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OPEN TO ALL NJIT STUDENTS
The 2026 Verizon Smart Campus Innovation Challenge
We’re looking for one answer to a critical question: How can we leverage Verizon’s next-gen network to build a smarter, more efficient world and drive real growth?
Your challenge is to build a solution that delivers clear, measurable business value. To succeed, your project must align with one of Verizon's strategic pillars:
- AI-Driven Automation & Efficiency
- Cost & Sustainability Transformation
- Next-Gen Products & Services to Enhance Customer Experience
You’ll be collaborating with Verizon engineering mentors to develop your design. We’ll be evaluating how well you use Verizon's advanced network capabilities to drive scalable innovation and deliver tangible business outcomes.
Up for It?
You, students, are as diverse as the problems that can be conquered with creativity and smart technology. Whether it’s improving local technical infrastructure, facilitating solutions for everyday problems, or using your ingenuity to create something completely new, you are the generation of changemakers for a better world. Show us what you’ve got.
Registration opens at the start of the Fall 2026 semester, highlighted by the Competition Kickoff Party on October 13th. From there, teams will form, register, choose a concept, and develop a value proposition, with event registration ending in mid to late October. The drop-in session on November 3rd provides teams with the opportunity to receive feedback on their project ideas from experienced Verizon technology mentors. Round 1 begins in mid-November, with the video submission concept-pitch, from there, a designated number of teams will be selected to advance to the Round 2 Poster Showcase. See the Competition Timeline below.
The Road Ahead
| Winning Teams | Award Money | Verizon Coaches |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | $3000 | Professionals |
| Prizes for First, Second, and Third place teams | Prizes for First, Second, and Third place teams | to guide teams along their way |
Smart Campus Competition Events
| Date and Time | Round | Location |
|---|---|---|
| October 13, 2026 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. |
Kickoff | CKB Agile Strategy Lab – L70 |
| October 24, 2026 11:59 p.m. |
Registration Deadline * | Online (* Registrations close after the deadline) |
| November 3, 2026 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. |
Drop in Session | CKB Agile Strategy Lab – L70 |
| November 12, 2026 11:59 p.m. |
1 – Video Submission | Online |
| February 11, 2027 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. |
2 – Poster Showcase | CKB Agile Strategy Lab – L70 |
| March 2, 2027 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. |
3 – Project Presentation | CKB Agile Strategy Lab – L70 |
| March 30, 2027 | The Winner’s Circle | Verizon Headquarters - Basking Ridge EBC |
What’s In It for Me?
As an NJIT student, you’re busy. We know that. So why should you participate in this competition? First, participants get the unique opportunity to work directly with industry leaders from Verizon and other major companies for the duration of the competition (October-March). This will give you a competitive edge heading into your careers. Being “in it’ will help boost your resume with practical experience and meaningful project work with a Fortune 500 company. Third? CASH PRIZES for winning solutions. Teams advancing into the 3rd Round will receive a $500 stipend to utilize in furthering project development. Then, the top three teams chosen to join the Winner’s Circle will receive $3,000 per team and the chance to present their idea to Verizon leadership at their headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ. Last but not least, teams may receive additional opportunities to further develop their ideas with Verizon. That means that if your idea reaches the final stages of the competition, there may be resources available to take your project to the next stages of development.
Verizon Tech Hub
Verizon has graciously curated the following articles and resources to help our participants understand and access these technologies for use in project development.
Verizon Smart Campus Innovation Competition: Resource Summary Table
| Article / Resource Title | Direct Link | Key Takeaway |
| How AI Customer Service Can Help Enable Better Interactions | Verizon Business Insights |
Generative and agentic AI architectures transition support from rigid chatbots to autonomous agents that understand intent and context, handling transactional queries while saving human empathy for complex issues.
|
| The State of AI in Early 2024: GenAI Adoption Spikes and Starts Generating Value | McKinsey Digital |
Enterprise AI has moved from experimental pilots to agentic workflows that act autonomously across multi-department databases, creating value through workflow integration and micro-agents.
