🏆 Telegram Android Contest 2025, Round 1

The contest begins on Friday, June 20. We will post the Task details along with the design mockups.

Make sure to keep notifications enabled so you don’t miss the announcement.

🏆 Telegram Android Contest 2025, Round 1

Prize fund: $50,000
Deadline: 23:59 on July 11 (Dubai time)
Who can participate: Everyone
Results: July 2025

Telegram is hosting a contest for Android developers to implement a redesigned profile appearance.

In addition to prize money, the winner of this contest may join the 🛫 Telegram Team in Dubai and earn $1 million per year after taxes by year 3.

THE TASK

Rework the existing profile screens by implementing the new design flow in strict accordance with the mockups provided below:
– Profiles of users, businesses, groups, and channels must be covered, including groups with topics enabled.
– Support for both day and night themes is mandatory.
– All related tabs and profile instances must be supported, including those where gifts are displayed.

💡 For this task, we recommend building the relevant screens from scratch. However, reusing existing code components is acceptable.

Contest Requirements:
– You must use Java.
– No third-party UI frameworks are allowed.
– The submission must be consistent with the existing Telegram for Android codebase.
– The app's stability and performance must not be affected with the changes you made.
– The app must be free of significant flaws (including crashes, visual glitches, noticeable element blinking, layout errors, and more).

❗️The implementation must precisely follow the provided design mockups, including all transitions shown in the animated demos.

Evaluation:
During the evaluation stage, we will review your code and test the submission on a wide range of Android devices.

Submissions:
Contestants will be able to submit their entries to @ContestBot at a later date. We will further clarify the submission instructions closer to the deadline.

🏆 Contest for Content Creators: Results

The first-ever contest for content creators turned out to be a great success.

The submission count speaks for itself – we received 461 entries. After filtering out incomplete and empty submissions, we grabbed some popcorn and dove deep into the colorful kaleidoscope of hundreds of videos you created.

We’d like to thank each and every one of you – for your dedication, time, and boundless creativity. What you did was much more than simply taking part in Telegram’s competition – it was about telling the world the truth. The truth about who truly paves the way of digital innovation.

Since all of your creations are truly unique, we abstained from traditional prize places this time. Instead, we’ve defined several categories, and each video within a category below will receive a winner’s fee of $2,000.

Meet the winners!

🎨 ANIMATION

Holy Hamster – Channel | Told a fairytale about Messengerland.
Suave Kangaroo – Channel | Showed which cat is falling behind.
Noble Leopard – Channel | Made it clear: jealousy comes in green.
Caring Fox – Channel | Animated both apps in an unexpected way.
Swift Mule – Channel | Drew a spy-themed pixel cartoon.
Kooky Jackal – Channel | Deleted WA from their phone.
Hairy Whale – Channel | Made great use of a trending meme.
Fancy Jackal – Channel | Showed us the WA user's POV.

📹 CINEMATIC

Big Whale – Channel | Reminded us of classic ads – as if the company were a person.
Sexy Puffin – Channel | Documented the development of messaging civilization.
Tall Sloth – Channel | Imagined what a WA office might look like.
Merry Horse – Channel | Showed what a trivia competiton between messengers could look like.
Humble Peacock – Channel | Showcased city crime stories.
Tactful Antelope – Channel | Made us rewatch Matrix.
Sacred Gecko – Channel | Yet another twist on personification.
Small Goat – Channel | Delivered a slick ad.
Holy Skunk – Channel | Revealed a conversation between two messengers.

📱 MOTION

Quiet Squirrel – Channel | Delivered a sleek one-to-one comparison.
Nimble Tiger – Channel | Presented us who is the source.
Sexy Kiwi – Channel | Derived a formula: innovate – not just update.
Lucky Llama – Channel | Spun up a carousel of features.
Clever Kangaroo – Channel | Outlined a minimalist feature timeline.
Jolly Gnat – Channel | Explained why converting people isn’t always easy.
Stylish Peacock – Channel | Showed the clash between prehistoric tribes and alien technologies.
Sleek Gull – Channel | Told us who is the real innovator.
Tall Dragon – Channel | Left us speechless.

