Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US (NASDAQ: TMUS) have teamed up to launch the third annual T Challenge, the global stage for innovators and disruptors to compete for an award on the best Public Blockchain Protocol solutions for Web3. The solutions created by participants will leverage the power of 5G to bring Web3 to life, with 5G playing a significant role in how users stay connected to these innovations as more data is consumed over 5G than ever before.

The submission period, which is now open, ends Jan. 20, 2023. Six winners will split 600,000 euros or roughly the same in U.S. dollars, and an all-expenses paid trip to Bonn, Germany to present their ideas to Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US.

Enormous potential of Web3

Experts expect that the next evolution of the internet bears the potential to disrupt the dominance of centralized web services and shift the power back to the users. This human-centered internet could mark a paradigm shift in the business models for many digital applications with users and creators gaining the upper hand through open-source innovation.

“Web3 is one of the major trends of the future. With the third edition of the T Challenge, we as a telecommunications provider want to explore the new possibilities of these technologies for us and our customers. This is done in the awareness that impactful technologies such as Web3, crypto or metaverse require a special degree of digital responsibility in their design. In line with our commitment to human-centric technology deployment, we are particularly interested in how we can use Web3 technologies to support our more than 240 million mobile customers in Europe and the U.S. in their daily lives,” explains Claudia Nemat, Board Member for Technology and Innovation at Telekom.

“As industry leaders, we have the responsibility to create opportunities for others to drive the future,” said Neville Ray, President of Technology at T-Mobile US. “This year’s T Challenge is an excellent chance for young companies and developers to leverage the incredible power of our 5G network to create the next wave of innovation and new internet capabilities.”

Innovation wanted
This year, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US designed the competition to spark new innovations in five areas key to Web3 development:

• Sustainability
• Network & Infrastructure
• Media, Entertainment & Experiential
• Customer Engagement & Loyalty
• Decentralized IDs & Wallets
• Partners share expertise

Open-Source Software and collaboration are the heart of Web3. So this year, Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US are partnering with four leading Web3-focused companies that will support participating teams with knowledge and expertise to turn their ideas into compelling use cases:

Celo – a carbon-negative, EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain that uses fast, scalable proof-of-stake consensus. Celo is built for real-world use cases, with key innovations including phone numbers as proxies for public keys, allowing for transaction fees to be paid in ERC-20 tokens, and syncing with the chain via an ultra-light client using only a few kilobytes of data.

Fireblocks – an easy-to-use platform to help builders create innovative products on the blockchain and to support any business — from financial institutions to NFT platforms — in the management of their day-to-day crypto operations.

theGraph – A decentralized protocol for indexing and querying data from blockchains, starting with Ethereum. It makes it possible to query data that is difficult to query directly.

Chainlink – A decentralized blockchain oracle network built on Ethereum. The network is intended to be used to facilitate the transfer of tamper-proof data from off-chain sources to on-chain smart contracts.

“We are proud to partner with Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US for T Challenge, another milestone in our shared Web3 journey that began in April 2021,” said Rene Rheinsberg, Celo Co-Founder and Celo Foundation President. “The Celo community cares about people and the planet, leveraging innovative Web3 technologies for real-world use cases, such as human empowerment protocols and climate-positive, decentralized applications. We look forward to furthering mainstream adoption of Web3, especially for the 6.4B+ mobile phone users around the world.”

Deutsche Telekom has been an active contributor to the open Blockchain ecosystem since 2017 and runs validator nodes for Proof-of-Stake Protocols like Ethereum, Polkadot, Flow and Celo. Deutsche Telekom also provides Oracle Services for Chainlink, and actively invests in Protocols like Celo.

Participation pays off

Through T Challenge, applicants will have the opportunity to submit their ideas and use-cases that could help more than 240 million mobile customers across Europe and the U.S. in their daily lives.

Submissions are officially open now until Jan. 20, 2023. After an application review period, judges will select the top 18 submissions. Once selected, teams will have until May 7 to develop their proposals, which include development sessions hosted by Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile US, Celo and others. Participants must submit their materials by May 7 before entering the preparation period and traveling to Bonn to present their solutions to leaders of Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US.

Aside from receiving honors in one of the telecommunication industry’s premier awards, six winners will split 600,000 euros, or roughly the same in U.S. dollars at current conversion rates, and will also have the opportunity for their solutions to be featured by T-Mobile US and Deutsche Telekom in Europe and the U.S.

For more information about T Challenge, visit www.telekom-challenge.com. Interested parties must submit their application by January 20, 2023. Participation in T Challenge is free of charge.