DOT announces the launch of 5G Innovation Hackathon 2025

New Delhi (India), March 17 (ANI): The Telecommunications Department (DOT) announced 5G Innovation Hackathon 2025, a six -month initiative aimed at accelerating the development of 5G innovative solutions to address societal and industrial challenges.

According to the Ministry of Communications, open to students, startups and professionals, the program offers mentoring, financing and access to over 100 laboratories of 5G use cases, allowing participants to transform the visual ideas into scalable technologies.

Hackathon invites proposals focused on key applications 5G, such as Maintenance of AI-based network, IoT activated solutions, 5G broadcasting, intelligent health, agriculture, industrial automation, non-terrestrial networks (NTN), D2M, V2X and quantum communication.

Participants are encouraged to use 5G functions, such as network slices, service quality (QOS) and call flow scenarios to address real world problems.

Hackathon offers a number of assistance mechanisms to help participants take their innovations to the next level. Participants will receive assistance in IPR’s submission for the marketing of IP assets.

Hackathon will take place in several stages, each carefully designed to feed and develop ideas from transmitting the proposal to the final evaluation.

The first stage, the submission of the proposal, invites the participants to present their comprehensive ideas, emphasizing their statement of problem, the proposed solution and the envisaged impact.

Each institution will have the opportunity to recommend up to five proposals for the screening of the Telecommunications Department (DOT), and the regional committees will select the best records for further evaluations.

Once the proposals are selected, the regional selection stage will see that the selected teams (150-200 proposals) receive guidance to improve their ideas.

The first 25-50 teams will progress in the Pragsed phase, where they will be offered a RS1.00,000 each seed fund to develop their prototypes over a three-month period (June 15-September 15, 2025).

In this phase, the participants will benefit from mentoring, access to 5G Laboratories of use cases and infrastructure testing to improve their ideas. If any of the solutions can be transformed into a IPR, the support required for IPR deposit will be extended.

The final stage, the evaluation and the display case will take place at the end of September 2025, where the teams will present their prototypes of a technical committee for evaluation of experts (TEEC), comprising 5-7 government experts, academic and industry.

The evaluation will be based on four key criteria: technical execution (40 %), market scalability and preparation (40per cent), societal and industrial impact (10 %) and novelty (10 %).

The winners will be announced in October 2025, the top teams presenting the innovations at India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2025, one of the most prestigious technological events in the country.

The winners will receive significant rewards, including 5.00,000 RS for the first place, RS3.00,000 for the runner and RS1.50,000 for the second runner.

Also, special mentions will be mentioned for the best idea and the most innovative prototype, each receiving 50,000 Rs. 10 laboratories will also receive certificates of appreciation for the best case of use 5G and a certificate for the best idea at the Emerging Institute.

The program, supported by a RS1.5 Crore budget, covers the financing of seeds, DPI assistance, mentoring and operational costs. It aims to develop over 50 scalable 5G prototypes, to generate over 25 patents, to strengthen the collaboration of the Academy-Industry-Governmental and to support the starting creation.

The key data includes the submission of proposals from March 15 to April 15, 2025, the announcement of the final winners on October 1, 2025 and a rigorous chronology that ensures the fulfillment of the landmarks by bi-weekly progress and a centralized tracking board.

5G Innovation Hackathon 2025 is designed to capitalize on the transformer potential of 5G technology by encouraging collaboration and innovation. By binding laboratory research and market -ready solutions, hackathon is aligned with India’s vision of leading 5G innovation. (Years)

(The story came from a union feed and was not edited by the Staff.)