The T Challenge is our stage to award promising innovators with a broad network full of opportunities. This year, we’re focusing on leveraging AI for telecommunications. We invite developers, researchers, and creatives to reveal their visions of a network management and customer experience that are elevated by the power of AI.
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About the

T Challenge

Ideas have the power to change the world forever. Thoughts that are born inside genius minds can be truly mind-blowing and deserve all the attention in the world. But here’s the twist: if these ideas are not shared, they lose all their power.

That’s why T-Mobile US and Deutsche Telekom want to make sure great ideas are seen and heard. We set the stage for the greatest talent, brightest minds, and most creative visions, and transform them into real game-changers – by working on them, re-thinking them, and further developing them with a network of experts in the middle of the spotlight.

The T Challenge is our stage to award innovators with the most precious thing we have to offer: an infinite network of opportunities. Because that’s what great ideas deserve.

Are you ready? Then step up to the global stage to present your vision, amplify your positive impact, celebrate your passion for tech and benefit from long-term business opportunities.

Set your stage for

GLOBAL RECOGNITION.

Amplify your

POSITIVE IMPACT.

Grow your vision with

LONG-TERM BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES.

Celebrate your

PASSION FOR TECH.

T Challenge 2022/23 Impressions

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This years focus

AI for Tele­communications

How can we utilize AI to revolutionize network management & customer experience?

This year’s spotlight is on the groundbreaking application of AI within telecommunications. We are in search of innovative and ingenious solutions in the domains of enhancing our networks and services with the power of AI.
Start-ups, SMBs, universities, research institutes, creative agencies, and designers, your vision is needed. Let’s unite and construct opportunities on the grand stage, all in pursuit of genuine human-centric technology.

Focus Areas

  • Network optimization and maintenance: How can generative AI revolutionize network optimization and maintenance to provide more reliable and high-performance telecommunication services?

  • Network Simulations: How can we leverage AI to simulate telecommunication networks to test and prepare rollout scenarios

  • Network Analytics: Which transformer-based foundation models do exist that can be used as a starting point to build downstream AI-applications to analyze time series and event data originating from telecommunication networks?

  • Network security threats: How can generative AI be used to improve the detection and mitigation of network security threats and cyberattacks?

  • Network Downtime and Quality Issues: How can AI assist in proactively identifying network anomalies and predicting potential outages before they impact subscribers?

  • AI Operations: How to manage & optimize large scale infrastructure using AI

  • Resource Inefficiency: How can AI optimize resource allocation to improve network efficiency and cost-effectiveness?

  • Equipment Failures: How can AI-based predictive maintenance reduce the occurrence of unexpected equipment breakdowns?

  • 5G and beyond: In the context of 5G and beyond, how can generative AI help create innovative applications and services that capitalize on the increased bandwidth and low latency?

  • Internet of Things: In the era of Internet of Things (IoT), how can generative AI contribute to the management and optimization of a vast array of connected devices within telecommunication networks?

  • Digital Twin of agents:  How can we use generative AI to create a Digital Twin of our agents that can respond to our customers, combining the general know-how of our chat bot with specific knowledge about a specific agent and his cases?GenAI x Robotics: Can generative AI in combination with robotics create an android that acts as a welcome manager in our stores?

  • Multimodality: How can we enhance our chat bot with image and video functions for input and output to create a multimodal chat bot?

  • Voice & Video quality: In what ways can AI be used to enhance real-time voice and video call quality for a seamless communication experience?

  • Customer Support & Troubleshooting: How can generative AI-powered virtual agents transform customer support and troubleshooting processes?

  • Predictive Models: How can AI be leveraged to develop predictive models to improve customer experiences, products and services?

  • Evaluate Chatbot Experiences: How can we evaluate the performance of Chatbots based on the chat history and next actions and become independent from direct user feedback?

  • Customized data plans: How can generative AI assist in the design of customized data plans and pricing models that better align with individual customer needs and preferences?

  • Employeee superpowers: How can AI be leveraged to give our employees superpowers to better help our customers?

  • LLM hallucinations: How can we reduce the risk of LLM hallucinations in our highly-regulated, details-matter industry?

  • Generic Marketing Campaigns: How can AI enable us to tailor marketing efforts to individual customer preferences and needs?

  • Real-Time Agent Support: What are new and unseen real-time assistance use cases that really support our frontline employees?

  • Automatic generation of trainings:  How can we leverage generative AI best in order to create tailor made trainings for our service-center agents?

  • Identification of attributes: How can we cost-effectively identify a set of attributes or metrics (e.g. soft skills, hard skills, call types, etc.) out of speech-to-text call transcripts with a good performance?

  • Bot/AI Detection: How can we detect if an AI, rather than a human being, is contacting us via one of our sales & service channels? (e.g. call, chat, messaging, email…)

  • Un-Carrier Ideas: AI today is getting better at synthesizing and mixing existing knowledge. How can AI be used to accelerate new, revolutionary, Un-carrier ideas?

  • High Customer Care Costs: How can we leverage AI to significantly reduce customer care expenses while maintaining or even improving service quality?

