Juggling Work & Studies: How SRI-B’s Gaurav Jain Aced M.Tech. at IIIT-Bangalore

Gaurav Kumar Jain (L) at the convocation ceremony

Gaurav Kumar Jain notched up 3.91 CGPA in his M.Tech. program this year, enough to help him win the gold medal at International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Bangalore’s batch of 2017. It’s no ordinary achievement, considering Gaurav is also a full-time employee of Samsung R&D Institute India, Bangalore (SRI-B), Samsung’s biggest research centre outside Korea.

Gaurav credited his success to the interesting work he does at SRI-B, which involves machine learning and data analytics, and the support of colleagues at workplace.

“This wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t got proactive support from the team at work and from my seniors. The last three years were a challenge but I would love relive each of those days for the sheer value they have added to my career,” said the 37-year-old whose M.Tech. Thesis was on Deep Learning.

Gaurav is part of the first batch (2014-17) of SRI-B students that successfully completed M.Tech. from IIIT-Bangalore. SRI-B has an agreement with IIIT-Bangalore for imparting M.Tech. with specialisation in Computer Science for its employees.

SRI-B employs thousands of young engineers who work on cutting edge technology in diverse areas. Many engineers at SRI-B are straight out of college. To help upskill these employees, SRI-B tied up with IIIT-B for an M.Tech. program in 2014. Employees have to go through a rigorous entrance examination and an internal selection process to get a seat for the M.Tech. program.

“We have a strong vision to transform SRI-B into an advanced R&D centre by scaling up our talent capabilities and also infrastructure. The M.Tech. program helps reskill our talent base and make them future-ready. It also helps fulfill the aspirations of employees. The response to the M.Tech. program has been excellent,” said Sanjeev Prasad, Vice President, HR at Samsung R&D Institute India, Bangalore.

SRI-B has launched several other initiatives to engage young minds and nurture entrepreneurship skills among employees.

“We have built an India Research Network of different faculties across institutes. Every year we invite six to seven professors to talk on topics such as data security and IoT. We also employ some Research Fellows. We have also started a sabbatical program for professors in summer. These professors spend some time with us, consult our projects and deliver solutions,” said Dr. Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, SRI-B.

SRI-B was set up in 1996, a year after Samsung entered the Indian market, and has worked on several India centric innovations that are a part of Samsung products today. Many global innovations in Samsung’s flagship smartphones have also been developed in the R&D centre.