Samsung Star Scholar program, now in its fifth year, has so far benefitted 650 JNV students. Under this program, each year, Samsung offers scholarships to meritorious students pursuing full-term B. Tech/Dual Degree (B.Tech + M.Tech) course at any IIT or NIT. The program offers a scholarship of up to 2 lakh for expenses related to tuition, examination, hostel and mess for one academic year and it can be renewed every year up to 5 years.

This year, in line with Samsung India’s continuous effort to encourage young talent, the program has granted 150 scholarships to new applicants from JNVs, of which 85 will begin their journey across 14 different IITs and 65 at 15 different NITs across India this year.

Scholarships for 367 students currently pursuing full-term B. Tech/Dual Degree (B.Tech + M.Tech) have been renewed for the next year. Recipients of renewed scholarships include 175 second year students, 94 third year students and 97 fourth year students.

“At Samsung, we believe in nurturing and encouraging young talent. We have been working with JNV schools since 2013 and we are very proud of the impact our Samsung Smart Class program in these schools has made in the development of students across India. Samsung Star Scholar program, started in 2016, is an extension of this effort and we are very pleased that this year despite the challenges on the ground, we have been able to reach out to these gifted students,” said Peter Rhee, Corporate Vice President & Deputy Managing Director, Samsung India.

The Samsung India and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti partnership began in 2013 with the ‘Samsung Smart Class’ program which was aimed at providing quality education for children from rural backgrounds. At present, Samsung Smart Class program is operational at 683 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya schools. So far, over 430,000 students have benefitted from it and over 8,000 teachers have been trained on how to use interactive technology to teach. Every Samsung Smart Class is equipped with an interactive Samsung Smartboards, Samsung tablets, a printer, Wi-Fi connectivity and power backup.

Under the Star Scholar program, while the selection for first year applicants is based on their All India Rank (AIR) in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE Main), to get a renewal of the scholarship for the 2nd – 4th years, the applicant is required to maintain a Semester Grade Point Average (SGPA) or Cumulative Grade Point Average (CPGA) rating of 5 or above.

To learn more about the ‘Samsung Star Scholar’ program, please visit Samsung’s website https://www.samsung.com/in/microsite/sapne-hue-bade/star-scholar/

The Samsung Innovation Lab at IIT-Guwahati will train students on Internet of Things (IoT), Embedded Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, helping them learn industry-relevant skills and making them job-ready.

Samsung Digital Academy is Samsung’s corporate social initiative that aims to bridge the digital divide and proficiency gaps in the country by skilling students on cutting-edge technology. Through this partnership with IIT-Guwahati, the academy targets to train over 300 students in the next three years on these cutting edge technologies.

“I sincerely feel that Samsung Digital Academy Programme at IIT -Guwahati would increasingly help Assam to emerge as a key player in the development of next-generation technology ecosystems and help the state in becoming a potential destination for skill development mission from a digital perspective. I further hope that the collaboration between Samsung and IIT-Guwahati in rolling out this skill initiative will definitely play a crucial role in helping the government develop sustainable employment options in the state,” said Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal.

“Samsung R&D Institute India, Delhi has been working closely for many years with premiere engineering institutions of India to foster collaborations for joint teaching, mentoring and promoting research on advanced and emerging technologies. We are committed to work in the field of next generation technology development and participate in the growth of advanced research areas such as IoT through the network of Samsung Innovation Labs under the Samsung Digital Academy program,” said Kiho Kim, Managing Director, Samsung Research & Development Institute, Delhi.

“At Samsung, our aim is to foster a culture of innovation amongst the students and provide them with the best possible infrastructure. We are confident that Samsung Innovation Lab, which is part of our citizenship initiatives, will help students leverage the growing digital technologies market and develop their talent,” said Peter Rhee, Corporate Vice President, Samsung India.

“IIT-Guwahati is actively looking forward to the association with Samsung India to impart cutting edge education to the students of the institute. Such initiatives will help bridge the academia-industry gap and foster more collaborations that would be a win-win situation for both. The strong interest and support of the state government, will go a long way in extending the expertise of IIT-Guwahati and Samsung Innovation Lab to other parts of Assam. It would provide technical opportunities for academic excellence and development,” said Prof. TG Sitharam, Director, IIT-Guwahati.

The curriculum at the Samsung Innovation Lab at IIT-Guwahati will include Internet of Things (IoT), embedded systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The course will be taught over 14 weeks through classroom lectures, assignments and lab room sessions, self-study and mini projects. Extensive tutorials and approach documents will also be provided to students to facilitate practical exercises.

