Samsung India today announced the Top 20 finalists of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, a programme that combines technology and education to help youth grow into future leaders with creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

A global problem-solving platform, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow helps youth around the world use STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to build a better future. Participants identify problems in their communities and develop creative solutions with the help of technology.

In its fifth edition, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026 is bringing together young innovators from across India who are turning problems they see around them into technology-led solutions. More than half of the participants in the Top 20 come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, with the finalists representing 18 cities across 12 states – reflecting how youth-led innovation is expanding beyond India’s traditional technology hubs.

“What stands out about this year’s Top 20 is not just the technology they are building, but the problems they have chosen to solve. Young innovators from across India are looking closely at challenges in their own communities – from accessibility and healthcare to agriculture, pollution and sport – and asking how technology can make a difference. Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives them the opportunity, mentorship and resources to take an idea rooted in a local need and build it into a solution with the potential to create wider impact,” said SP Chun, Corporate Vice President, Samsung South West Asia.

A defining trend among this year’s finalists is the focus on making technology more useful and accessible. Across the four themes – AI Living for India, Environmental Sustainability, Health and Education, and Sport & Tech – young innovators are applying AI, computer vision, sensors, voice technology and low-cost wearables to challenges ranging from low literacy and disability access to agricultural waste, pollution, neurological health and para-sports.

Several solutions are being designed for people who have traditionally had limited access to technology. These include an offline AI application that explains complex documents to people with low literacy, real-time Indian Sign Language translation, a voice-first learning companion for visually impaired students, technology to anticipate sensory meltdowns among children with autism, and assistive technologies to help visually impaired swimmers train more independently. Other finalists are tackling environmental challenges through ideas that seek to convert agricultural residue into clean energy and useful carbon materials, reduce textile waste and construction-site pollution, and mitigate human-wildlife conflict.

The geographical spread of the Top 20 reflects this expanding innovation map. Finalists come from Sundargarh in Odisha, Chittoor and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Raebareli and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, Amritsar and SAS Nagar in Punjab, Sonipat in Haryana and Raipur in Chhattisgarh, alongside Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

The Top 20 teams emerged from a semi-final phase that brought together 40 teams for an experiential, hands-on Prototyping Programme conducted in collaboration with FITT-IIT Delhi. Through Innovation Bootcamp, the teams worked with mentors to strengthen their solutions, better understand the people they were designing for and gain practical exposure to the innovation process.

As part of the Bootcamp, the teams also visited Samsung Design Delhi (SDD), Samsung R&D Institute India – Noida (SRI-N), Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi (SRI-D), Samsung R&D Institute India – Bengaluru (SRI-B) and Samsung’s Head Office in Gurugram, gaining exposure to Samsung’s approach to design, technology, innovation and Research & Development.

The journey culminated in a National Pitch Event, where 20 experts comprising mentors from Samsung R&D and Samsung South West Asia evaluated the teams and selected five finalists from each of the four themes.

Meet the Top 20

AI Living for India

4 Percentage – Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu: MicroLearning AI, a voice-first multilingual platform that converts complex healthcare and government-scheme information into simple spoken micro-lessons in Indian languages.

itzFOD – Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh: VaakSetu, an offline mobile application that uses AI to read documents such as loan papers, land deeds, FIRs and hospital forms and explain them in simple spoken language.

JARVISS – Chennai, Tamil Nadu: SafePath AI, a smartphone and IoT-assisted platform that uses AI and sensor data to detect road hazards, assess their severity and provide safer-route recommendations.

QuantHunt – Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh: An AI-based cybersecurity solution designed to identify encryption vulnerabilities and help organisations prepare their digital systems for emerging quantum-computing risks.

SignBridge AI – Kolkata, West Bengal: An AI-powered platform that translates Indian Sign Language into text and speech in real time, helping improve communication in schools, hospitals, workplaces and public spaces.

Environmental Sustainability

AeroShield – New Delhi: A low-cost construction debris net, designed to capture and degrade airborne pollutants while integrating with existing scaffolding.

AgriVolt – Amritsar, Punjab: AgriVolt Carbon AI, which aims to use agricultural residue to generate electricity and recover biochar and other carbon-rich materials while reducing emissions.

IndieJeanous – Mumbai, Maharashtra: A circular denim initiative that converts discarded denim and textile scraps into lifestyle products while creating livelihood opportunities for women artisans.

