Everything families and schools ask about the 2026–27 season: who can take part, fees, dates, the exam pattern, preparation and results. For the full programme see About the Olympiad; the binding rules are in the Terms & Conditions.
The Bharat Innovation Olympiad (BIO) is a national innovation and future-skills olympiad for students in Grades 6 to 12 across India. It is run by Lemon Ideas, an entrepreneurship ecosystem working since 2013, and is built on its Innopreneurs movement. Instead of testing memorisation, it assesses curiosity, creativity and real-world problem solving across five future-focused dimensions.
Any student in Grades 6 to 12 in India can take part. Registration works on any device, including a mobile phone; the exam itself needs a laptop or desktop with a webcam.
Lemon Ideas organises it. Lemon Ideas was founded by Deepak Menaria in 2013 and also runs Innopreneurs, its startup and innovation contest, including Innopreneurs Juniors for school students. You can reach the organisers at olympiad@lemonideas.in.
There is no syllabus: questions are knowledge-based, situational and future-oriented, and reward creativity and problem solving rather than memory. Registration also includes training and a detailed report, and top performers move on to innovation contests, a pre-incubation cohort and startup internships.
Registration costs ₹379, including taxes and the platform fee (program value ₹1,449). It covers training, the exam and the report. The fee is non-refundable and non-transferable. A free practice Innovation Olympiad exam is available without payment.
Registrations for the 2026–27 season open on 14 September 2026 and close on 19 December 2026.
Yes. Schools use the school portal at school.innovationolympiad.in to activate the school, manage their students and see results. Schools with at least 15 students appearing from a grade are eligible for School Rank Medals (gold, silver and bronze) in that grade.
The exam window runs from 27 September to 27 December 2026. Exam slots are assigned automatically, first come first served: Sundays from 8 am to 7 pm first, then Saturdays from 4 pm to 7 pm, then weekdays from 5 pm to 7 pm. There are no exams on Diwali (8 November). An assigned slot is final and cannot be changed by the participant.
It is a 60-minute online exam with 55 questions worth 60 marks, in six sections including the Super Olympiad. Each slot is 90 minutes in total, which includes login and acclimatisation before the exam starts.
Five future-focused dimensions: Problem Solving & Innovation, Entrepreneurship Mindset, Emerging Technologies & Digital Readiness (STEM, from coding logic to AI, space and quantum), Future Readiness & Global Awareness, and Financial Readiness. A sixth section, the Super Olympiad, has 5 harder questions.
The five core sections give +1 for a correct answer and 0 for an incorrect one, so there is no negative marking there. Only the Super Olympiad section has negative marking: +2 for a correct answer and −1 for an incorrect one.
Registration includes about 6 hours of online training, orientation and interaction, an exam guide with sample questions for every section, and 15-minute preparatory tests available from 14 September to 31 December between 3 pm and 10 pm. There is also a live online Q&A on the last Saturday of every month from 6 to 7 pm.
A laptop or desktop with a working webcam (720p or better), a microphone if available, an internet connection of at least 2 Mbps, an up-to-date browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, a screen of 1024 × 768 or larger, and Windows 10+ or macOS 10.14+. The exam cannot be taken on a mobile phone.
Yes. Every participant in a grade sits a similar paper under the same conditions, on a server-run timer that keeps running even if their internet drops, with multiple equally difficult question sets. Identity is checked so the registered participant is the one who sits the exam, and any flagged behaviour is reviewed by a person, with written reasons, before any decision is made.
Results and ranks are announced on 16 January 2027, National Startup Day. Participants receive All-India, state, city and school ranks.
E-certificates for the exam and the training, a detailed report with the answer key, explanations, ranks and analytics, ranking and benchmarking at school, city, state and national level, and access to the Innopreneurs Junior community. The top 3 and school-level rankers also receive printed certificates and medals.
The top 2% get direct, complimentary entry to the pre-finale of the Innopreneurs Next Gen innovation contest, with awards and benefits worth ₹5 lakh; the finale, investor pitch and bootcamp are in May 2027. The journey continues with a one-year pre-incubation cohort from July 2027 and startup internships from May to July 2028.
Enter the certificate number at innovationolympiad.in/verify. It confirms the holder, exam, score and rank, and no account is needed.