Samsung has so far set up five Samsung Innovation Labs in IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Hyderabad, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee as part of its Samsung Digital Academy program. More Samsung Innovation Labs will come in the near future. The current focus of the labs is on activities such as collaborative research with Samsung and course/training offered by Samsung. The Samsung Innovation Lab at IIT-Guwahati will carry out research on areas such as Pervasive Computing, Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning, IoT, Embedded Systems.

The team from business school MICA Ahmedabad called ‘Jenga’, comprising Kanchan Supekar, Sruthy Whence and Jyot Singh Gill emerged as the winner at the national finals in Gurgaon on December 03, 2018. The team ‘Overmorrow’ from National Institute of Design, Bangalore came second followed by ‘Deadweight Loss’ from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

The third consecutive year of Samsung E.D.G.E. called out the brightest minds of the country to participate in its campus program. This year 2,553 students (851 teams) from 18 leading campuses from all across the country participated in the program. The competition, spread over three months, invited participation of students from diverse domains such as B. Tech, Masters of Business Administration and Masters of Design.

“At Samsung, we nurture the brilliance of young minds, bringing out the spirit of innovation in them. As a platform, Samsung E.D.G.E. endeavours to bring to life creative ideas of students who want to effect change. The level of enthusiasm to ideate and participate across campuses in India this year has been heartwarming,” said Mr. Sameer Wadhawan, Head, Human Resources, Samsung India.

Eight teams which won at the regional rounds qualified for the keenly contested national finale of the Samsung E.D.G.E. program this year. The winning team received a prize of INR 4 lakh and each member got a Galaxy Note9 smartphone while the team that came second got a prize of INR 2 lakh. The third team received a prize of INR 1 lakh. Members of all 8 teams that reached the national finals received Samsung vouchers worth INR 10,000.

Samsung E.D.G.E. brings together bright minds from campuses across India to ideate and showcase their talent 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 8 teams worked on the premise ‘Samsung – a brand of choice for millennials’.

The second season of Samsung E.D.G.E. was won by a team from IIT Madras ‘Athena’Z’ that had showcased their idea around making Samsung’s intelligent interface Bixby better integrated with consumers’ day to day usage of smartphones.

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 four rounds. In the first round, team members came together and put up an executive case summary. Top team members were then invited to participate in the campus round and presented their ideas through group presentations. After evaluation, top teams in each campus were shortlisted for the Regional Round in which all the teams worked on the case study and presented their unique solutions. At the end of the regional rounds, top 8 teams were selected and mentored by Samsung leaders on their respective solutions. The finale 8 teams battled it out in the National Round to arrive at the three winning teams.

Earlier this year, Samsung India had hired 72 graduates as management trainees from top B-schools such as the IIMs, XLRI, SP Jain, ISB, JBIMS as well as chartered accountants, National Institute of Design graduates and also students of supply chain management from NITIE.

In the current hiring season, Samsung India plans to hire close to 1,000 graduates from top Indian engineering colleges to strengthen its R&D operations in the country, especially in cutting edge domains of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, natural language processing, camera technology and 5G networks. Over 300 of these engineers will be hired from the IITs.

These young graduates have honed their skills at top institutions such as Indian Institute of Technology and National Institute of Technology.

A cheery campus orientation program welcomed them to the Samsung family. This was an opportunity for each one of them to connect with graduates from varied fields and also get a sneak peek in to work life at Samsung.

Dipesh Shah, MD, SRI-B addresses the new joinees and speaks about the importance of their first job. His speech also touched upon the important role that the graduates can play in creating cutting-edge technology, as a part of Samsung.

Mr. Dipesh Shah, Managing Director of SRI-B, who has spent over 23 years with Samsung and was the first employee of SRI-B when it was set up in 1996, spoke to the young crowd about Samsung’s core values and philosophy, its business and the important role that SRI-B plays in it.

As part of their orientation program, graduates got to know more about the workings of individual departments at SRI-B at a “job fair”.

On the final day of the program, a special offsite camp was organized where interesting team building activities were designed to teach valuable professional skills to the participants.

The graduates received tips on working together as a team and later applied these lessons to build their own raft.

Before they take up roles in different projects within SRI-B, graduates are being trained on enhancing their software competency and soft skills as part of the orientation program.

We welcome these bright, young graduates to the Samsung family and look forward to inspiring the world and creating the future together!

