Telekom, T-Mobile US Launch New T Challenge

Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US 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.

Submissions are open now through Jan. 20, 2023. Six winners will split 600,000 euros (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 has the potential to shift power back to users and disrupt the dominance of centralized web services. This shift could spark a change in 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.

The Graph – The Graph is the indexing and query layer of web3. Developers build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL. The Graph currently supports indexing data from over 39 different networks including Ethereum, NEAR, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, Celo, Fantom, Moonbeam, IPFS, Cosmos Hub and PoA with more networks coming soon.

Chainlink – - the industry-standard Web3 services platform that has enabled trillions of dollars in transaction volume across DeFi, insurance, gaming, NFTs, and other major industries. The Chainlink Network enables developers to build feature-rich Web3 applications with seamless access to real-world data and off-chain computation across any blockchain and provides global enterprises with a universal gateway to all blockchains.

“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.
After an application review period, judges will select the top 18 submissions. Once selected, these 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, the six winners will also have the opportunity for their solutions to be featured by Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US.