This year will mark the third installment of the T-Mobile for Business Unconventional Awards at the GSMA Mobile World Congress Las Vegas—and my third year to serve as a judge for the awards. It’s been a fun ride dating back to 2022, one that has allowed me to get to know my judging counterparts on a personal and professional basis. Our dais is varied: I am the practice lead and principal industry analyst for networking and security at Moor Insights & Strategy; Phillipa Leighton-Jones is a veteran journalist and editor who now leads The Trust strategic storytelling consultancy at the Wall Street Journal; Matthew Griffin, a cheeky futurist from Great Britian, is founder of the 311 Institute consultancy; and Kimberly Wyman leads T-Mobile for Business’s customer support organization. 

In this research note, I will recap last year’s event and the winners in enterprise, government, and education, as well as provide a preview of what to expect at the 2024 awards event on October 9 at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. 

2023 Awards Event Recap

Last summer I wrote a Forbes piece that captured my insights from MWC Las Vegas and the awards event. My biggest takeaway from the second annual T-Mobile for Business Unconventional Awards was how the submissions and eventual recognition bestowed on organizations served to galvanize team member productivity and push the winning organizations to new heights of operational efficiency, learning, and social inclusion. Those are often difficult things to accomplish, but the innovative use of networking infrastructure such as 5G can serve as the connective tissue to make it a reality.

Kudos to last year’s first place winners across four categories, all of which used T-Mobile 5G connectivity to unlock innovative use cases. Those winners were:

• The Walt Disney Studios for enabling near real-time production collaboration across thousands of miles as the winner for employee enablement.

• Infosys for using data-driven analytics, AI, virtual reality, and robotics to provide an immersive experience for professional tennis fans and athletes as the winner for customer experience.

• Boston Children’s Hospital for building a secure network to streamline medical workflows and enhance patient outcomes as the winner for industry.

• The City of Bellevue, Washington for enhancing public safety services through real-time notifications that mitigate automobile accidents in a highly congested suburb of Seattle (which is also the home of T-Mobile’s U.S. headquarters) as the winner for community.

2024 Award Categories

This year, there are five award categories. For T-Mobile for Business enterprise customers with 500 or more employees, submissions will be judged for innovation in three areas—customer experience, employee enablement, and industry. For government and education customers, a fourth category will focus on innovation in community. Finally, master of ceremonies and renowned author Malcom Gladwell, famous for his bestselling books including The Tipping Point, will award one recipient with the Tipping Point Designation for daring to challenge the status quo and sparking transformative change.

First, second, and third place winners in each category will earn donations to a charity of their choice, as well as opportunities to tell their stories through social media and sponsored content on the Wall Street Journal, iHeart Radio, and more. Submissions began on April 1 and will continue through the end of July.

A Model To Be Replicated

The T-Mobile for Business Unconventional Awards is a creative way to highlight innovative 5G use cases that bring disruptive change to organizations of all types and sizes. It works so well in terms of the attention it brings and the good it does in the world that I am surprised that industry events such as CES, MWC, and others do not follow its example with awards programs of their own.

From my perspective as a technology analyst, focusing on technology for the sake of technology is a shallow endeavor. Rather, exploring what things like 5G connectivity can do from the perspective of organizational transformation is a better barometer. The T-Mobile for Business Unconventional Awards shine a light on the latter. In the process, the awards provide tremendous visibility for what can be achieved when organizations use technology to delight customers, optimize operational efficiency, and enhance social inclusion and digital literacy.