Cracking 5G Innovation Hackathon: Lessons From a National Finalist

The Department of Telecommunications announced the 5G Innovation Hackathon again in March 2026 after a successful 6-month run last year. I would’ve preferred to create this post then, but I hope this could still work for the thousands awaiting results of the nodal and regional level shortlisting for this and subsequent years. A lot of people wouldn’t know about how it’s gonna go and what they should expect, so this post is exactly for those people.

In the first 5G Innovation Hackathon that went on from March to September in 2025, I was one of the national finalists. With me as the de facto leader, we made our way to the top few to receive a grant, develop a prototype and then pitch it to the panel.

And although I’ve again submitted three new software-heavy proposals this year, I remember a lot of “unknowns” we had to face last year. There’s plenty of stuff that you’re not told beforehand and you just have to cope with it, which is why I’m gonna break it all down for you:

• Shortlisting: What the judges are actually looking for in your initial proposal.
• Presentation: How to pitch your idea effectively once you’re past the first hurdle.
• Execution: How to plan your prototype development in limited time.
• Demonstration: What to expect on the demonstration day.

I’ll be sharing my firsthand experiences, some opinions, the mistakes we made and the struggles my team (and others I talked to) faced along the way.

Edit: If it helps, one of our proposals reached the National Finale again in 2026 and considering two years of experience at this point, I can confidently validate just about everything I’ve shared in this blog.

Navigating the Shortlisting: What the Judges Want

In the shortlisting process, you must’ve submitted your proposals to one of the 100 5G Labs across the country, where each lab can shortlist and forward 1 to 5 projects for regional level shortlisting. They’d naturally prefer proposals from their own institutes, but I’m sure no one would turn down a great proposal.

Tip: The deadline for nodal shortlisting is over right now, so while the results for regionals are yet to come, you can still contact the coordinator of your lab to ask about the status of your proposals.

Since there are 100 5G Labs and assuming around 3,000–3,500 proposals, this first filter would bring the crowd to about 400.

What might be going on while I’m writing this post is the regional level shortlisting where they’re supposed to select about 100–150 teams or so. These are the evaluation criteria with weightages that will be used henceforth:

• Technical Execution: 40%
• Scalability & Market Readiness: 40%
• Novelty: 10%
• Societal & Industrial Impact: 10%

Unlike this year, there was no specified format to submit the proposal. You can check out a raw version of our proposal here. Couldn’t find the final one (might have lost it) but in this detailed document, we mainly adapted it more to the Indian scenario and added a video simulating how it would work in real life and a couple other diagrams. I don’t really use AI to write my stuff (except for code), but we used it here cuz we had a lot of content and details from our research.

The reason why we didn’t immediately go for a standardised presentation was only because I despise presentations and how they fail to capture the idea properly (for me, at least). This kinda came as a blessing as the judges are mainly high-level scientists and veteran officials in telecommunication. They prefer to know how much research was put into the proposal and our detailed PDF gave us an advantage there because it proved research depth. I had submitted two proposals with the same method and both got shortlisted. (I’ve stuck with this strategy this year too.)

But there’s no need to panic if you submitted a shorter presentation. I believe most did last year and even they got selected.

The idea here is that at any point of time, you must keep these details in your proposal and be ready to defend them:

1. A Ground-Level Literature Review: Write about whatever research you did before putting your idea forward and what gap you’re filling.
2. Cross-Dimensional Comparison: Comparing your idea with competitors on multiple factors (cost, efficiency, etc.) will strengthen your pitch.
3. Tech Stack Justification: List all the software and hardware tools and technologies you’ll use along with justification on why they were chosen over substitutes or other methods.
4. Cost Estimation: Realistically break down and explain the cost behind tools and hardware.
5. Architectural Diagrams: Follow up with sequence diagrams, circuit diagrams, flowcharts and system designs.
6. 5G Use Case: Without downplaying its role at all, hand out a clear explanation.

Treat this as a checklist and keep it handy since it’ll be of use in the later rounds too.

