The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has 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.
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 programme, supported by a ₹1.5 crore budget, covers seed funding, IPR assistance, mentorship, and operational costs. It aims at developing over 50 scalable 5G prototypes, generate 25+ patents, strengthen academia-industry-government collaboration, and support startup creation. Key dates include submission of proposals from 15 March-15 April 2025, announcement of final winners on 01 October 2025, and a rigorous timeline ensuring milestones are met through bi-weekly progress reports and a centralised tracking dashboard.
