Mission: Getting ambitious teenagers to ship meaningful tech through hackathons, design/dev squads, and product launches. Fully student-led. Org Type: Nonprofit Section 8 Company (GOBITSNBYTES FOUNDATION) · Independent Teen-Led Builder Network · Based in Lucknow, India · Serving builders nationwide
This handbook describes the core bits&bytes™ "agents" (team members), what each person does, how we collaborate, and our legal governance framework.
We're not a branch of any external student group. We're fully independent, fully student-led, and we run events on our own terms. Traditional structured networks are great for beginners, but they lock organizers into rigid formats that don't deliver. We're building the alternative. Anyone can participate, but they'll be surrounded by people who actually want to ship, not just attend.
In July 2025, our team was organizing a major regional student hackathon under an external partner organization. By mid-August, the partner organization cancelled the event, which was a significant setback.
To overcome this uncertainty and avoid relying on external groups, we founded bits&bytes™ as a student-led network in November 2025. Originally, our goal was simply to gather everyone together and host a 24-hour independent hackathon to make up for the cancelled event. However, we quickly realized we could build something far more impactful and sustainable.
To establish a permanent, legally protected, and independent home for the network, GOBITSNBYTES FOUNDATION was incorporated as a Section 8 non-profit company on 2 June 2026. The Foundation is legally governed by its Board of Directors, which holds ultimate fiduciary, constitutional, and safeguarding authority over the Network.
bits&bytes™ uses a compact, production-friendly visual identity. Key elements:
-
Brand Mark: A geometric cube rendered in a bold isometric style with stylized B letterforms on its face and a four-pointed star on top. Use the full wordmark for large headings and the cube mark for constrained spaces such as avatars and favicons.
public/logo.svgis the white mark and should sit on dark, burgundy, or orange surfaces; use the PNG or monochrome variants only when the surface requires it. Always maintain clear space around the mark. -
Logo Variations:
- White background: primary/default lockup.
- Black background: dark-background contexts.
- Burgundy
#97192c: brand-colored environments. - Orange
#fc920d: accent/campaign usage.
-
Embedding: use
in Markdown or<img src="https://gobitsnbytes.org/logo" alt="bits&bytes™ logo">in HTML. -
Name Usage: The primary brand spelling is "bits&bytes™". In contexts or environments where the ampersand character ("&") is unavailable, unsupported, or restricted (such as domains, email handles, code package repositories, or file system directories), "bitsnbytes" is the official, approved, and equivalent alternative. Both "bits&bytes" and "bitsnbytes" are approved brand descriptors.
Never write "bits & bytes™", "Bits & Bytes", "bits and bytes", "B&B", "gobitsnbytes", or other public-facing variants. The registered legal entity name is GOBITSNBYTES FOUNDATION and should appear only in legal, regulatory, banking, invoice, contract, and official correspondence contexts.
-
Typography:
- Primary: Helvetica Now — headings and display (use heavier weights for emphasis).
- Secondary: Georgia Pro — body copy and long-form reading.
- Accent (script): Palm Club — decorative hero treatments only.
- Accent (display): Anton — condensed display accents used sparingly.
-
Color System:
- Burgundy (Core gradient): Base: #97192C → #791423 → #5B0F1A → #3C0A12 → #1E0509
- Neutrals: #120F0A, #413F3B, #716F6C, #A09F9D, #D0CFCE
- Accent / Orange (pop gradient): #FC920D → #FDA83D → #FDBE6E → #FED39E → #FEE9CF
- Warm Accent Range: #C94218, #D46846, #DF8E74, #E9B3A3, #F4D9D1
Design guidance: treat burgundy/plum as the core voice (serious and composed); use the orange gradient for emphasis and pops; prefer layered gradients for depth; and use the neutral scale to keep layouts clean.
-
Visual Elements:
- Use gradients from burgundy/plum into orange warmth for hero and campaign surfaces.
- Dither, halftone dots, stipple textures, geometric checks, burst/starburst shapes, and small star/sparkle motifs are approved decorative elements. Apply as subtle overlays with generous white space so they add motion without reducing legibility.
-
Logo usage & assets: keep vector SVGs for web/print, provide monochrome variants, and do not distort, rotate, or apply unapproved color treatments.
Refer to public/llms.txt Brand Kit section for the canonical palette and typography guidance.