|
| Processing Sensor Data at the Edge: Advantages for the Energy Sector | Verizon Business Insights |
Processing IoT data at localized mobile edge nodes reduces energy consumption and latency, enabling demand-response adjustments and leak detection without overloading backbone networks.
|
| The 2026 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition | EDUCAUSE Library |
Universities face pressure to align technological modernization with sustainability targets, pivoting toward low-impact computing, circular lifecycles, and energy-efficient IoT network architectures.
|
| 5G Networks in Universities: Enabling Near Limitless Learning | Verizon Business Insights |
Private 5G with MEC removes bandwidth bottlenecks, unlocking sub-millisecond connection environments for data-heavy research, digital twin generation, and campus-wide real-time operations.
|
| Architecture and Performance of Private 5G and Edge Computing in Enterprise Networks | IEEE Xplore |
Network slicing within Private 5G provides guaranteed quality of service (QoS) by logically separating critical traffic from public broadband, achieving latency thresholds below 10ms.
|
| Enterprise Use Cases: Intelligent Infrastructure & Autonomous Transportation | Verizon Business |
Combining C-V2X (Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything) with 5G infrastructure allows campus transit networks to eliminate blind spots via low-latency data exchange between vehicles and traffic lights.
|
| Smart Cities and Mobility: How 5G and Edge Computing Drive Urban Innovation | MIT Technology Review |
Multi-sensor fusion (LiDAR, thermal, optical) at the network edge transforms raw video feeds into predictive traffic patterns without transmitting personal identifiable information (PII) to distant servers.
|
| How 5G Connectivity is Transforming Campus Area Networks | Verizon Business Insights |
5G-enabled spatial computing offloads complex rendering processes to local MEC nodes, enabling untethered, lightweight AR/VR headsets to stream detailed scientific models in real time.
|
| Spatial Computing in Higher Education: Beyond the Hype | Gartner Research |
Spatial computing delivers measurable retention gains when integrated with collaborative frameworks. Removing latency-induced motion sickness via local edge processing is essential for long-duration virtual labs.
|
| AWS Wavelength & AWS Outposts on Verizon 5G Edge | AWS Wavelength |
AWS Wavelength embeds AWS compute/storage directly inside Verizon 5G edge data centers, eliminating internet hops to achieve single-digit millisecond latency for compute-heavy real-time applications.
|
| Nokia Digital Automation Cloud (DAC) & Verizon Private 5G for Campuses | Nokia Enterprise |
Nokia supplies critical RAN hardware and core software powering Verizon’s Private 5G deployments, providing dedicated indoor/outdoor coverage for smart campuses and research grounds.
|
| Cisco & Verizon: Co-Innovation in 5G, MEC, and Wi-Fi 6 Convergence | Cisco Enterprise |
Cisco and Verizon collaborate to bridge enterprise Wi-Fi 6 with Private 5G and MEC, focusing on location analytics, smart building management, and unified identity across indoor/outdoor campus networks.
|
| Ericsson Private 5G and Energy-Efficient Radio Architectures | Ericsson Enterprise |
Ericsson provides advanced 5G RAN and core software supporting dynamic network slicing and low-power sleep modes in base stations to guarantee ultra-reliable connectivity while cutting energy draw.
|
| Samsung 5G vRAN & Enterprise Galaxy Ecosystem Solutions | Samsung Networks |
Samsung provides 5G virtualized RAN (vRAN) software for Verizon, replacing legacy hardware with flexible software-defined networks, while supplying mobile and display hardware for immersive learning.
|
| TrueCall Advanced Wireless Network Analytics & Optimization | Verizon Solutions |
TrueCall provides high-precision geolocation and network analytics from wireless signaling data, allowing admins to map signal quality, identify blind spots, and optimize traffic across complex spaces.
|
| Verizon & AST SpaceMobile: Cellular Broadband Direct to Standard Smartphones | AST SpaceMobile |
Verizon partnered with AST SpaceMobile to connect standard 5G smartphones directly to low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites, extending cellular coverage to 100% of geographical areas without extra hardware.
|
| Wireless Internet for the AI Era: Network Slicing & SLA-Backed Business Services | Verizon Newsroom |
Verizon operationalized commercial 5G Network Slicing over its standalone core to dynamically isolate logical sub-networks and guarantee latency, jitter, and throughput SLAs for critical traffic.
