What is Tejas 2025?
Readers/Bookworms, culture aficionados, history buffs – this is for you! Win a match of wits and a battle of intellect to take home a handsome cash award and innovative internships with bestselling authors.
Tejas 2025 is our second Indic book competition conducted in the United States of America. Tejas is for 14 – 40 year olds, competing in 3 different divisions based on age. The qualifying events will be conducted online over 4 months from mid-December 2024 to April 2025. The finals will be conducted in June 2025 in person.
How does the Tejas competition work?
REGISTRATION
Registration for the competition opened on September 16, 2024 and closes on December 15th, 2024*
*(We reserve the right to close the registration window early).
On registration, you will have access to exclusive timed content that will help you prepare for the competition. This content will include prior year videos, best submissions and pro tips. The content will change weekly so the earlier you register, the more exclusive content you will have access to.
In order to sign-up, you need the following:
- Your user information
- A detailed read through of FAQs and Terms of the Competition
- If you are a minor, you need permission from your parents to sign-up
- $99 registration fee payment
Participant eligibility – Please ensure that you meet the eligibility requirements of residential status and age.
Residential status – To participate in Tejas 2025, you must be a resident in the United States of America as defined by the IRS (US citizens, permanent residents, on work visa, dependent visa, student visa). [https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/determining-an-individuals-tax-residency-status]
Age division – Divisions are based on the age of the participant on January 1, 2025.
To participate in Division 1 (14 – 18 years), the participant must be born between Jan 2, 2006 – Jan 1, 2011.
To participate in Division 2 (19 – 29 years), the participant must be born between Jan 2, 1995 – Jan 1, 2006.
To participate in Division 3 (30 – 40 years), the participant must be born between Jan 2, 1984 – Jan 1, 1995.
Occupation – So long as participants meet the age and residential status criteria, their occupation is not a factor. They can be students or working professionals or home-schooled or anything else.
FORM A TEAM OF 1 – 3 PARTICIPANTS
Team size – You can participate as a 1 person team, 2 people team or 3 people team. Irrespective of the number of participants in a team, all teams will have to read the same number of books and submit the same number of challenges.
Identify team members – If you want to participate as a team, get the word out to friends you know who might make good teammates. In order to compete effectively, you need readers but you also need creative minds. Figure out who you want on this journey, who can be counted on to share the workload – whether it is reading books, mastering the content in the books, brainstorming ideas for events and most importantly who you enjoy working with. Good teammates will be your biggest asset in this competition. Make sure you form a well rounded team. Most of the events will need you to have a very sound understanding of the subject matter but you will also need to express yourself in the most creative ways.
Team name – Come up with a team name. That is what you will be addressed throughout the competition.
(Pro Tip – Brainstorm a fun team name. You will get an opportunity to come up with a logo and energize your fan base during the course of the competition. Think of it the way you would when creating a social media handle. A creative fun name will go a long way)
Forming a team – Each participant has to register individually prior to forming a team. Before the competition starts, you will get to fill a form that records you team name and participants. Whether you are a 1 person team or a 2-3 people team, you will still need to fill the form so we can record your team name.
Age – All members of a team have to be in the same age bracket. (You cannot have one teammate who is 16 years old and another one who is 20 years old in the same team.)
Location – Teammates do not need to be co-located. So long as they meet the eligibility criteria, they can be from the same location or anywhere else in the United States of America.
BOOK, PREPARATION & TIME COMMITMENT
The final list of 4 books that will be required reading for this competition will be announced after registration closes. There will be 4 different books for each division.
All books are thoughtfully curated to be age appropriate, non-religious, non-political and thoroughly vetted by our organizing committee. Books will be on topics such as Sciences, Architecture, Math, Medicine, Astrophysics, Music, Sculpture, Craft, Art, Language, Philosophy, History, Culture – all from Indic lens.
As with any competition, the amount of time you spend really depends on you. However, here are some guidelines to keep in mind.
Books will be under 400 pages, easy reads, requiring no more than 10 hours for average reading speed. You might want to read the books multiple times.