Quick reference for "who to ping for what".
| Name | Role | Superpowers |
|---|---|---|
| Yash Singh | Chief Executive Officer (CEO) | Competitive Math, AI Prototyping, Full-Stack Dev, Event Ops |
| Akshat Kushwaha | Chief Technology Officer (CTO) | Production Infrastructure, AI/LLMOps, System Reliability, Operations |
| Aadrika Maurya | Chief Creative Officer (CCO) & Chief Operating Officer (COO) | Neuroscience Research (EEG), Brand Strategy, Creative Direction |
| Devaansh Pathak | Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | Backend Architecture, Partnership Economics |
| Drishti Arora | Chief Growth Officer (CGO) | Growth Strategy, Brand Growth, Campaign Management |
| Raghwender Vasisth | Head of Operations | Operations Management, Process Optimization, Resource Logistics |
| Maryam Fatima | Head of Brand & Media | Visual Design, Campaign Strategy, Social |
| Srishti Singh | Head of Partnerships & Institutional Relations | Logistics, Internal Comms, Coordination |
| Angel | Head of Research & Strategy | Research & Analysis, Strategic Planning, Community Development |
bits&bytes™ is supported by a volunteer network:
- Operations: Shantanu Joshi and Atharva
- Outreach: Adithya and Aanjaneya
- Creatives (Graphic + Video Editing): Jaagruti, Vareesha, and Aishwary
- Tech: Hridyansh, Areeb, and Prakhar
We are grateful to our early team members and contributors who helped build and shape the network during its initial sprints before moving on to new chapters:
- Kavan, Saksham, Kaustubh, Oviya
To protect our community and maintain Section 8 compliance, bits&bytes™ operates under a structured legal division of authority between Upstream governance and operational teams.
The Board of Directors holds ultimate legal, fiduciary, financial, and safeguarding authority over GOBITSNBYTES FOUNDATION.
- Powers: Approving strategic plans, managing formal banking/accounts, entering into legal contracts/leases, setting the Authority Matrix, and deciding on Fork Recognition, Suspension, or Revocation.
- Privacy Notice: In accordance with internal security and operational protocols, the names of the individual directors are kept private from public-facing marketing and community documentation. They are referenced collectively as the Board of Directors.
Executive Officers are appointed by the Board under Article 28 of the e-Articles of Association (e-AOA) for day-to-day operations.
- Operational Status: Titles like CEO, CTO, COO, CFO, and CGO represent specific operational management domains.
- Signing & Fiduciary Limits: Because bits&bytes™ is intentionally youth-led and includes minors, the designation of an Executive Officer does not automatically confer statutory directorship, legal membership, signature authority, banking access, or the power to bind the Foundation. All formal commitments, contracts, and bank operations must be routed through written Board authorizations.
A Fork is a recognized local, institutional, or thematic operating unit of the bits&bytes™ Network recognized under authority of the Board.
- Participation Only: Fork Recognition is an operational, brand-use, and community permission only.
- No Independent Agency: A Fork does not constitute a separate legal entity, franchise, branch office, joint venture, partnership, or subsidiary. A Fork has no authority to bind, contract, represent, or collect funds on behalf of GOBITSNBYTES FOUNDATION. All local fundraising, sponsor deals, and venue contracts must be routed to Upstream for written legal execution.
Because many participants are minors, the Foundation enforces rigorous safety protocols:
- Statutory Compliance: All activities, data processing, and communications involving minors are governed by the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act).
- Parental Consent: Verified parent or guardian consent is mandatory for minor participation in events, travel, photography, or public showcases.
- Safety Records: Safeguarding reports and incident files are kept strictly confidential, secure, and shared only on a strict need-to-know basis. Safeguarding decisions override any concepts of local autonomy.
- Expertise: Mathematics (IOQM), AI Prototyping, Full-Stack Dev, Hardware Experiments
- Achievements:
- Created Codiva, a 5-star rated VS Code extension with thousands of users.
- National Qualifier for the Indian Mathematics Olympiad (IOQM).
- Built AI projects including laser pushup detection systems and PDF scrapers.
- Lead Organizer for local developer meetups and GDS MUN. Mentor at national student hackathons (helping 400+ participants).
- Educator at STEMist Lucknow, teaching CS to underprivileged students.
- Profiles:
- Website: https://yashvibe.codes/
- GitHub: https://github.com/yashclouded
- Owns: Organizational strategy, event timelines, and outreach. The operator instincts and community connections that make events actually execute.
- Expertise: Neuroscience (EEG/Attention modeling), Creative Strategy, Brand Direction
- Achievements:
- RSI India Alumni who conducted neuroscience research on EEG signals and attention modeling, the kind of work most people don't touch until grad school.
- Profiles:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aadrika-maurya/
- Website: https://aadrikasportfolio.framer.website/
- GitHub: https://github.com/Aadrika08
- Owns: Creative direction, brand strategy, visual identity, and the vision for what the network becomes.
- Expertise: Systems Engineering, AI-Native Architecture, LLMOps, Retrieval Systems, Product Engineering.