A Word on Rejections

Don’t be disheartened if you don’t make it this time. Unlike Smart India Hackathon (which I criticise), there’s no major influx of proposals here, the scale is bigger and they take plenty of time to review. There’s no major competition or lottery at any phase, so a good idea will get the attention it deserves with the right framing.

And hey, if it doesn’t work out this year, DoT will probably run it every year till 6G drops. So it’s cool, you can try again with better plans and preparedness next year. Good part, it’s open even to startups and professionals; the window isn’t closing anytime soon.

The Presentation Stage: How to Secure Funding

If you got shortlisted and are here to know what lies ahead, congratulations. You’re just a step away from receiving seed funding for your proposal. This is probably the most important stage where the crowd gets filtered and the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) has to select up to 50 teams. If you can convince them here that your plan is actually viable and technically sound, you’re in, for long.

Here’s how it went for us. We checked on the website and saw that both our proposals were shortlisted for the presentation round. We waited for a couple days for further instructions and then I received two emails with a few days’ difference, with the presentation dates and allotted time slots. We had barely over 10 days to create a well-rounded presentation for each of the proposals. Owing to our approaching exams, we had to make the call to drop one and put our energy into creating a presentation for just one of them.

Tip: Once the shortlisting result date is past, check the website often to see if you made it or not. If you did, immediately get to creating or refining your presentations.

Preparation: Levelling Up

Now a lot of teams who got shortlisted through their PPTs or PDFs might think it’s the round where they can show the same presentation to the TEC, but this stage requires you to level it up. Whether you think it’s fair or not, two of the six months of the hackathon have already elapsed and the judges expect you to have already started working on your idea. (More about this later in this section).

Check out our final presentation here.

If you compare this to our initial document, you’d find that the content is a bit different, the architecture and the decisions are more refined, analysis is better with more visualisation and proper cost estimation.

If you go on and read it, there’s another thing we added; we talked to relevant NGOs about our proposal, which is something I want to focus on. Your proposal can be great, no doubt. But if you can talk to a stakeholder and validate your features, the cost and the whole idea and understand how your proposal will affect them, it’ll help you out both for presentation and in general during development. Having this backing significantly boosted our credibility during the pitch.

Tip: A few days before the presentation day, I received a call from an officer at Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) regarding some logistics like presentation timing, email submission, team details, etc. I can’t say if they’ll do it like that this time but if you somehow come across a contact like that, save that number. In the journey ahead, issues WILL come up and you won’t have time to wait for an email reply. That person will be the one you can count on to solve or escalate your problems.

Presentation Day: Delivering

I was allotted a strict 10-minute slot on June 10, 2025: exactly 4:18 PM to 4:28 PM, DoT (pun intended). My team and I readied ourselves and joined the online meeting queue. After a rather restless wait till two hours after my allotted slot, we were finally admitted just when we were thinking of dropping off. Honestly, even my anxiety and hesitation died down in that time. Just wanted to get it over with. So when you’re up for it, clear yourself for a few hours or let them know of your unavailability in advance. They’re flexible and would grant you some help with your issue.

Warning: The presentation would be online and for any such meet, DoT doesn’t use Google Meet or Zoom. Instead, they have their own platform they call CDOTmeet. It has a different interface and you might have trouble navigating it first time (I sure did and it almost cost me). I’d suggest making your whole team familiar with the platform beforehand if you’re appearing for the presentation round. Make sure it doesn’t overwhelm you anyhow with the waiting and unpredictability.

When we joined, the judges were talking about how we were the last ones for the day. They seemed quite tired and I was asked to wrap my 40+ slide presentation in 5 minutes before I even started. I asked for more time, they agreed and I tried to speedrun through it real quick.

Less than 10 minutes in and they stopped me and then the questions started. Questions like “Why did you choose this component?” or “How are you going to achieve this feature with that tool?” were easy. We had a technically validated proposal, so I was ready for those general questions. Then the biggest question came, which almost had me stuck: “What work have you already done on this idea?”

