Let’s admit it, most of us are ardent Snapchat users obsessed with the sneaky doggy ear Lens and quirky cartoon face filters. Our heart almost skips a beat when our streaks are on the verge of collapse.

Since Snapchat launched in India, it has been an instant hit majorly amongst the youth of the country. It has managed to crawl into our daily regime and people have become habitual of using it daily to socialize amongst friends and family and interact with a new set of people.

All this said, there is one thing that most of us might not know about Snapchat yet, the fact that one can very easily make their own Snapchat Lenses within no time and use them on the app free of cost. Yes, you read that right! Snapchat users can, and all over the world are making their own set of Snapchat lenses and using them free of cost. By reading this you might think that till now you were living in a bubble thinking that a team of highly geeky developers works around the clock to develop these lenses, well it’s not completely false. Snapchat Lenses are of course developed by highly talented and creative developers, but that doesn’t mean a regular Snapchat user is not capable of building their own Lenses.

In fact, the right opportunity to create your own Lens for Snapchat for New Year is right here. New Year Lensathon presented by Snap India, powered by Hack2skill is a Lens Creation challenge, where participants have the opportunity to learn how to make Lenses on Snap’s Lens Studio, Create their own Lens, and also win cash prizes worth 1.9 Lakh and Snap Goodies. Imagine a lens made by you within a few minutes that you can share with your friends and family and also name it after yourself, Isn’t that exciting?

Curious and wondering how is it possible and what are the criteria for participating in the New Year Lensathon? Check out the details of the challenge below and also what’s in store for the participants and winners.

Themes- As the name New Year Lensathon suggests, the challenge revolves around the creation of Lenses for Snapchat on Lens Studio on the given two themes. The first theme is The Year 2021 in Rewind, under which you can create lenses to express how the year looked like for you, how you plan to celebrate your New Year’s eve, childhood memories associated with New Year, or your traditional way of ringing in the New Year. The second theme is 2022- New Year, New Beginnings under which you can create a Lens revolving around resolutions that you plan to make this year and much more. Remember the themes are just to give a direction to the participants and you can be as creative as you want while developing your Lenses.

Criterion- This needs to be addressed, many of you reading this have already decided that if a software is involved, only techies, developers, coders, and engineers can use it and others have no option but to sit out of the challenge. Absolutely not! This challenge is open to anyone and everyone. You don’t need to be from a tech background, all you need to have is a creative vision to participate in the New Year Lensathon. In fact, so simple and user-friendly is the software of Lens Studio that children of 13+ years of age are using it to create Lenses that too in a span of few minutes. And yes! The challenge is free of cost, with no participation fee, and no hidden charges.

Prizes- This is the most luring part when it comes to any challenge. New Year Lensathon is also offering cash prizes from a pool of INR 1.9 Lakh and Snap goodies as rewards for the winners. The prize distribution is mentioned below, take a look-

• First Place Winner- INR 75,000 + Snap Goodies

• Second Place Winner- INR 50,000 + Snap Goodies

• Third Place Winner- INR 25,000 + Snap Goodies

• Most Creative Lens under each of the two Themes- INR 20,000 + Snap Goodies

• Top 50 most Creative Lenses- Snap Goodies

• 1 Lens Submission- Participation Certificate

Deadline- The challenge is open till 28th December 2021, participants have the option of submitting a maximum of 5 Lenses, isn’t that great to strengthen one’s chances of winning? Also, participants are free to update their lens after submitting it till the last date.

All you need to do is follow the steps mentioned below, to participate in the challenge and successfully submit your lenses-

• First things first register for the challenge here- hack2skill.com/snapchat-new-year-lensathon

• Once you have registered, on the participant dashboard, you will find various resources that you can utilize for creating Lenses such as exclusive access to the hands-on training Bootcamp by the Snap India Team and Snap Lens Network Ambassadors, a guide to Lens Studio, other tutorial videos and much more.

• You will find a link to download the Lens Studio on the dashboard itself, click on the link, and in the next few minutes, Lens Studio will be downloaded on your Dekstop.

• Now the ball is in your court, explore the bunch of resources present and get as creative as you can to create Lenses revolving around the given Themes.

• Submit your Lens by logging into your Snapchat account, once your Lens has been submitted, it will take around 6-24 hours for it to get published and ready to use on Snapchat.

• The next step is perhaps the most important step for validating your entry in the New Year Lensathon Challenge, while you have submitted your lens by logging into your Snapchat account, you have not yet completed your entry into the challenge, for that, all you need to do is a take a note of your Lens ID and Lens Link and submit it on the participant dashboard by clicking on the Register Now/Submit Lens button.

Once you have followed the above steps, your entry for the New Year Lensathon has been successfully submitted.

Now sit back, use your Lenses, share them with your friends and family, and wait for the results of the New Year Lensathon.

Seems like a lot of hard work by reading, right? No! totally wrong assumption, once you register for the challenge, it will hardly take you about 30 minutes to download Lens Studio and create a Lens of your choice since the Lens Studio is extremely user-friendly and handy software to use.

As already mentioned, you don’t need to have any extra set of skills, nor do you need to be a techy, developer, coder, or engineer to participate in the challenge.

All you need is a creative mind, zeal to learn something new, and of course dedication towards the cash prize of up to INR 1.9 Lakh and Snap Goodies.

Remember the challenge is open till 28th December 2021.

So what are you waiting for? The entry is free of cost so Register Today- hack2skill.com/snapchat-new-year-lensathon

For regular updates and queries regarding the New Year Lensathon, join our discussion zone - discord.gg/He7EmVed ,where we have Lens creators helping out participants in overcoming any difficulty that they might be facing, to make sure they stand a chance to emerge victorious in this challenge.