The five-year MoU was signed by Kyungyun Roo, Managing Director, SRI-N (3rd from L) and Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras (3rd from R)

Samsung R&D Institute, Noida (SRI-N) has deepened its industry-academia engagement through an MoU with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) to drive collaborative research, accelerate technology development and nurture future-ready talent. The partnership will focus on pioneering advancements in AI for Indian languages, HealthTech and emerging areas such as Generative AI, reinforcing Samsung’s commitment to build a stronger innovation ecosystem aligned with the vision of ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’.

The five-year MoU that was signed by Kyungyun Roo, Managing Director, SRI-N and Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, aims to provide a wide range of collaborative activities, including sponsored research projects, consultancy projects, technology licensing, trainings, facility development and sponsorship of student fellowships in future.

“At SRI-N, we are continuously working towards creating technologies that empower people and communities. Our collaboration with IIT Madras marks an important step towards co-creating solutions that are meaningful, inclusive, and future-ready. Together, we aim to enhance the Galaxy AI ecosystem with deeper integration of Indian regional languages and contribute to breaking language barriers across the country. In addition, we are engaging in co-development of emerging technology and enhancement of skill sets,” said Kyungyun Roo, Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute, Noida.

Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras, echoed the excitement surrounding this collaboration. “We are proud to partner with SRI-N and this alliance will sponsor revolutionary research and technological development through effective utilization of AI technology. In the fast-changing tech landscape, the MoU will upskill beneficiaries to develop strong connection between theoretical knowledge and practical industry solutions required to mitigate risks and address uncertainty,” he said.

This strategic partnership between Samsung India and IIT Madras adds to SRI-Noida’s growing network of academic collaborations, having already established long-term strategic MoUs with premier institutes including IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay and IIT Ropar. Samsung and these institutes are charting an expansive roadmap toward a smarter, more connected world. By combining industry-scale resources with academic rigor, these partnerships are cultivating a thriving ecosystem for future breakthroughs.

SRI-Noida will sponsor research and development (R&D) projects, which may be conducted at IIT Madras, the company’s premises or through a collaborative arrangement at both locations.

“Learning with work is very exciting as the implementation is real time,” says Sharma.

These lectures are part of the Open Innovation Tech Series that SRI-D kickstarted recently in a tie-up with the two IITs.

These sessions for engineers range from topics such as Computing Architecture to AR/VR technology and this program is part of SRI-D’s continuous learning initiative, which helps in fulfilling the aspirations of many of its employees.

“The lectures helped me with some terrific insights about introducing distributed computing architecture. Any future collaboration, wherein we can make some new technology solutions with the students from the university would be really great,” says Rohit Thapliyal, Senior Chief Engineer at SRI-D, who has been attending these sessions alongside his work.

The newly introduced learning program brings Samsung engineers together with faculty members from the IITs, primarily from the IITs where the Company has its Samsung Innovation Campus program running.

“At Samsung, our aim has always been to help people associated with us, reach their fullest potential through constant learning and coaching. It gives us immense pleasure to see these young millennials, talented Samsung engineers refresh their industry knowledge on cutting edge subjects by collaborating with IIT faculty,” says Pankaj Mishra, Vice President, SRI-D.

Open Innovation Tech Series is not just aimed at providing Samsung Engineers with an opportunity to learn and apply new concepts. Such learning programs also facilitate stronger ties between the industry and the academicians, which is one of the reasons why IIT faculty members are delighted at being associated with the program.

“Industry-Academia interactions are always a win-win as it is the crucial first step in the long journey of translation of ideas to commercial products. Thanks to Samsung for initiating such interactions and wishing them all the best for sustaining the same,” says Prof. V. Kamakoti, Department of Computer Science & Engineering from IIT Madras.

Samsung R&D Institute-Delhi (SRI-D) was established in 2002. It is one of the largest overseas centers having doing commercialization development for Global Smart TVs.

The win opened up opportunities for them, starting with summer internships for the trio. For Anirudth, who interned with the multimedia services team at the Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore (SRI-B), this became his biggest opportunity yet. A research paper written by him along with his mentor at SRI-B has been accepted to the International Conference on Consumer Electronics, which is part of the prestigious Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, scheduled for January 2018.

“Unlike other companies where interns are made to do run-of-the-mill work, interns at SRI-B are treated much like the employees. We got to work on a contemporary research problem, which the team would want to solve in the future. In this way, you get to learn something useful while helping the team do the basic ground work in the area,” said Anirudth who will be attending the global consumer electronics and consumer technology tradeshow in January next year.

