The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has announced the launch of the 5G Innovation Hackathon 2025, a comprehensive six-month program aimed at developing cutting-edge 5G-powered solutions to address a range of societal and industrial challenges. The initiative is open to undergraduate and postgraduate students, startups, and professionals, providing them with a unique opportunity to innovate using 5G technology.
- Objective: To accelerate 5G-powered solutions for social and industrial challenges, aiming to generate 50+ prototypes and 25+ patents.
- Targeted Areas: AI-driven network maintenance, IoT, smart healthcare, agriculture, industrial automation, non-terrestrial networks (NTN), and quantum communication.
- Support & Prizes: The initiative is backed by a ₹1.5 crore budget, providing seed funding of ₹1,00,000 for prototype development, with top prizes including ₹5,00,000 for 1st place.
- Timeline:
- Proposal Submission: March 15 – April 15, 2025.
- Prototype Development: June 15 – September 15, 2025.
- Winners Announced: October 1, 2025.
- Eligibility: Open to undergraduate/postgraduate students, startups, and professionals, with support for IPR filing and commercialization.
Key Features of the Program:
- Mentorship and Funding: Participants will receive guidance from experts, seed funding, and access to over 100 5G Use Case Labs, facilitating the development of their ideas into viable prototypes.
- IPR Assistance: Participants will also benefit from support in filing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to help commercialize their innovations.
- Focus Areas: Proposals are encouraged in areas like AI-driven network maintenance, IoT solutions, 5G broadcasting, smart health, agriculture, industrial automation, V2X, NTN, D2M, and quantum communication, among others. Participants will be urged to leverage features such as network slicing and Quality of Service (QoS).
Program Stages & Timeline:
- Proposal Submission: Proposals are to be submitted between March 15 and April 15, 2025. Institutions can nominate up to five proposals for evaluation by the DoT.
- Regional Shortlisting: 150–200 selected teams will receive further guidance to enhance their solutions. The top 25–50 teams will be shortlisted for the Pragati Phase.
- Pragati Phase (June 15 – September 15, 2025): Teams will receive ₹1,00,000 in seed funding to develop prototypes, access to 5G Use Case Labs, mentorship, and testing infrastructure.
- Evaluation and Showcase (September 2025): Teams will present their prototypes to a Technical Expert Evaluation Committee (TEEC), with evaluation based on technical execution, scalability, impact, and novelty.
- Winners Announcement (October 2025): The top teams will be showcased at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2025.
Awards and Recognition:
- 1st Place: ₹5,00,000
- Runner-Up: ₹3,00,000
- 2nd Runner-Up: ₹1,50,000
- Special Mentions: Best Idea and Most Innovative Prototype, each receiving ₹50,000
- Certificates of Appreciation: Awarded to 10 labs for the Best 5G Use Case and one for the Best Idea from Emerging Institutes.
The hackathon, with a budget of ₹1.5 crore, aims to develop over 50 scalable 5G prototypes, generate more than 25 patents, and foster collaboration across academia, industry, and government. This program aligns with India’s vision to establish itself as a global leader in 5G innovation and applications.
Important Dates:
- Proposal Submission: March 15 – April 15, 2025
- Final Winners Announcement: October 1, 2025
This initiative is a significant step toward harnessing 5G technology's potential and nurturing a new generation of innovations that could drive progress in multiple sectors.
5G Innovation Hackathon 2025:
The 5G Innovation Hackathon 2025 aims to bring together students, startups, and professionals to develop cutting-edge solutions using 5G labs in 100 institutes across India. The Hackathon will facilitate solution development in key technology areas such as AI-driven network maintenance, IoT-enabled applications, smart healthcare, industrial automation, quantum communication, and more. The hackathon provides a collaborative platform to the stakeholders to innovate and develop prototypes/applications/solutions through access to 5G labs, mentorship from industry and academic experts during the hackathon, provision of seed funding to the shortlisted proposals, and support for commercialization.
Hackathon Rules:
- Participants must be undergraduate/postgraduate students, startups, professionals or in their collaboration with others.
- Each team must submit a comprehensive proposal to any of the 5G Use case labs in 100 institutes outlining their problem statement, proposed solution, and expected impact.
- Each institutions shall recommend 1-5 proposals to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) after internal screening.
- Proposals will go through regional and national shortlisting before progressing to prototype development.
- Teams will have access to labs for prototype development, and will be provided mentorship by experts.
- The shortlisted proposals at regional level will be provided seed funding for further development of projects.
- The final evaluation will be based on technical execution, scalability, market readiness, societal impact, and novelty.
- Winning teams will receive cash prizes and opportunities to showcase their projects on national platforms.
- Intellectual property rights (IPR) support will be provided for viable solutions.
Call for Proposals: From 15 March - 29 April 2025
Hackathon Theme:
"Innovating the Future with 5G Technologies" to address India-specific problems of various the socio-economic sectors
AI-driven training for pets
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