- Role at bits&bytes: The primary technical lead. Built and owns the entire stack from scratch. First point of contact for anything technical.
- Production background:
- Jr. Research Engineer at jhana.ai (India's leading legal AI lab, 10k+ lawyers): replaced GPT-4o-mini with a self-hosted model cutting TTFT by 60% without accuracy loss; built a context-window manager for long dictations; shipped automated WhatsApp IVRS case onboarding.
- Contributed to AI systems handling 1.6M+ quarterly requests across real government and legal infrastructure.
- Built Lexana: multi-agent legal intelligence platform (semantic caching cutting LLM costs by 60%, real-time WebSocket editing, RAG pipeline); expanded to Nepal.
- Built HybridMind: custom hybrid retrieval engine combining FAISS vector search, GraphSAGE-style graph relationships, and SQLite WAL persistence.
- Started a design studio at 12, scaled to 30 people and 500+ orders in one year.
- Core stack: Next.js, React, TypeScript, Python, FastAPI, Docker, PostgreSQL, Redis, Prisma, Tailwind CSS, Framer Motion.
- Interests: Agents, LLMOps, Retrieval, System Design, NLP, Product Thinking, DX, Agentic Workflows, Machine Learning.
- Profiles:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshat-singh-kushwaha
- Website: https://a3ro.dev
- GitHub: https://github.com/a3ro-dev
- Calendar: https://calendly.com/a3ro-dev
- Email: akshatsingh14372@outlook.com
- Owns: The entire tech stack and infrastructure. Any question about how bits&bytes works technically starts with Akshat.
- Expertise: Backend Architecture, Database Systems, Partnership Economics
- Achievements:
- Co-Architected the high-performance backend systems for the bits&bytes™ platform.
- Executed partnerships that delivered genuine ROI for sponsors across multiple cities.
- Profiles:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devaanshpa/
- Owns: Financial operations, partnership economics, and backend architecture.
- Expertise: Growth Strategy, Brand Growth, Campaign Management, Audience Development
- Profiles:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drish-arora
- Owns: Growth strategy, brand growth, and audience development across all channels.
- Expertise: Operations Management, Process Optimization, Resource Logistics, Team Coordination
- Profiles:
- Owns: Operational excellence, process optimization, and keeping the organization running at scale.
- Expertise: Research & Analysis, Strategic Planning, Community Development
- Profiles:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelp-online/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rightangeled/
- Owns: Strategic research, community insights, and organizational growth frameworks.
- India Innovates 2026: Official Executive Partner for the World's Largest Civic Tech Hackathon with 1.26 crore+ applicants.
- Hack4Good v0: Archived 24-hour Agentic AI hackathon in Lucknow with 425 registrations, 110 on-ground attendees, and a ₹35,000 prize pool.
- Execron 1.0: Co-hosted AI Hackathon & Workshop at IIT Kanpur for students in Classes 9–12.
- GitHub Copilot Dev Days: Hosted community developer event focused on AI-assisted coding in Lucknow.
- Lucknow Build Guild: Free hardware workshop and meetup for local tech people.
- Regional Space Apps Hackathon: 300+ participants.
- Web Presence: gobitsnbytes.org serves thousands of monthly visitors with 1,400+ active members.
- Evaluation Throughput: 2,700+ project submissions reviewed in 3-day sprints.
- High Agency ONLY – We don't do hand-holding. We build for people who want to ship.
- Ship Real Products – Workshops and hack nights must end with something shipped, not just something learned.
- Collaboration First – We default to pairing and sharing context.
- Resilience – We don't make excuses; we ship regardless of obstacles.
- Performance First – Optimized for speed (TTFB, LCP, INP).
- Always Optimized – Production-grade code is mandatory; no "just for fun" hacks on core infra.
- Use PNPM – Always use
pnpmfor speed and consistency.
- The repository includes an on-page AI assistant that answers from two sources:
- live page context (client
pathnameand optional page snippets sent by the client), and - a semantic RAG index stored in Supabase (
site_embeddings) and queried vialib/rag.ts.
- live page context (client
- Embeddings are generated with
openai/text-embedding-3-smallthrough the Hack Club proxy (HACKCLUB_PROXY_API_KEY) byscripts/embed-site.ts. - The embed script currently indexes
public/llms.txtandAGENTS.md(keeping these files current keeps the RAG index up to date). - To refresh the RAG index after content changes run:
npx tsx scripts/embed-site.ts- A Husky
pre-pushhook runs the embedding step automatically when tracked source paths change; see.husky/pre-pushforEMBED_PATHS. - To add more content to the index, update
scripts/embed-site.tsfilePathsand the.husky/pre-pushEMBED_PATHSvariable.
Last updated: June 2026