The multimedia services team at SRI-B, with which Anirudth interned, designs Camera UI for Samsung smartphones, a team that had made significant contributions to the camera modules of Galaxy S7 and S8. The research paper written by the third-year student of electrical engineering at IIT Madras was related to image processing for dual camera systems and was co-authored by Mr Pawan Prasad, his mentor at SRI-B.

“Right from day one of the internship, I could feel the open-mindedness to approaching the problem at hand. This was facilitated by SRI-B’s work culture. Despite it being such a huge organization, I felt as if I worked at a startup,” he said. “Regular talks on tech and non-tech topics as well as one-on-one interviews with the MD kept the experience engaging.”

Set up in 1996, SRI-B is Samsung’s largest R&D facility outside Korea. It focusses on work around Communication Protocols, Multimedia (including Camera Solutions), Artificial Intelligence, Payment, Web Services, Memory, Network and IoT. The centre contributed to several global products and also develops specific innovations for the Indian market.

“Towards the end of the internship, a ‘Eureka’ moment occurred, with my project demonstrating astonishing results as well as the scope for being used in future Samsung flagships. I was appreciated by the senior members of the team for coming up with a good solution in just eight weeks. A research paper based on my work got accepted and it is a huge opportunity for me to be the face of IIT Madras and SRI-B on such an international scale,” said Anirudth.

Winning team from IIT Madras getting their prize from Mr. HC Hong (Second from Left), President and CEO of Samsung Southwest Asia

Two of the three team members of the winning team of Samsung E.D.G.E campus program in 2016, team ‘Monimakers’ from IIT Madras, worked with SRI-B while the third member worked with the Samsung Pay team at the Samsung India headquarters in Gurgaon.

You can read about the internship experience with the Samsung Pay team here: https://news.samsung.com/in/20-year-old-on-samsungs-23rd-floor-the-internship-experience-of-an-iitian

Samsung E.D.G.E. provides an opportunity to the country’s brightest students to exhibit their talents, exchange meaningful insights and get a head-start in their careers. Top talent from campuses across India come together for this program once a year to ideate and showcase their business acumen on a national stage.

After a successful inaugural edition in December 2016, the second season of the program also witnessed an overwhelming response from with 2,370 students (790 teams) from 19 leading campuses across the country participating in the program. The competition, spread over three months, invited participation of students from diverse program domains such as B Tech, MBA, Masters of Design and Masters of Social Work.

The second season of Samsung E.D.G.E. was also won by a team from IIT-Madras who impressed the jury and the audience with their idea around Samsung’s intelligent interface Bixby.

The team from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, ‘Athena’Z’ comprising Sudarsan MS, Saurabh Sinha and Makesh S emerged as the winner at the national finals in Gurgaon on December 01, 2017. National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad came second followed by Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow.

Mr. HC Hong, President and CEO, Samsung Southwest Asia (Second from Right) felicitating the winning team from IIT Madras

Samsung E.D.G.E witnessed an overwhelming response this year with 2,370 students (790 teams) from 19 leading campuses across the country participating in the program. The competition, spread over three months, invited participation of students from diverse program domains such as B Tech, MBA, Masters of Design and Masters of Social Work.

Ten teams which won at the zonal rounds qualified for the keenly contested national finals of the Samsung E.D.G.E. program this year.

The winning team received a prize of INR 3 lakh and each member got a Galaxy Note8 smartphone while the team that came second got a prize of INR 1.5 lakh. The third team received a prize of INR 75,000. Members of all 10 teams that reached the national finals received Samsung vouchers worth INR 10,000.

The NID, Ahmedabad team, APU, making their presentation in front of the Samsung E.D.G.E. jury and audience

Samsung E.D.G.E brings together bright minds from campuses across India to ideate and showcase their talents on a national platform. The platform gives students an opportunity to interact with the leadership team at Samsung, work on real-world business problems and come up with unique solutions. This year, the top 10 teams worked on ideas around Samsung’s intelligent interface Bixby, growth opportunities in smart cities, designing devices for young single-person households, online skilling and certification models and marketing.

The winning team from IIT Madras impressed the jury and the audience with their idea around making Samsung’s intelligent interface Bixby better integrated with consumers’ day to day usage of smartphones. The team from NID Ahmedabad showcased a very innovative product that can make life better for young single-person households. The team from IIM Lucknow presented an idea around Bixby.

