Department of Telecommunications launches ‘5G Innovation Hackathon 2025’

‘5G Innovation Hackathon 2025’, a six-month initiative aimed at accelerating the development of innovative 5G-powered solutions to address societal and industrial challenges

New Delhi: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday announced the ‘5G Innovation Hackathon 2025’, a six-month initiative aimed at accelerating the development of innovative 5G-powered solutions to address societal and industrial challenges.

Open to students, startups and professionals, the programme provides mentorship, funding, and access to over 100 5G Use Case Labs, enabling participants to transform visionary ideas into scalable technologies, according to the Ministry of Communications.

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Winners will receive significant rewards, including Rs 5,00,000 for the first place, Rs 3,00,000 for the runner-up, and Rs 1,50,000 for the 2nd runner-up.

Also, special mentions will be given for Best Idea and Most Innovative Prototype, each receiving Rs 50,000. Ten labs will also be given Certificates of Appreciation for Best 5G Use case and one Certificate for Best idea from Emerging Institute.

The hackathon invites proposals focused on key 5G applications such as AI-driven network maintenance, IoT-enabled solutions, 5G broadcasting, smart health, agriculture, industrial automation, non-terrestrial networks (NTN), D2M, V2X, and quantum communication.

Participants are encouraged to leverage 5G features like network slicing, Quality of Service (QoS), and call-flow scenarios to address real-world problems.

The hackathon offers an array of support mechanisms to help participants take their innovations to the next level. Participants will get assistance in IPR filing for commercialising their IP assets.

The hackathon will unfold in several stages, each carefully designed to nurture and develop ideas from proposal submission to final evaluation.

Each institution will have the opportunity to recommend up to five proposals for the DoT screening, and regional committees will select the best entries for further evaluation.

The final stage, Evaluation and Showcase, will take place in late September 2025, where teams will present their prototypes to a Technical Expert Evaluation Committee (TEEC).

Winners will be announced in October, with the top teams showcasing their innovations at the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2025, one of the most prestigious tech events in the country.

The programme, supported by a Rs 1.5 crore budget, covers seed funding, IPR assistance, mentorship, and operational costs. It aims to develop over 50 scalable 5G prototypes, generate 25-plus patents, strengthen academia-industry-government collaboration, and support startup creation.