The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, has launched the second edition of its flagship initiative, the 5G Innovation Hackathon 2026, building on the encouraging response to the previous edition. Organised under the 100 5G Use Case Labs Initiative, the Hackathon seeks to catalyse the development of innovative and scalable solutions leveraging 5G and allied technologies. It invites participation from students, start-ups, MSMEs, and innovators across the country.

Call for proposals

The Hackathon will commence with a call for proposals from today (March 20, 2026), and submissions will remain open until April 17, 2026. Proposals will be received through the designated 100 5G Use Case Lab institutions, which will function as nodal centres. All entries will undergo a structured multi-stage evaluation process, including institute-level screening, regional committee assessment, national level evaluation based on presentations, prototype development support and final evaluations based on physical demonstrations.

Seed funding and access to 5G labs

Selected teams will be provided both financial and infrastructural support to convert their ideas into working prototypes. A dedicated seed funding pool of ₹50 lakh has been earmarked for this purpose. In addition, teams will have access to the advanced infrastructure available at the 100 5G Use Case Labs established across premier academic institutions for testing, validation, and refinement of their solutions.

Prize pool exceeding ₹10 lakh and IPR support for innovators

The Hackathon offers a total prize pool exceeding ₹10 lakh. The first prize carries ₹5,00,000, followed by ₹3,00,000 for the runner-up and ₹1,50,000 for the second runner-up, along with a special Best Idea award of ₹50,000. In addition, support for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) filing will be extended to up to 25 teams. The final results will be declared on October 1, 2026, and the selected innovations will be showcased and awarded at India Mobile Congress 2026.

Wide-ranging thematic areas covering 5G, AI, IoT and network security

Applications are invited across a broad spectrum of thematic areas, including 5G and 5G Advanced-based use cases, applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for telecom technology development as well as network operations and maintenance, and IoT-enabled applications in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, industrial automation and other key areas of the economy, 5G/5G Advanced-based applications for disaster management ,redcap user equipment, and fixed wireless access(FWA). Additional focus areas include Non-Terrestrial Networks and their integration with 5G/5G Advance systems , 5G use cases leveraging advanced network capabilities, including network  slicing and Quality of Service and other native 5G features, and telecom security solutions for next-generation communication systems.

Applications invited online through DoT portal

Interested participants may submit their applications online at https://eservices.dot.gov.in/5ghackathon/.

This initiative reflects the Government’s continued commitment to fostering innovation and strengthening India’s telecom ecosystem.

Follow DoT Handles for more: - X - https://x.com/DoT_India Insta-  https://www.instagram.com/department_of_telecom?igsh=MXUxbHFjd3llZTU0YQ== Fb - https://www.facebook.com/DoTIndia Youtube: https://youtube.com/@departmentoftelecom?si=DALnhYkt89U5jAaa

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