Our T-Challenge finalists are here, and they’re bringing forth bold new ideas for virtual stores, next-gen retail products and services, store avatars, digital twins and other XR technologies that could change the way we shop.
T-Mobile US and T-Labs, Deutsche Telekom’s research and development unit, have teamed-up to launch T-Challenge, a worldwide competition for startups, developers, researchers and designers to showcase innovative research and solutions for how 5G networks and Extended Reality (XR) technology can transform the retail industry. T-Challenge is designed to fuel new innovations in how consumers shop, with immersive XR experiences in stores, at home and on the go.
Finalists Head to Germany in June
The following 20 finalists are now in the second phase of the competition and will continue to refine their solutions in preparation for an all-expenses paid trip to Bonn, Germany, this June where they will present their solutions to top leaders at Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile US. Six winners of the T-Challenge will split over half a million US dollars in prize money. Winners will also have the opportunity for their solutions to be featured in T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom retail stores in Europe and the US.
Solution Development Category – New XR Products
Rooom - Jena, Germany - www.rooom.com
MagentaVerse: XR Experience Platform for Service, Sales, Training, Collaboration & Support
The MagentaVerse will be a Mixed Reality experience world, consisting of multiple 3D spaces that can be used to showcase the Telekom and T-Mobile brand and products in an innovative way. Using numerous collaboration tools, MagentaVerse will extend the physical sales area in the store to a virtual space and create a hybrid experience to merge realities.
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Arilyn Oy - Helsinki, Finland - www.arilyn.com
IoT Verse, a Virtual Online Showroom for IoT Products and the Future of IoT
IoT Verse is a home-like Virtual Showroom, where the user can experience various consumer IoT solutions in an immersive way. IoT products and smart home solutions are still abstract concepts for many consumers. Presenting IoT products in a clear, tangible way helps the consumer to understand the possibilities of IoT and be inspired.
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SightCall - Frankfurt, Germany - www.sightcall.com
AR Self-Service with Visual Remote Support
SightCall allows retailers to swiftly develop and deploy truly helpful AR/AI-based self-service solutions that excite customers. This solution drives engagement and empowers customers to truly help themselves with expert knowledge made scalable with Face2Face help only a click away at any time.
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Graffiti - Marseille, France - www.graffiti.ai
Augmented Retail Shopping
When shopping in store, customers expect the same level of information and service as when shopping online. Graffiti allows a new hybrid retail experience by enriching physical products with digital features. By simply pointing their smartphone at a product, customers can access specs, filters, reviews and more.
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DeepBrain AI - Seoul, Korea - www.deepbrainai.io
Conversational Human-Like AI Avatar
DeepBrain AI creates digital twin avatars that express the same appearance, voice, accent and behavioral movement as real people. With this video synthesis technology, customers can either easily create videos by typing text, or by speaking to digital twins in real time, which will enable enterprises to engage their customers more efficiently and humanly.
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Techsee - Tel Aviv, Israel - www.techsee.me
Augmented Reality and AI Customer Visual Journeys
TechSee’s blend of AI and self-service automation provides a seamless omnichannel customer experience at every touchpoint. From initial sale to post-purchase support or issue resolution, TechSee guides consumers and sales and support teams in fast and efficient interactions.
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MetaVRse - Toronto, Canada - www.metavrse.com
5G Powered Volumetric Sales Support in Virtual Stores
The Mall of the Metaverse provides the tools, technology and team to build brand and shopping experiences for the largest digital land expansion in history…with less time and money than it takes to get real world permits for construction. The Mall is a 100-floor tower with a total of 100M sq ft of development space aimed at becoming the number one retail and entertainment destination in the Metaverse.
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Animatico - Zürich, Switzerland - www.animati.co
Interactive and Intelligent Retail Avatars for Emotional Customer Engagement
Retail stores can increase customer engagement and activation through an interactive avatar. The avatar placed in a digital screen will proactively approach customers, educate them about products and support them in a gamified way.
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2Cimple - Dallas, USA - www.2cimple.com
Recycling Old Phones - Customer Journey from XR to Metaverse in a Hybrid Retail Environment
2Cimple is proposing a climate-based use case within a Nano Game to show how a Hybrid XR environment can improve customer engagement at home and enhance the shopping experience inside retail stores while experiencing Web3 technologies such as crypto, NFTs and the metaverse.