🤖 FIELD

Cute Cobra – Channel | Shared a story of two trains.
Agile Sheep – Channel | Portrayed WA R&D department’s daily routine in an utterly surreal way.
Small Wombat – Channel | Leaned into the trending brainrot meme aesthetic.
Quick Gecko – Channel | Sang a song.
Smart Bat – Channel | Revealed which place serves fresh food – and which one doesn’t.
Kind Spider – Channel | Uncovered the untold side of confession.


🎟 MOVIES

Sexy Beetle – Channel | Proved nothing beats a good old western.
Wise Bee – Channel | Eliminated Skynet’s servant.

If you do not see your entry among the winners – do not get upset. The competition was tough and intense, and you will definitely make it next time!

We are also expanding the scope of this contest – watch for Round 2 announcement in the next couple weeks.

🏆 Telegram Android Contest 2025, Round 1

🎉 This contest turned out to be one of the most successful and fruitful we’ve ever held.

👋 We’re pleased to welcome so many new participants from around the world who joined one of the most challenging coding competitions.

🧱 Out of 90 initial entries, the number of actual app submissions was slightly lower – and we had to further discard some that were either empty or non-functional.

🛠 The Telegram Android Team had to rebuild a couple dozen apps that either didn’t follow the submission guidelines or broke something – so a 10% penalty was applied to their winnings accordingly.

🤑 Given the number of participants and the overall quality of entries, the judges decided to double the prize fund, boosting it to $100,000. This way, we ensured that no worthy submission would be left behind and our recognition could be fairly distributed among all of you who participated.

⏰ After tens of hours spent reviewing all the apps, we can say with confidence – many have far exceeded our expectations. Congratulations, and our deepest thanks to everyone who took part in the competition.

Please meet the winners!

1st PLACE – $7,000
🥇 Huge Fox
🥇 Chic Eagle
🥇 Slim Gull
🥇 Groovy Hyena
🥇 Merry Cock

2nd PLACE – $4,000
🥈 Earnest Pug
🥈 Fairy Zebra
🥈 Hardy Turkey
🥈 Hip Mantis
🥈 Young Beetle
🥈 Ace Panda, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$400)
🥈 Small Fly, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$400)

3rd PLACE – $2,000
🥉 Fierce Bull
🥉 Calm Giraffe
🥉 Subtle Piranha
🥉 Kooky Lion
🥉 Grim Mule
🥉 Stylish Ladybird
🥉 Merry Gopher
🥉 Sleek Pony
🥉 Bossy Gnat, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$200)
🥉 Able Griffin, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$200)


4th PLACE – $1,000
🎖 Lawful Rabbit
🎖 Agile Leopard
🎖 Tidy Sheep
🎖 Desert Falcon
🎖 Mighty Rabbit
🎖 Wise Puma
🎖 Daring Whale
🎖 Swift Bull
🎖 Fit Rhino
🎖 Little Elk, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$100)
🎖 Sharp Mink, penalties:
– rebuilding penalty (–$100)

On top of that, we are also awarding 14 entries with bonuses of $500 each – they didn’t make it to the prize places this time, but were notable enough to deserve a recognition.

P.S. You will additionally find detailed reviews covering the strong and weak points of your submission posted below your contest.com entry within the next 72 hours.

P.P.S. Some of the top prize winners will also hear from us in the coming weeks about further cooperation opportunities.

That's all for today, more contests are on the way!

🆕 Telegram Contests Update

Currently, three contests are active – feel free to join any of them:

01.12 – 📱 Contest for Designers

02.12 – 🎨 Artists Competition

04.12 – iOS Contest
💸 Developers at Telegram can earn up to $1,000,000 per year before taxes.

🏆 Design Contest 2025

Prize fund: $50,000 or more
Deadline: 23:59 Dubai time @ December 15, 2025
Who can participate: Everyone

📱 Telegram announces its most epic Design Contest, where top prize winners will each secure $10,000 and may also get a chance to join the Telegram Design Team.

THE TASK

Design a concept for Telegram Nodes entirely from the ground up, while preserving the familiar components of Telegram’s interfaces. It must feel seamless and aesthetically compelling while remaining clear and intuitive for users.