Pranjal Mehta, student of IIT-Madras, got the opportunity to intern with Samsung India, after winning the inaugural Samsung E.D.G.E. competition. He shares his experience at Samsung with India Newsroom. 

“Engineering students trump MBA candidates to win Samsung E.D.G.E.,” read the news headline. I couldn’t believe it! What looked like an impossible-to-win-but-let-me-try-it competition was now on my trophy shelf.

I had never imagined winning the Samsung E.D.G.E. competition, considering our undergraduate engineering team was up against students from top B-Schools. But the win turned us into overnight rockstars in our college. For a brief moment, we became the talking point in B-School campuses too.

Pranjal and his teammates from IIT Madras receiving the first prize from Mr. HC Hong, President and CEO of Samsung Southwest Asia at the inaugural Samsung E.D.G.E. competition

As the euphoria wore off, we realized that we may not be eligible to intern with Samsung India, a privilege promised to winners of Samsung E.D.G.E. We were undergraduates, while internship opportunities existed for B-School graduates.

But cool companies do things differently is what I realized when I received an internship offer for summer of 2017. I jumped at this opportunity and joined the Samsung Pay team since our winning business case was on “Leadership Strategy for Samsung Pay”.

My teammates chose to take the technical route and joined Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore, Samsung’s biggest R&D facility outside Korea.

I arrived for my internship in Delhi on a hot May evening. This was only my second time in Delhi, the first being for Samsung E.D.G.E. competition. I was excited. I’m a Rajasthani who grew up in Bangalore and has been studying in Chennai for the last two years. I like exploring new cities. Add to that the opportunity to work at one of the global tech giants. What more could you ask for at 20!

Pranjal (L) with his mentors – Manasvi Vedhera (centre) and Sanjay Razdan (R) of Samsung India

After finishing the paper work, I was introduced to the Samsung Pay team. My guide Manasvi Vedhera turned out to be a brilliant mentor. By the second half on the first day, I felt like I’m at home.

I spent the first week understanding everything about Samsung Pay. As with a lot of interns, I was full of energy and ideas, but I soon realized that not all ideas are good. I would throw ideas at the Samsung Pay team and they’d explain why it had not been done or what the roadblocks are and how we could go about it. This learning was a remarkable experience and helped me develop my business acumen.

Engrossed in work… Life at Samsung India is a healthy mix of hard work and fun, according to Pranjal

I spent a lot of time identifying new use cases. I also worked with colleagues across the globe to do feasibility checks for these use cases, both technical and business.

The Samsung Pay team did a fabulous job in accommodating a rookie like me. They were extremely friendly and cooperative. Few of the best memories I have with the team are from the elaborate lunches hosted by our director Sanjay Razdan. Age never felt like a barrier between me and my colleagues. I was engaged in the team’s ongoing projects to gain corporate experience and make me business ready.

I can now confidently say that I have a sound understanding of the payment scenario in India and across the globe. Through the internship, I had the opportunity to visit offices of popular Indian startups and MNCs, organize meetings, give presentations and attend mobile phone launches. All this has helped me become a much better professional.

“Then there are several cool lounges to unwind…”

Samsung also has some amazing facilities for its employees – a multi-cuisine cafeteria that serves Indian, continental as well as Korean food. Then there are several cool lounges to unwind.

One of the things that I really loved was the amazing offers available for employees. Unfortunately, I could not avail these offers; I would have loved to buy a Galaxy S8. Just think about the headline doing the rounds in my campus. “Pranjal goes for a Samsung internship with a different branded phone and returns with Galaxy S8”. Maybe next time when I’m here I can have this privilege.

There are other perks too. Samsung invests well in its employees (and interns). I come from a prestigious yet government-run institution. Hostel food is good enough to keep us just above underweight. From those standards, the lunch in office canteen is delicious.

Pranjal (centre) at the Masterchef competition organized by Samsung India

One of the best memories I will take back from here is the Samsung Masterchef competition I took part in with my teammates. We cooked spring rolls which disappeared into the bellies of the audience, 3.142 microseconds after the judge praised its stuffing.

Even beyond these materialistic perks, the satisfaction of working on and for something touching millions of lives across the globe is beautiful.

I have loads of stories to tell my friends when I get back. One particular story that I would like to share is when I walked into a Samsung store with a date and told them I work at HO – the royal treatment that came next worked wonders! Hope Samsung has stories to tell about my work here to future interns as well!