Samsung, India’s largest and most trusted consumer electronics and smartphone brand, has launched a unique industry-academia program – Samsung PRISM (Preparing and Inspiring Student Minds) – to stimulate the Indian innovation ecosystem, and build capabilities among students that meet industry needs.

The program, which will be run by Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B), Samsung’s largest R&D facility outside of Korea, aimed to involve engineering colleges that are in the top positions of the Government of India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings. SRI-B has so far signed MoUs with 10 engineering colleges. It will add more colleges over the next few months.

Once the program rolls out, SRI-B will collaborate with students and faculty at these engineering colleges, giving them research as well as development projects to be executed over four to six months. Students will get to work on projects in cutting edge technology areas such as Artificial Intelligence (including vision tech), Machine Learning, Internet of Things & Connected Devices and 5G networks, to solve real world problems.

Each project will be taken up by a team of three students and one professor, with a mentor from SRI-B who will guide and train them, and conduct regular reviews. Each engineering college can have multiple teams, and students will be selected on the basis of a test conducted by SRI-B.

Students will also be encouraged to publish papers and file patents jointly with SRI-B.

Dipesh Shah, Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore, said: “Samsung PRISM program is a testimony to our mission of transforming people’s lives with meaningful innovations. This program will draw from the strength of our academia and engineering students’ community, which undoubtedly is the best in the world. Giving them an opportunity to work with Samsung, and making them industry-ready will be a step in the right direction towards Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

“As we move forward, we want to blend the program with the academic calendars of engineering colleges across the country, and also encourage students and faculty to publish quality papers and file patents,” Mr Shah added.

SRI-B had started a pilot program for Samsung PRISM last year, in which 150 teams worked on unique R&D projects. The teams worked on ‘Make for India’ projects such as handwriting recognition for Indian languages and AI-based Indian language translation. Some teams worked on research projects such as intelligent navigation via in-home object recognition and improving video quality in low light conditions.

During the lockdown period, the program has been conducted online. Teams worked on their projects from home, and have been trained by mentors over Video Calls and Webinars.

All team members on project completion will be given certificates by SRI-B. So far, 46 teams have been recognized for their exceptional work and have been rewarded too. SRI-B has signed MoUs with Vellore Institute of Technology, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, M.S Ramaiah Institute of Technology, RV College of Engineering, BMS College of Engineering, Siddaganga Institute of Technology, and others.

SRI-B focuses on technologies around Communication Protocols, Multimedia (including Camera Solutions), Intelligence, Payment, Web Services, Memory, Network and IoT. The R&D centre’s key focus is to create global product differentiation and solutions for the Indian market by identifying unique insights and deliver value to consumers. SRI-B has expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and networks including 5G. It has also filed over 2,900 patents in India so far.

Over the years, SRI-B has engaged with multiple universities and educational institutes such as Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc), International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) IIT- Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur for research collaborations on areas such as artificial intelligence and its applications to multimedia and vision tech, IoT, sensors and networks.