A racing track. Vehicles designed by students. Crowds cheering for the fastest cars-all perfect for an adrenaline rush at Formula Bharat. And the end goal? Skilling.
As Curiosum Tech, the organisation that hosts Formula Bharat launched the ninth edition of this students’ competition from January 22 to 27, 2025, there was a renewed focus on skilling, as startups and companies looked at the competition as a scouting ground for their next set of recruits.
Formula Bharat is an international engineering design competition for university students, based on the Formula Student rules and guidelines. Teams from all over India and around the world are tasked with designing and manufacturing a life-size single-seater, Formula-style vehicle with either a combustion or electric powertrain.
And this makes sense for a number of reasons. Not only does Formula Bharat offer a practical experience for students to learn and assemble vehicles from scratch, it is also the perfect blend of practical and theoretical knowledge- a rare combination that companies look for when they hire, but is not easily found.
“It is a year-long process, right from the time the team registers, it is assigned to a reviewer and a mentor. The team submits its business plan and its design engineering documents, business plan, business pitch and even cost and manufacturing documents. So what comes out of this entire one year process is an individual who is very well rounded and an entire team of students who are all rounded and who have built a vehicle from scratch, a running, working vehicle. A life size vehicle. We are not talking of something small. It is a life sized project,” says Cathy Dsouza – Director at Curiosum Tech.
On this platform, student teams from universities and colleges from all over India and even abroad, design, build and compete with a life sized formula one style vehicle. “It is open cockpit, open wheeled and they have to come up with the design from scratch, every season and they have to build it from scratch every season. They procure the components themselves, they create the business proposals themselves to pitch and get sponsors. At our competition, they get to perform both in front of judges.”
She added that theirs is the only south Asian competition to be even recognized in the formula world rankings. “A team that competes here, whatever scores that they get, enter the world rankings. The categories are Combustion, electric, and driverless and at Formula Bharat, we work with Combustion and Electric. The number of teams in each of these vary between 300-400 globally for each category. Formula Bharat hasn’t done driverless as a competition category yet. We have run workshops. For driverless competitions, components are much more expensive and difficult to procure. So, for Indian teams, our goal is to start getting (into this category) in a couple of years, but not right away.” Formula Bharat, thus, not only bolsters student credibility and confidence but also speaks of the engineering calibre that the organization is working towards achieving.
“The dynamic environment of the event, coupled with the high caliber of the participants, made it an unforgettable experience. Such an experience highlights the importance of events like Formula Bharat in bridging the gap between academia and industry, fostering a spirit of innovation, and providing valuable opportunities for both students and recruiters,” notes Rupali Date, Deputy Manager, Human Resources / Brose India.
“Through Formula Bharat, the thing that I see is the industry connect – students get to see what India demands- even in international markets. Because we have people that associate with us from countries worldwide and collaborate with us, we know they’re looking to hire people from India. Through this event we’re getting better engineers day by day. So the event actually runs on that. It is not just a competition, it also helps them build skills that are required as per job demands nowadays,” notes Crystal Furtado – Program Manager at Curiosum Tech.
Companies like Ather and Exponent Energy, Brose, Karkhana.io, hire from Formula Bharat. As part of the competition, students are forced to think outside the box, get an all rounded experience- from designing to building, managing and executing and that too for a single project that needs to go on site. “In building a race car, you need multiple people, you need to engage them, motivate them. If there are conflicts, you need to work a way around it, how to get to a compromise and these kind of skills are so important when you get into the workforce,” Furtado said.
It is also about keeping up with the latest needs of the industry. Take for instance all the talk about electric vehicles, which is a category that has grown quite big for Formula Bharat. Every year it has doubled, or at least in the last three years. There have been a lot of Tier 1, tier 2 automotive companies that have come in the EV stream.Whether it is from EV vehicle to EV battery management to EV battery recycling, there are just so many companies which are looking for new graduates who can add value – who understand how an EV powertrain works, who understand the chemistry involved in battery making and the thought process involved in battery design. That sort of talent is what Formula Bharat provides.
“Formula Bharat has provided us with an excellent platform to engage and hire talented students, fostering creative ideas and fresh perspectives,” notes Rohith Hariharan, Lead Talent Partnering, People, Communications, and Employer Branding, Ather Energy.
The company also has a jobs platform that is complementary for any employer to use- that connects directly with students that are participating on their platform. Over the years we’ve seen a lot of companies value the kind of talent that Formula Bharat brings forward. “The kind of individuals who come out of here are the kind of people who can make a difference in a company. “If you are the kind who has an entrepreneurial spirit, you can meet your future co-founders on this platform,” notes Cathy.