“At Samsung, we always strive to encourage young minds and nurture the spirit of innovation among them. We are overjoyed by the level of enthusiasm to participate and ideation by the students at Samsung E.D.G.E. 2017. This year we engaged with students from diverse domains,” said Mr. BK Lee, Director, Human Resources, Samsung Southwest Asia.

The maiden season of Samsung E.D.G.E. was also won by a team from IIT Madras. Team ‘Monimakers’ from IIT Madras had bagged the first prize for their solution on ‘Leadership Strategy in Digital Payments’. As part of their internship program, two members from the team underwent training at the Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore while the third member got an opportunity to work with the Samsung Pay team at the Samsung India headquarters in Gurugram.

One of the interns co-authored a paper with his mentor at Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore and has been selected to present his idea at the Consumer Electronics Show 2018 in Las Vegas.

You can read about the internship experience of one of the winners of Samsung E.D.G.E season one here: https://news.samsung.com/in/20-year-old-on-samsungs-23rd-floor-the-internship-experience-of-an-iitian

Launched in December 2016, Samsung E.D.G.E. is a first-of-its-kind campus program that provides an opportunity to the country’s brightest students to exhibit their talents, exchange meaningful insights and get a head-start in their careers.

The Samsung E.D.G.E. program consists of three rounds. In the Campus Round, team members come together, ideate and put up an executive case summary. After evaluation, the top teams in each campus are shortlisted for the Zonal Round in which all the teams closely work on the case study and present their unique solutions. At the end of the zonal rounds, top 10 teams were selected and mentored by the leadership on their respective solutions. The final 10 teams battle it out in the National Round after which the three winning teams are announced.

For more details on the program, please visit:

http://www.samsung.com/in/microsite/edge-program

Mr. HC Hong, President and CEO of Samsung Southwest Asia, gave away the first prize to the winning team from IIT Madras

‘Monimakers’, the team comprising second-year students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, overwhelmed their much-fancied counterparts from top business schools, to walk away with the first prize at the inaugural Samsung E.D.G.E campus program.

The winning team from IIT Madras presented a solution on leadership strategy in digital payments, using a disruptive technology backbone built around Samsung’s mobile payment service – Samsung Pay – that has been launched globally.

The team from IIT Madras presented a solution on leadership strategy in digital payments

The team from IIT Madras received a thunderous applause from an audience of around 100 people, comprising the top brass of Samsung South West Asia.

Members of the winning team said they had finalized their presentation just a day ago and had not expected to win the coveted competition.

“We knew we were up against some very good teams,” the IIT Madras team said.

The winning team members received a prize of INR 3 lakh and a Gear S3 smartwatch each from Mr. HC Hong, President & CEO, Samsung SWA.

“The talk from the CEO was amazing and it said a lot about the culture of the company,” said a member of the winning team.

XLRI Jamshedpur won the second prize

The second and third prizes were won by the teams from XLRI Jamshedpur and Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi. The team from XLRI Jamshedpur got a cash prize of INR 1.5 lakh, whole the team from FMS received a prize of INR 75,000.

The team from FMS, Delhi came second runner-up

Students from the top two teams were also designated Samsung Campus Ambassadors and second year MBA students received a pre-placement interview from Samsung.

“The experience was great and much better than a few of the other national competitions that have happened. The stay was pleasant and the arrangements made were top class,” said a participant.

Students engrossed in discussion, mid-way through their presentation

All 12 teams that reached the grand finale of the first season Samsung’s campus program – Samsung E.D.G.E. – also received vouchers worth INR 10,000.

“The response from students has been overwhelming and we are extremely happy with the success of the first season of the Samsung E.D.G.E. program. At Samsung, we always strive to encourage young minds and nurture the spirit of innovation among them,” said Mr. Udaiy Khanna, Vice President – Human Resources, Samsung India.

Samsung E.D.G.E. program has been designed to engage with leading B-school and engineering talent across India, with students getting an opportunity to interact with the leadership team at Samsung, work on real-world business problems and come up with their unique solutions.

Launched in December 2016, Samsung E.D.G.E. is a first-of-its-kind campus program, to provide a platform that gives the country’s brightest students at leading B-schools and engineering colleges an opportunity to get a head-start in their careers.

Samsung E.D.G.E. comprised of three rounds. Three teams per campus were shortlisted for the Zonal Round in which all the teams closely worked on a case study and presented their unique solutions. A total of 45 teams from across 15 campuses were shortlisted for the Zonal Round in which the participants worked on different case studies and presented their unique solutions.

(Click the link below to download the Press Release)