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.

Artificial Intelligence is often associated with research laboratories, global technology companies and sophisticated computing infrastructure. Across India, however, a different AI story is unfolding.

Young innovators are applying artificial intelligence to solve problems they encounter in their everyday lives—from improving the safety of sanitation workers and making communication more accessible for people with disabilities to helping communities stay connected during disasters and making roads safer.

These ideas are among those emerging from the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, Samsung’s nationwide innovation programme for young people aged 14–22 years. Together, they reflect a new generation of innovators using AI not as an end in itself, but as a practical tool to improve lives.

“Artificial Intelligence will create the greatest impact when it helps solve everyday challenges faced by people and communities. What is inspiring about this year’s Top 100 teams is that they are applying AI with purpose—combining technology with empathy to address problems they understand firsthand. Through Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, we want to help these young innovators transform promising ideas into solutions that can create meaningful impact for society,” said Shubham Mukherjee, Head, CSR & Corporate Communications, Samsung South West Asia.

AI That Begins with Real Life

Rather than developing technology for its own sake, these young innovators identified problems within their communities and explored how AI could make solutions more accessible, affordable and scalable. Here are a few ideas inspired by local challenges across healthcare, accessibility, mobility and public safety.

Protecting Those Who Protect Our Cities

A student from Uttar Pradesh asked an often-overlooked question: how can technology make sanitation work safer?

Manual scavenging continues to highlight the safety risks sanitation workers face while cleaning septic tanks, particularly from toxic gases in confined spaces. To address this challenge, the student conceptualized an AI-assisted sensing and edge computing solution that detects hazardous gases before workers enter such spaces. The system provides a simple visual warning, helping sanitation workers identify dangerous environments before they become life-threatening.

Making Roads Safer Through AI

Inspired by the challenges motorists face when vehicles break down in remote areas, a participant from Assam is building an AI-powered roadside assistance platform that analyses vehicle faults using text, voice or images, estimates repair requirements and connects users with nearby verified mechanics while enabling live tracking and emergency support.

Giving Technology a Human Voice

Communication remains a daily barrier for millions of people with hearing or speech disabilities.

Inspired by this challenge, a student from West Bengal is working on a solution that translates Indian Sign Language into speech and text in real time, making conversations more accessible in schools, workplaces and public spaces.

Helping Communities Stay Connected During Disasters

When natural disasters disrupt communication networks, timely information can save lives.

During floods, landslides and earthquakes, damaged mobile networks can leave communities isolated and unable to call for help. Addressing this challenge, a Madhya Pradesh participant conceptualized an offline emergency communication platform that enables smartphones to relay SOS alerts using mesh networking even when conventional mobile networks are unavailable, helping communities stay connected during emergencies.

This year, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow expanded its reach to 135 cities through 184 Design Thinking Workshops, enabling students to identify real-world challenges and develop innovative solutions through structured design thinking. More than half of the participants came from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting the programme’s growing reach across India.

The diversity of ideas shared by students reflected the diversity of India itself. Working through structured design thinking exercises, students learned to observe, empathize, define challenges, ideate and prototype solutions aligned with the programme’s four themes—AI Living for India, Health & Education, Environmental Sustainability, and Sport & Tech.

The Top 100 teams are now preparing for the programme’s next milestone as they compete for a place in the Top 40. The selected teams will receive advanced mentoring from industry experts, support to strengthen their prototypes, guidance on product development and market validation, and deeper exposure to entrepreneurship as they continue their innovation journey.

As these young innovators move closer to the next stage, they are demonstrating that the future of AI in India will not be defined only by technological breakthroughs. It will be defined by how technology improves everyday life for millions of people.

The newly released series of animated videos is called ‘The History of the Electronics Industry that Changed the World’. It explores the inventions from the 19th and 20th centuries that came to lay the foundation for the innovations that have now become essential parts of our lives.

The first episode, “Samuel Morse and the Network”, demonstrates how networks have developed over the years. This video invites viewers on a remarkable journey that takes them all the way from an early form of communication that used dots and dashes to today’s 5G network.

Following this first episode, four subsequent videos will be released one at a time. Those episodes will be called: ‘John Baird and the TV’, ‘Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone’, ‘James Harrison and the Refrigerator’ and ‘William Shockley and the Semiconductor’.

Check out the video below to learn how networks have evolved over the years.