  • Churn and Customer Attrition: How can AI help us identify the underlying reasons behind customer attrition and propose strategies to mitigate it effectively?

  • Revenue Losses: How can AI be used to identify and prevent revenue leakages more effectively?

  • Fraudulent Activities: How can AI enhance our fraud detection capabilities to identify and prevent such activities more efficiently?

  • Supply Chain Bottlenecks: How can AI optimize our supply chain processes to ensure timely equipment availability?

  • Environmental Impact: How can AI-driven strategies help us achieve energy efficiency while maintaining the reliability of our network operations?

  • Carbon Emmision: How can AI help us in reducing our carbon emissions throughout our value chain?

  • AI assisted customer segmentation and hyper-specific customer interaction & approach: Moving from “Pitches for 5 Personas to personalized B2B interaction”

  • AI assisted employee training & skill development: Employee Specific training, training guide, context sensitive training

  • Optimize Coding Quality and Efficiency: How can AI enhance code quality in large scale software development projects and how can AI support higher efficiency in code transformation, documentation and generation.

  • B2B Sales Impact: How can AI enable higher impact in B2B sales, specifically in large tenders – i.e. in more tailored communication, faster document scanning / processing / reply.

  • B2B Solutions: How can AI help us to leverage DT’s potential for B2B offerings? What fields are particularly interesting for us?
  • AI Reusability & Sustainability: How can we make the most out of vertical AI solutions – What is a sustainably scalable foundation for our B2B business?

Any questions? Check our FAQ for answers.

Prize Pool

Experience package

Attention, nominees!

Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US extend a prestigious invitation to all selected nominees. You will be invited to experience our Telekom headquarters in Germany for an unparalleled opportunity to network with top executives, present your cutting-edge solutions on our stage, be inspired by keynote speakers, and partake in the gala dinner and award ceremony celebrating all nominees’ achievements.

Highlights of the experience package

Invitation for all nominees

All nominees are invited to the T Challenge Finals at the Telekom Headquarters in Bonn, Germany.

Travel and accommodation expenses fully covered.

Gala Dinner & Evening Ceremony

Exclusive Gala Dinner with high-profile decision-makers and inspirational keynote speakers providing industry insights.

Mentoring & Networking

Personal mentoring by experts from within the Telekom Group and T-Mobile US.

Unique networking and knowledge exchange opportunities.

Recognition & Award

Opportunity to showcase your solution to a professional audience and top executives.

In order to let your ideas leave a positive impact on the world, we are looking for long-term cooperations and business opportunities. On top, we award special contributions with attractive prize money.

What’s in it for me? Information on benefits and prize money.

TOP AWARDS

1st Place

€ 150,000

2nd Place

€ 75,000

3rd Place

€ 35,000

SPECIAL AWARDS

Most Engaging Presentation

€ 25,000

Most Integration Potential

€ 25,000

Most Visionary Solution

€ 25,000

Target Group

Who are we looking for?

We call out to ambitious developers, researches, and creatives from all over the world to show us revolutionary ways to leverage AI for telecommunications.
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Developers
Startups, Companies, Experts
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Researchers
Academia, R&D Institutes, Industry
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Creatives
Agencies, Designers

Timeline

Submission
November 2, 2023 –
January 26, 2024


Make us curious about your idea and describe what you will achieve in the development phase.
Idea Review
January 29, 2024 –
February 29, 2024


A qualification team will look for best proposals and select 12 TOP submissions for the development phase.
Development
March 4, 2024 –
May 31, 2024


Selected 12 TOP teams can now start to work on the proposed technical solution or research paper.
Preparation
June 1, 2024 –
June 9, 2024


We help you to get prepared for the Pitch & Award ceremony.
Pitch & Award
June 10, 2024 –
June 11, 2024


TOP teams are invited to pitch their solution in front of the Jury at Telekom HQ, Bonn.

Timeline

Submission
November 1, 2023 – January 26, 2024
Make us curious about your idea and describe what you will achieve in the development phase.
IDEA REVIEW
January 29, 2024 – February 29, 2024
A qualification team will look for best proposals and select TOP submissions for each award category for the development phase.
DEVELOPMENT
March 4, 2024 – May 31, 2024
Selected TOP teams can now start to work on the proposed technical solution or research paper.
Preparation
June 1, 2024 – June 9, 2024
We help you to get prepared for the Pitch & Award ceremony. The pitch deck submission deadline is May 12, 2023
PITCH & AWARD
June 10, 2024 – June 11, 2024
TOP teams are invited to pitch their solution in front of the Jury at Telekom HQ, Bonn.

News

Interview with Synthefy

The winning teams of the T Challenge 2024 have just been announced. First place went to Synthefy (USA), a spinout from Stanford University and the ...
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T Challenge 2024: Winner Announcement

The telecommunications landscape is rapidly evolving, and AI is at the forefront of this transformation. To accelerate this progress, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US have ...
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T Challenge 2024: Grand Jury Announcement

On June 10-11, 2024 Deutsche Telekom headquarters in Bonn, Germany, will be the stage for twelve finalist teams. They will present their innovative solutions on ...
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