Nerds Hive (Vetri E-Square, Muthamilaringar Kalaingar Mu Karunanidhi Arangam, New Bus Stand, Vallam Quarry Road, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu 613005) organises Startup Thanjavur 2026 together with Gnanam School of Business and decides why and how your personal data is processed for the event (the "Data Fiduciary" under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023). Contact us at [email protected] or +91 86810 08888.
2. What we collect
When you register or buy a pass or stall
Name, email address, mobile number and city.
Depending on the pass: college and course and a student ID image or PDF (Student Pass); startup name, your role, sector, stage and website (Startup Pass and stall); names of the two stall team members and what you plan to showcase (stall); whether you want a One-Min Spotlight slot.
If you ask for a GST invoice: GSTIN, billing name and billing address.
From PayU, after you pay: a transaction reference, payment status and mode (for example "UPI") and bank reference. We never receive your card number, UPI PIN or banking password.
When you nominate for an award
The nominee's name and organisation, contact email and phone, founding year, website and LinkedIn link, why they should win, and any document you attach.
When you send a sponsorship enquiry
Your name, company, email, phone, the partnership you are interested in and your message.
Automatically
Your IP address and basic request details, used only for security (rate limiting, preventing abuse and fraud) and kept in short-lived server logs. This website sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Our network provider, Cloudflare, may collect anonymous page-view statistics without cookies.
3. Why we use it
To register you, take payment, issue your pass and GST invoice and email them to you.
To admit you at the venue (pass holders' names and pass details are visible to our check-in staff; volunteers do not see phone numbers).
To verify student eligibility, review award nominations and respond to sponsorship enquiries.
To send you event updates by email or WhatsApp, which you agree to when registering. You can opt out at any time by writing to us.
To meet legal obligations, including GST record-keeping, and to keep the website and payments secure.
We do not sell your personal data or use it for unrelated marketing.
4. Who we share it with
The organisers: Nerds Hive and Gnanam School of Business staff and volunteers who run the event.
PayU (PayU Payments Private Limited), which processes your payment under its own privacy policy.
A5 Cyber Nexus Private Limited, which collects payments and issues the GST invoices.
Service providers who host or deliver our systems under our instructions: DigitalOcean (servers in Bengaluru, India), Cloudflare (website delivery and security) and Zoho (email delivery).
Government authorities where the law requires it, for example tax authorities.
5. How long we keep it
Student ID uploads on orders that are not paid are deleted within about two hours. Paid orders keep the student ID for verification at the event; all student IDs are deleted 30 days after the event.
Documents attached to nominations are deleted from our server once they have been emailed to the organisers (or after 30 days if sending fails).
Orders, invoices and payment records are kept for as long as Indian tax law requires.
Other registration, nomination and enquiry details are kept until the event and its follow-up are complete, and then deleted or anonymised unless the law requires us to keep them. Database backups, kept on the server with access restricted to administrators, are deleted after 14 days.
6. How we protect it
The website is served only over HTTPS. Uploaded files are checked and stored outside the public website; images are re-processed to remove hidden metadata such as location. Staff access is limited by role, protected by passwords and optional two-factor sign-in, and logged. Payment card details never touch our servers.
7. Your rights
Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you may ask us to: see a summary of the personal data we hold about you; correct or update it; erase it (where we are not required by law to keep it); withdraw consent for event updates; and nominate someone to exercise these rights for you. Email [email protected] from the address you registered with. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India.
8. Children
The event is for adults and college students. If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must register for you or give their consent before you register.
9. Grievances and changes
For any privacy concern or grievance, write to [email protected] with the subject "Privacy". We may update this policy; the date at the top shows the current version.