Aaditri Vaibhav of IIT Kharagpur, was declared the national topper of the second scoring round, called I, of the National Inter-college Crossword Expedition (NICE) 2023. She was followed in 2 and 3 positions by Akshay Kumar Joshi of IIT Kharagpur, West Bengal, and Rishita Kumari of the Patna University, Patna, respectively.

In zonal rankings, while Jyoti Kumari  of Nalanda College of Engineering, Nalanda, (Bihar) has topped the East Zone, Charagundlq Sailaxman  of National Institute of Technology, Meghalaya got the 1 position in the North East Zone. Tiya Agrawal, from Sanskriti University, Mathura has topped North Zone  while Poojalkshmi of Panimalar Engineering College, Thiruvallur ( Tamil Nadu) bagged top position in the South Zone. The West Zone winner is Premthilak of B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad(Gujarat).

NICE 23 is the second edition of the National Contest which was inaugurated last year. It comprises three stages. Stage I is an online individual contest consisting of four rounds. Based on cumulative scores at the end of the 4 online round, participants qualify for Stage II which is an offline team contest. In this stage, five zonal finals are held where qualifying students have to form two-member teams to represent their institutions. The winners of the zonal finals then converge in Delhi to compete in the grand finale to claim
the national championship trophy.

The contest is being organized by the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi in association with the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE),Mumbai , and Extra-C, a civil society initiative for the promotion of a holistic educational environment.

The free-of-cost registration will remain open throughout Stage I, which ends on April 30, on www.crypticsingh.com. The official website of Extra-C will also be the hosting platform of Stage I and any other online activities associated with the  contest.