Fortunately, we had visited our 5G Lab, tried a few things and clicked a few photos that I had with me then. I explained the initial groundwork and showed them the photos. They didn’t seem satisfied but one judge did comment this: “It’ll be interesting to see how you do it.” What I want to convey is that you should be prepared for something like this too. A simulation, a 3D model, some kind of actual groundwork would really help you out.

We didn’t really expect much but about 15–20 days past the tentative date (they do take their time with results), the result was uploaded on the website and we were in. 50 teams were selected for Pragati (prototype development) phase, 51 proposals in total with a team working on two. We made it but faced a whole new set of challenges ahead.

The Pragati Phase: Prototype Development

We knew we were in but nothing about what to expect further. Going by tentative dates, Pragati phase should’ve already been started. As you must’ve noticed, the timelines here were pretty fluid. Now here onwards, you’d realise to what extent we faced delays and how it affected us.

Disclaimer: I’m not blaming DoT or TCIL in any way, just going through my own experience. I think it was the first time they were organising a hackathon of that scale, so some delays just occurred. It’s the second time in 2026, so all of us can expect better this time while still preparing for the worst.

We got our results from the website on July 2, 2025 and were pretty chill about it as we thought we’d be getting the full three months of Pragati from whenever it starts. We expected to build the prototype by September end or October first week, utilising all of those three months. This led us to face some issues; what we got was effectively about 2 months (a bit less, even) to build and present the prototype.

Procurement, Pivoting and the Funding

Biggest Advice: As soon as you see your name or idea on that final list, get to working on it. IMMEDIATELY.

Within 2–3 days, figure out and identify channels to buy required hardware, 3D printing services, software licenses, how much it’d cost you, etc. You should have established realistic delivery and procurement dates by then. It may be possible that you need imported parts that might even take up to 45 days (happened to us). You can’t use those, so you must either look for substitutes or pivot. It’s perfectly normal to not make the exact thing you proposed for the exact cost as you develop. Just try to keep the core of your product valid.

If possible, start with the smaller sub-tasks or any software work to accelerate your timeline. It happened to us that 4–5 days after the result, they called us for a meet and went over details about funding and mentorship. We were asked to submit bank and tax details on email thereafter, but the seed funding didn’t come until end of July.

If you pause development thinking you didn’t receive seed money, that can turn out to be a fatal mistake. Within a week, you should have a clear idea of where you pivoted to, the sources you’re going to procure your components from and the whole roadmap and timeline to finish it.

Also, no matter how much delay is caused on the other end, expect that the final demonstration will happen around the tentative date only. They’re also on a schedule and must finish everyone’s demonstrations and hand out awards in time to showcase the best projects at Indian Mobile Congress (IMC). It works on a fixed schedule, so there’s almost no chance to receive an extension. (They might accommodate some request within the schedule if possible.)

Mentorship, Reporting and Encouragement

No team received a 1:1 mentor and about 2–3 general sessions were hosted related to mentorship. We were given a list of engineers available from multiple companies and were asked to request one. I was told that they and their companies might also help with getting hardware parts but most were from a software background.

We were mostly on our own throughout the phase and didn’t receive any significant help from them and it only began after mid-August. I believe you should use mentorship to ask as many questions as you can and get a consultation whenever you encounter blockers. They might not be able to physically help you out but their experience might certainly help you out in some situations.

We also had periodic reporting through a Google Form every couple weeks (didn’t come consistently) to report the status of our work. They were going to integrate that on the website last year, so you’ll maybe get to do that properly this year onwards.

The issues I talked about aren’t there to demotivate you about anything. I’d like to believe the management tried to provide whatever resources possible in the remaining time. But if you just know what kinda delays can occur or what the logistical failure points are, it makes the process a lot more manageable. In our case, we managed to create a proof-of-concept prototype before our demonstration on September 15, 2025.

Just expect the worst, plan and work for it and still hope everything happens timely. Proactiveness here will go a long way.