Nodes act as separate instances within the app that help users organize and streamline their communication flows – from personal to work. Nodes go far beyond simple chat folders or groups with topics enabled.

You may think of them as Discord-like servers or Slack-style workspaces that can contain multiple chat types, including voice and video chats, support in-depth admin management and user roles.

Users who join Telegram Nodes can set a profile picture, bio, and name that differ from their main account. They can then switch between Nodes and their main Telegram inbox – for example, via the left-side menu, which lists all their Nodes alongside any other Telegram accounts they’re logged into.

Your submissions must include:
1. A complete set of mockups for both the Android and iOS versions of the Telegram app.
2. A demo video for either platform in the same manner as the demonstrations from the Telegram Blog.

CORE REQUIREMENTS

• Clarity and usefulness are mandatory – everything must feel immediately understandable to users, leaving no room for confusion.
• Thoughtful feature engineering – the design should reflect an implementation-ready concept.
• All sides must be considered – you must deliver both the user and admin flows.
• A well-thought entry point and clear Nodes management are essential.
• Support for both day and night themes is mandatory.

Submission Format:

1) The layouts can be implemented as static .png files. For the animation demos, use .mp4 format (without sound).
Source files and properly structured Figma projects are also welcome.
2) For included videos, you must also provide several static .png images from each video that serve as a storyboard.
3) If you use complex animated icons, they must be in lottie json or .tgs format.

Further submission instructions will be announced closer to the deadline.

🎨 Telegram Contest for Artists

Total prize pool: Up to $50,000
Deadline: 23:59 @ Dec 31, 2025 (Dubai time)

📱 Telegram announces a new contest for artwork creators.

THE TASK

🎁 – create unique vector-based appearances of the following Collectible Gift. To get a better idea of Gift Collections and their different models, you may browse the existing sets in Settings → Send Gift → Collectibles.

Proceed with either:

Option A
Prepare vector artwork and animate it using Adobe After Effects. Submit each gift model as an .aep file. You will find a reference file attached below this message.

Option B
Prepare static vector artwork with Adobe Illustrator. Submit each gift model as an .ai file.

We will reward you with up to $500 for each gift model you create. You may submit as many as you like, provided their quality and visual appeal match or exceed those of our existing gifts.

Submission Guidelines:

You must submit your models as .tgs + .aep files for animated and .png + .ai files for static artwork respectively. You may additionally place your models into a single sticker pack.

Further instructions will be announced closer to the deadline.

🏆 iOS Contest 2025

Prize fund: Up to $50,000
Deadline: 23:59 Dubai time on December 26, 2025
Who can participate: Everyone

📱 Telegram is hosting a contest for iOS developers to bring Liquid Glass effects to older versions of iOS. The winner will get a chance to join the Telegram Team.

💸 Developers at Telegram can earn up to $1,000,000 per year before taxes.

THE TASK

Implement custom versions of some of the Liquid Glass effects and the relevant interface flows into Telegram for iOS so these appearances work on iOS 18 and older.

You must precisely replicate the animations and look and feel (highlight on tap, scale-up, bounce, and stretching) on the glass elements. This applies in particular to:

– The tab bar
Omit background blur behind the bar itself, while preserving the glass lenses’ ability to blur the bar’s own content.

– Buttons
This includes attach menu icon, voice and video message recording buttons, etc.

– Switches and sliders
Only the moving element itself should apply blur.

Contest Requirements:

– Support for iOS 18 is mandatory.
– No third-party UI frameworks or new dependencies are allowed.
– The submission must be consistent with the existing Telegram for iOS codebase. You may reuse what is already included in the app's codebase.
– Changes must not negatively affect performance, memory usage, or app stability.

Evaluation:
During the evaluation stage, submissions will be tested on a broad range of devices and iOS versions (13-26). In addition to aesthetic accuracy and appeal, we will evaluate:
– Performance;
– Memory consumption;
– Battery impact.

Submissions:

We will announce detailed submission instructions closer to the deadline. The final submission must be your implementation integrated into Telegram for iOS, not a standalone demo app.