Prep time – For reading and mastering the content, we recommend that each teammate read every book, but split up the task of mastering the books amongst themselves. Initial reading of each book should take no more than 10 hours per book.
Expect to spend 4-5 hours producing a high quality deliverable.
Competition time – The team should expect to be booked for a few hours most weekends during the 4 months of the competition.
Through the competition season, teammates get together, delight in exchanging narratives they’ve explored, and prepare to demonstrate their unrivalled expertise on these literary works in the upcoming challenge.
Books will be usually available on Amazon, Garuda Publication or other book stores. When we reveal the book names, we will also let you know where you can procure them.
COMPETITION STRUCTURE
Teams compete in 3 rounds over 3 weekends in Spring 2024. The rounds are Qualifiers, Semis and Finals. Each round can run weekend-long. Depending on the challenges the organizing team chooses for that round, you may need to submit your work ahead of time or participate online for a few hours. For example, for a challenge like ‘YouTube short’, you will simply upload that by a given time before the weekend. On the other hand, for a challenge like ‘Just-a-Minute’, you will be required to attend online.
There will be up to four challenges per round to demonstrate your knowledge of the books and show your creative expression. Prompts for the challenges will be provided in advance or on the spot as appropriate. For example, prompt for ‘YouTube short’ will be provided sufficiently in advance to give you time to create the short. As against that, prompt for ‘Just-a-Minute’ will be given on the spot, with no more than 5 minutes to prepare.
All teams participate in the first round – the qualifiers. This round will be online. A certain number of top teams will make it to the 2nd round – the semis. For examples of challenges, please check out the ‘Types of Challenges’ section below.
The semis will take place 2-5 weekends after the first round. There will be up to four events to demonstrate your deeper knowledge of the books. These events will be longer, with greater engagement from participants. The top 10 teams in each division will go to the 3rd and final round – the finals. This round will also be online.
The final round will take place in person in a weekend in June. This round will also have up to four events. The top winners of this round will take home huge prizes as detailed below.
For the pre-round entry and the first two rounds, you can use your laptop throughout the duration of the round. Feel free to use any resources online or offline. However, for round 3, which is an in-person round, you will not be able to use any online resources.
You cannot outsource the production of any information/ content to anyone other than your teammate. If found to do so, you will be immediately disqualified.
Tejas Awards
The journey of the competition is an award in itself. In addition to that, here are some of the awards at Tejas 2025.
The winning team will earn a huge cash award.
Finalists will have an opportunity to collaborate with bestselling authors in a variety of ways. Based on the fit between the authors and the participants, the following type of opportunities can be offered: doing research for an upcoming book, creating abridged versions of their books, re-writing their books for a different audience group or age group, creating an illustrated book using their content.
Opportunities to intern with DCF, partner organizations, next season of Tejas, other DCF initiatives like podcasting, conferences.
Every participant who completes the first round will get to post a linked-in badge on their profile.
Every participant will receive a certificate of participation
The monetary and opportunity rewards are huge. However, the biggest reward for participation might well be that you find your tribe. You will get a chance to build connections and network with like minded people. You will get to strengthen your bonds with your teammates and your roots while expanding your horizons.
What opportunities exist for collaboration with bestselling authors?
Curious about which books will feature? What will be the Challenge events in each round?
Tejas is organized by Dharma Civilization Foundation. Check us out at dcfuse.org.
DCF is a US based non-profit with the mission to bring you an Indic perspective on all aspects of life. We believe that ancient Indian wisdom has answers to many of our contemporary problems and making them accessible and relatable to you is our mission.
Who is organizing Tejas?
Tejas is organized by Dharma Civilization Foundation. Check us out at dcfuse.org.
DCF is a US based non-profit with the mission to bring you an Indic perspective on all aspects of life. We believe that ancient Indian wisdom has answers to many of our contemporary problems and making them accessible and relatable to you is our mission.
Know someone who might like to participate? Share this unique opportunity!