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Doob - Düsseldorf, Germany - www.doob.eu
Lifelike Avatars for XR Applications
Stores can engage customers with lifelike avatars for a new digital lifestyle in XR-applications. This 3D self-service scanner is a world first and offers an entertaining in-store customer experience. Featuring interactive games and simple user guidance, every customer can step into 3D and have fun with their exclusive avatar.
Concept & Design Creation Category – Future Prototype XR Experiences
Golem Digital - Graz, Austria - www.golemdigital.com
ByeByeQ: In Store XR Booths Decrease Customer Wait Times
Retail stores can increase service capacity during peak times by connecting busy stores’ customers to idle stores’ employees through XR video calling. Any two stores are equipped with an XR communication booth. This acts as an additional service counter for the client in one store, with the service employee in the other.
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VRdirect - Munich, Germany - www.vrdirect.com
Virtual Telekom Flagship Store
The Virtual Telekom Flagship Store virtualizes existing offline processes by creating a new VR shopping concept for customers. Through interactive features, the Virtual Flagship Store combines the personal experience of a physical store with the convenience of online shopping.
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Tawny.ai - Munich, Germany - www.tawny.ai
The Emotional Companion Creating Digital Empathy in Video-Based Customer Interactions
The shift to digital services helps to serve customers more efficiently. However, excellence in customer service is founded on empathy, and we must therefore personalize digital CX technologies. This solution creates an emotional companion by applying TAWNY emotion recognition technology to add an empathic layer to digital interactions.
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YONA - Köln, Germany - www.yona.app
YONA Customer Experience
Accompany your consumers during their whole customer lifecycle with AR, starting in the store with a personal shop assistant which assures a high quality of service. This is followed by digital customer engagement via AR photo-booths, along with digital and interactive manuals on products and packaging.
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CALLSTR - Berlin, Germany - www.callstr.com
CALLSTR 3.0
Can you imagine a world where your Store Consultant knows exactly what you are looking for? CALLSTR aims to match your personal needs for conversation to feel understood in a fun way. Your match will take place in an AR environment that you can access from everywhere. Make tomorrow more personal.
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shift89 - Paris, France - www.shift89.fr
The Magic WiFi App: Visual WiFi with Augmented Reality on Phones
What happens if you need a fast and reliable WiFi connection at home and you are not a network guru? How do you know what hardware to buy? Where should you place a router in your home? We propose a revolutionary Augmented Reality app to answer those three questions. It will offer telecom customers an inspiring journey and reduce calls to customer care for network installation issues.
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Visionaries 777 - Hong Kong, China - www.vz777.com
Extended Reality in Stores, Digital Twins and the Metaverse
We believe every store and location should have an AR-ready digital twin that will empower customers to navigate stores through AR/MR in-person or remotely in the Metaverse. Digital twins can in parallel be used internally to optimize human driven processes in training and facility management.
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Volume Ltd. - Wokingham, UK - www.volume.ai
Touch Free Interactive Surface for In-Store Product Discovery Experience
A no touch spatial computing experience allows customers to explore a virtual product catalogue and be supported by in-store salespeople. This simultaneously allows for deeper product and service discovery while augmenting the salesperson, allowing them to guide multiple customers to the best solution at the same time.
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Code University - Berlin, Germany - www.code.berlin
Telekom Store AR Art Makeovers Takeovers
We are designing a sponsored competition for XR, VR, AR artists and sculptors to make bespoke installations, digitally remodeling the interiors of specially selected flagship stores. Working from 3D models of shops, artists will create commissioned works for customers to experience in store using XR.
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Mazing GmbH - Vienna, Austria - www.mazingxr.com
Web-Based Augmented Reality Shopping Experience via Smartphone
We create the AR shopping experience of the future. Imagine that your home can be transformed into a telecom showroom to compare phones and ask a virtual celebrity for advice. This is all made possible with just one smartphone click and no need for an app.
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T-Mobile 5G, a Platform for Retail Innovation
With its largest and fastest nationwide 5G network as the foundation, T-Mobile fuels innovation and helps build the 5G ecosystem with a number of initiatives. Its newly unveiled Tech Experience 5G Hub is a 24,000 square foot workspace where entrepreneurs and partners can tap into 5G working alongside T-Mobile engineers. In addition, the T-Mobile Accelerator is the lead 5G launch partner in North America for Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Spaces™ XR Developer Platform, working with developers and startups to build head worn AR applications for education, gaming, sports and entertainment. The Un-carrier also operates the T-Mobile Ventures investment fund and it is a co-founder of the 5G Open Innovation Lab.
For more information about T-Challenge, visit www.telekom-challenge.com.
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