Demonstration Day: Time at NCA-T

We received an email around end of August that final demonstrations were scheduled from September 15–19. We were behind on our timeline so I talked to an official about it. He told me that there was no issue and we should bring what we had built until then. A few days later, another email told me our team would present on September 15 (probably cuz us from Central University of Haryana were one of the closest to the venue). We were tense but we packed up and headed out.

Venue and Logistics

They divided 50 teams into North and South zones, with National Communications Academy-Technology (NCA-T) (erstwhile NTIPRIT) in Ghaziabad as the venue for North Zone. I don’t know the exact location for the South Zone but it must’ve been one of the bigger 5G Labs in South India. With 50 teams and 2 zones, they planned to finish it in 5 days with 5 teams per zone per day. I’ll be talking here about my experience in NCA-T on the first day.

For travel allowance, they had arrangements for up to 2-AC two-way train tickets and two nights’ stay (including food) for two team members in one of the co-ed hostels, which was reimbursed later. Three members of our team went and we paid about ₹1,100 for a ~24-hour stay and meal for the third one.

We checked in on the night of 14th and checked out in the evening the following day. Since it’s a training facility for officers, the infra is great. You should have no trouble staying there for a few days if you just bring a change of clothes and your hardware for demonstration (a pendrive too, just in case).

Demonstration

We reached the venue on time but they were still preparing some things. We waited for half an hour before they did a quick formal registration and then we waited some more. Two other teams came in and a few minutes later, the judges. We were the first to present. We could’ve also asked for resources or time to set things up in their lab, so you should too if you require it.

Tip: Bring an updated presentation along with the product to demonstrate. The one from previous rounds also works with updates related to any change you made to the final product.

We took the prototype and the updated presentation to a room where there was a panel of about 8–10 judges. We spent the next hour there explaining and discussing our product with them.

All of them on the Technical Expert Evaluation Committee (TEEC) were senior officials and scientists with different specialisations and a base in telecommunication. We were the first team on the first day they were listening to and to our surprise, instead of judging right away, they initially seemed very curious and eager about the idea and tried to grasp it completely. They asked us basic questions just to know more about the workings. One of the most humble panels of judges I’ve ever faced in hackathons and I didn’t feel any intimidation from them either.

Occasionally, one panelist who understood a specific part would start explaining it to others. And they even debated on the complexity of some aspects of the idea right in front of us. It was pretty cool and a great experience to be part of such a raw discussion. Then came their actual questions.

About 3–4 of them were mostly silent but others asked about 2–3 great questions each. Some were like, “Why not use this approach instead of that one?” (Sometimes, their own colleagues provided the counter-argument.) They caught some weaknesses and asked us to change the methodologies in some aspects. Overall, they were impressed by the idea and how we handled the operational questions well. But remember when I talked about how they want to see research depth? That’s still pretty valid till the last minute.

We fell short when they asked us for hard metrics. Our prototype was based on another research paper. Their point was that a great prototype can be built and claims can be made, but benchmarks must be shown and compared when you’re pitching to make others believe you. So you’ll get a better reception with them if your work is akin to a research paper with actual numbers and a performance comparison if possible. They didn’t scold us, just gave us some much-needed constructive criticism.

Also don’t go on and forget the title of the hackathon. The team that presented after us had built a robot but they later told us that the panel still grilled on one point: “Where’s the 5G in this?” So keep your metrics ready along with working core functionalities, base it on a research paper or your own research and define how 5G is the driving force in your solution.

We had lunch after that and then the third team presented. After that we toured around the campus for a bit, got some rest, checked out and headed back.

Conclusive Note

There were time crunches, hurdles and we made quite a few mistakes along the way. Nonetheless, it was a fulfilling experience to build from scratch and put that on display.

If you’re a 2026 or a later year participant at any stage of the hackathon, relax and prepare early, expect some bumps and be ready for them and focus on the core of your tech.

There’s much I could’ve added but I decided to go with only what you should know. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop them in comments. You can also connect with me over LinkedIn or send a quick message on vishisht.tech and I’ll answer your queries. If you have any other collaborative initiative in mind, I’m all ears.

Dear readers, all the best for your future endeavours!