|
| Open RAN & Multi-Vendor RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) Functionality | Light Reading |
Verizon is transitioning its cellular access network to virtualized Open RAN (vRAN) software, using a multi-vendor RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) with AI algorithms to optimize radio performance.
|
| Verizon's AI Network Architecture Strategy | Verizon Newsroom |
Verizon is re-architecting its fiber backbone and edge centers to handle the ultra-high data throughput and low-latency transport required by real-time generative and agentic AI inference workloads.
|
Frequently asked questions
General Information
What is the Smart Campus Competition?
The Smart Campus Competition encourages students to create innovative, sustainable, and technology-driven solutions. Projects may focus on areas such as connectivity, campus life, your community, social issues, sustainability and more. Be creative. Think big.
Who can participate in the Smart Campus Competition?
The competition is open to ALL undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students. Please note that teams should consist of 3-6 students.
How do I register?
Click here! Through this form, you can tell us all about you and your team. If you don’t have a team, we will do our best to pair you with other participants.
Prizes and Benefits
What prizes are rewarded for the winners?
The 3 winning teams that make it into the Winner’s Circle will each be awarded $3,000. In addition, they will have the opportunity to present their ideas to Verizon Leadership at their headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ. Teams may also receive additional opportunities to further develop ideas with Verizon. That means that if your idea reaches the final stages of the competition, there may be resources available to take your project to the next stages of development.
When will the Winner’s Circle be announced?
Those teams chosen to advance to the Winner’s Circle will be announced in late March when they’ll be invited to present their ideas to Verizon Leadership at their headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ.
How are the projects evaluated?
Projects should align with one of Verizon’s strategic pillars and will be evaluated based on innovation, feasibility, impact, and presentation. Judges will look for creative solutions that are well-researched, unique, effectively address a real-world need, are scalable, and of importance to Verizon’s mission of using technology to improve how people live and work.
Competition Overview
How is the Smart Campus Competition structured?
Competition Kickoff - October 12, 2026: Registration (link to registration form) opens and the event begins.
Drop In Session - November 3, 2026: After teams form, register, choose a concept, and develop a value proposition, teams will have the chance to receive feedback on their project from experienced Verizon technology mentors at this Drop In Session.
Round 1 - Video Submission - November 12, 2026: Hosted online, teams will upload their video submission for the 1st Round of judging. A designated number of teams will be selected to advance to Round 2.
Round 2 - Poster Showcase - February 11, 2027: Teams will create poster presentations which will be judged by Verizon mentors. Mentor support will be provided to teams invited to Round 2. A designated number of teams will be chosen to advance to Round 3.
Round 3 - Project Presentation - March 2, 2027: Finalists will have 10 minutes to present their fully formulated plan. Three teams will then enter the Winner’s Circle.
The Winner’s Circle - March 30, 2027: Three teams will be selected to present their idea to Verizon Leadership at their headquarters in Basking Ridge, NJ.
Project Criteria
How should I structure my project proposal?
The problem statement must be clearly defined and accompanied by a comprehensive explanation of the proposed solution, demonstrating its relevance and potential impact. Your proposal should include supporting research, data, and references.The statement should be no more than 1-3 paragraphs
What types of projects can teams pursue?
The idea for your project should be original and unique, showcasing innovative use of Verizon’s 5G and their other technologies. Your idea should reflect the ability to think outside the box and propose novel solutions to a common problem.
Should our projects have real-life applications?
The implementation plan must be practical and viable, addressing potential challenges, providing a realistic budget and resource requirement, and demonstrate the solution’s scalability and sustainability related to Verizon’s mission of using technology to improve how people live and work.
What type of presentations are the judges and audience looking for?
The presentation should be clear and well-organized, effectively communicating ideas and concepts, utilizing visuals, prototypes, and supporting materials, and engaging and persuading the audience.
Contact Information
For any further questions or inquiries relating to the competition, please contact: Dina Anello, Executive Director of External Relations, Ying Wu College of Computing dina.m.anello@njit.edu
