as optional were competing against teams that had actually shipped something. If you are planning for Season 9, start getting comfortable with no-code and low-code AI builders now, not in the week the case drops.
The Season 8 problem statement
#TechDoneRight, and the brief behind it
The Season 8 theme was #TechDoneRight. The prompt asked participants to look at how people face countless decisions every day, from what to buy to how to live healthier and more sustainable lives, while products stay passive. Teams had to think beyond the product and reimagine the transformation toward intelligent experiences that anticipate needs, simplify choices and fit seamlessly into everyday life.
Read that brief carefully and you will notice it is not a technology question. It is a consumer behaviour question that has to be answered with technology. That is the trap. Teams that led with model architecture lost the plot. Teams that led with a specific consumer moment, then showed an agent that removed friction from that moment, had a much cleaner story to defend.
The pattern across seasons
First, TechTonic rewards shipped work over polished slides. Three slides is a deliberate constraint. It forces you to spend your effort on the prototype and the demo rather than on deck design. If you have twenty slides of thinking and no demo, you have misread the competition.
Second, the winners are usually mixed teams. Past editions have been won by teams from IIM Calcutta, IIM Lucknow and other top campuses that paired one member who could actually build with two who could frame the business case. Several TechTonic winners have gone on to full-time roles at Unilever, which is exactly why the competition attracts over four thousand registrations.
How the season ran
Three stages, and a finale in Bangalore
These are the actual Season 8 stages as published on the official listing. Season 9 is likely to follow the same shape, so plan against it.
1
Launch
Virtual case study reveal and Q&A
Unilever ran a virtual launch event on 31 July 2026 to release the case study, followed by a live Q&A where registered teams could clarify doubts. A recording was made available on the opportunity page.
Tip: the Q&A is where ambiguity in the brief gets resolved. Watch the recording end to end even if you attended live, and note every clarification on scope, output format and evaluation. Most disqualifying mistakes are format mistakes.
2
Stage 1
Opening round, case submission
Teams prepared and submitted on Unstop by 20 August 2026. The submission bundle was a 3 slide PPT, a 1 minute prototype video, a link to the working app and an open Google Drive link with all supporting files.
Tip: test the Google Drive sharing permission from a logged out browser before you submit. Every year teams lose evaluation on a link that opens only for their own campus account. Same for the app link, check it on mobile.
3
Stage 2
Mentorship with a Unilever mentor
The top 5 teams from the opening round continued working on the same problem between 26 and 30 August, each under an assigned mentor from Unilever, before a final submission ahead of the finale.
Tip: mentors are evaluators in disguise. Come to each session with a decision you need help making, not a status update. Teams that visibly act on mentor feedback between sessions build enormous goodwill going into the finale.
4
Stage 3
Grand Finale at Unilever Campus, Bangalore
The top 5 teams presented in person to a jury of senior technology leaders. The format was 15 minutes total, a 10 minute presentation with 5 to 6 slides plus a walkthrough of a functional agent demo, followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.
Tip: a live demo can fail on stage. Record a backup screen capture of the working flow and keep it one click away. Judges forgive a network issue, they do not forgive a team that freezes for three of its ten minutes.
Who this is built for
First years from eligible campuses, coding background optional
TechTonic Season 8 was open only to first year students in full-time MBA programmes at HUL's eligible campus list, which included FMS Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and a set of other top institutes. If your campus is on that list, this belongs on your first year calendar alongside HUL FinAce and L.I.M.E.
You do not need an engineering degree to compete. You do need at least one person on the team who is willing to build. With current AI tooling, a non-technical MBA student can assemble a functional agent prototype in a weekend. The differentiator is not coding skill, it is picking a consumer problem narrow enough that a prototype can actually solve it convincingly.
How to win
Six moves that separate finalists from the other four thousand
1
Pick one consumer moment, not a category
Solving beauty or home care is not a submission. Solving the twenty seconds a shopper spends deciding between two shampoos, or the weekly grind of planning a healthier grocery list, is. Narrow problems produce demos that visibly work.
2
Build the prototype in week one, not week three
The submission window was roughly three weeks. Teams that spent two weeks on strategy and then rushed a prototype submitted something that broke on first click. Build a rough version early, then let the strategy narrative follow what the product can genuinely do.
3
Treat three slides as a discipline
Problem, solution with the agent in action, and business impact for Unilever. That is the whole deck. Anything else belongs in the Drive folder as an appendix that the jury can open if they want depth.
4
Make the one minute video a demo, not an ad
Sixty seconds is enough for one real user journey shown on screen with a voiceover. Skip the animated logo intro and the team introductions. Show the input, show the agent thinking, show the outcome.
5
Attach a number to the idea
Unilever is a commercial organisation. Size the opportunity even roughly. Which brand, how many consumers, what lift in conversion or retention, what cost to serve. A working prototype with no business case loses to a working prototype with one.
6
Answer the scale question before it is asked
Every jury at Unilever asks how this works across millions of consumers, multiple languages and low bandwidth markets. Have a slide ready on data, privacy and rollout. It is the single most common Q&A question in tech case finals.
Resources worth an evening of your time
Official links and where to track Season 9
These are the sources worth your time. Click each link to open it in a new tab.
The official listing with the full rule book, stage timelines, prize breakdown and the eligible institute list. Follow the page to be notified when Season 9 opens.
Turn a prototype into a recommendation the jury believes
AceCase Pro and Super100 train MBA students on problem framing, impact sizing and live defence, the three things that decide finals at competitions like TechTonic.
✓ Mentor reviews on your deck and demo narrative before you submit
✓ Mock Q&A drills modelled on corporate jury rounds
All details in this article are based on the official HUL TechTonic Season 8 listing on Unstop and publicly available coverage of past editions as of the publication date. Registrations for Season 8 closed on 21 August 2026. Eligibility, dates, rewards, team size, campus lists and round structures may change at the discretion of Hindustan Unilever Limited, Unilever or the event organizers. Please verify all information on the official Unstop page before applying to any future edition. AceMBA is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected to Hindustan Unilever Limited or Unilever. This guide is for informational and preparatory purposes only.
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