From making wage information easier for workers to understand to breaking communication barriers for people with hearing and speech disabilities and supporting elderly people living alone, six young innovators from Bengal have made it to the national Top 40 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.

Rahul Gupta, Anushka Gupta, Sayak Samanta, Soufir Rahman, Shourjiya Chakraborty and Aishi Mukhopadhyay are among a new generation of young Indians looking at problems around them and asking a simple question: can technology help solve them?

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung’s flagship CSR innovation programme for young people aged 14 to 22. Through design thinking, mentorship and hands-on learning, the programme enables young innovators from across India to identify real-world challenges and develop potential solutions, helping them take ideas from the early stages towards prototypes.

Three Ideas, Six Young Innovators

For Rahul Gupta and Anushka Gupta from Kolkata, the challenge is wage transparency. Workers in sectors such as construction, domestic work and agriculture can find it difficult to access and understand information on applicable minimum wages, particularly when it is contained in lengthy or complex documents.

His solution explores how AI can make wage-related information simpler and more accessible, helping workers better understand the wages they are entitled to.

Sayak Samanta and Soufir Rahman are developing SignBridge AI, a solution aimed at making everyday communication more accessible for people with hearing and speech disabilities. With sign-language interpreters not always readily available in schools, hospitals, workplaces and public services, their solution explores the use of AI to translate sign language into speech and text in real time.

For Shourjiya Chakraborty and Aishi Mukhopadhyay, the focus is the wellbeing of elderly people living alone. Loneliness, emotional distress and early indications of cognitive decline can sometimes go unnoticed, while families and caregivers may not always have an immediate way of identifying changes. Their solution explores how technology could help families and caregivers stay better informed and support senior citizens more proactively.

Three ideas. Six young innovators. And challenges that touch the lives of workers, people with disabilities, senior citizens and their families.

Their achievement comes as India’s innovation map itself is expanding. More than half of the national Top 40 teams in this year’s Samsung Solve for Tomorrow are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young innovators from different corners of the country are bringing fresh perspectives to real-world challenges.

For Bengal, having six young innovators among the national Top 40 is a source of pride and another reflection of the region’s long tradition of ideas, creativity and problem-solving. The Bengal ideas span the AI Living for India and Health and Education themes of this year’s Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and demonstrate how young innovators are looking beyond technology itself to the people it can potentially help.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow seeks to be a partner in this journey — giving young innovators the mentorship, technology, design-thinking skills and platform they need to take an idea forward.

The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, where they will receive intensive mentoring from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. As part of the Bootcamp, the teams will also get an opportunity to visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Samsung R&D Institute India – Noida, Samsung R&D Institute India – Bangalore, Samsung Design Delhi, and Samsung’s Regional Headquarters in Gurugram.

The teams will then compete for a place in the Top 20, which will receive further support to strengthen and advance their solutions ahead of the Grand Finale.

At the culmination of the programme, the four winning teams will collectively receive incubation grants worth INR 2 crore, along with incubation support from FITT-IIT Delhi, helping them take their solutions towards further development and market-ready.

The growing participation of innovators from Tier 2 and Tier 3 India points to a larger change in the country’s innovation landscape. Good ideas are not defined by geography. They can emerge wherever young people encounter a problem, question why it exists and decide to do something about it.

For Bengal’s six innovators, making the national Top 40 is a moment of pride for the region — and another sign that India’s next big solution could come from any corner of the country.