InnoBotix – New Delhi: Sentinel, a solar-powered AI edge device that uses cameras, radar and seismic data to detect wildlife approaching human settlements and provide early warnings.

KINVA BIO – Sonipat, Haryana: An AI-based platform that seeks to optimise the production of protein-rich mycoprotein from sugarcane bagasse using bioreactors.

Health and Education

404NotFound – Bengaluru, Karnataka: StepSense, a sensor and edge-AI system that turns footwear into a gait-monitoring platform to identify indicators associated with fall risk, neuropathy, fatigue and other health conditions.

Equinox – New Delhi: SARA AI, a voice-first study companion that enables visually impaired students to access textbooks, explanations, quizzes and personalised learning support without relying on a screen or keyboard.

morphism – Raipur, Chhattisgarh: An AI system designed to help autistic individuals better understand emotions by analysing subtle facial expressions and other behavioural signals.

NeuroTrace – SAS Nagar, Punjab: A smartphone-based AI solution for post-stroke monitoring that analyses changes in voice, facial movement and reaction time to identify potential neurological deterioration.

VB SenseGuard – New Delhi: Sense Guard, a low-cost AI wearable designed to identify physiological patterns associated with sensory meltdowns in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and provide caregivers with early alerts.

Sport & Tech

Code Blooded – Sundargarh, Odisha: ParaSync, an AI-powered platform that analyses smartphone videos of para-athletes to assess sporting technique, track progress and help connect talent from underserved regions with scouts.

Para-athlete swimming solution – Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh: A wearable navigation system that detects when visually impaired swimmers veer from their intended direction and provides haptic cues for course correction.

Rogue – Chennai, Tamil Nadu: NeuroStride, an AI-powered wearable that seeks to distinguish involuntary Parkinson’s tremors from intentional muscle movement and provide targeted electrical stimulation.

Somatrace – Hyderabad, Telangana: A wearable IoT training tool that measures spinal angles and load during training to help precision-sport athletes and coaches better understand injury risk.

Untethered – Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh: Smart swimming goggles using ultrasonic sensing and haptic feedback to warn visually impaired swimmers as they approach the pool wall.

Taking Solutions to the Next Stage

The Top 20 finalists will now receive continued mentorship from Samsung experts and FITT-IIT Delhi as they prepare for the Grand Finale on October 14 and 15.

The Grand Finale will feature the final pitch presentations, followed by an Investor Meet for all Top 20 teams. The interaction will give the young innovators an opportunity to engage with the startup and investment ecosystem and understand the next steps involved in developing their solutions further

The competition will culminate in the Winner Announcement and Awards Ceremony. The Top 20 teams will receive a cumulative grant of INR 20 lakh for prototype development, with INR 1 lakh awarded to each team. All 36 participants in the Top 20 will also receive the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Flip smartphone. Four winning teams – one from each theme – will collectively receive an incubation grant of INR 2 crore from Samsung through FITT-IIT Delhi. The incubation support will help the winning teams further develop and validate their solutions while exploring their potential to evolve into market-ready ventures.

The programme will also recognise participants through special awards at the Grand Finale, including the Digital Impact Award of INR 50,000 and two Community Choice Awards of INR 1 lakh each.

Guided by its global CSR vision, “Together for Tomorrow! Enabling People,” Samsung India is committed to empowering young Indians through its focus on Smart Education and Skilling Youth, providing equal access to the knowledge, skills and resources needed to shape a better future.

Find the full list to the Top 20 finalists here

Every innovation starts with something simple: noticing that something could work better.

For the young innovators of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, the next question is harder: how do you turn that observation into something real?

During an immersive Innovation Bootcamp, the Top 40 stepped inside Samsung’s innovation ecosystem across Gurugram, Delhi, Noida and Bengaluru to see how ideas are understood, designed, engineered, tested and refined.

Their journey took them through Samsung’s Head Office in Gurugram, Samsung Design Delhi, Samsung R&D Institute India-Noida (SRI-Noida) and Samsung R&D Institute India-Bengaluru (SRI-B) — bringing them closer to the people, processes and technologies behind some of Samsung’s innovations.

Addressing the young innovators, JB Park, President and CEO, Samsung South West Asia, spoke about where the next generation of ideas could come from.

“Great ideas can come from anywhere. They can come from a small town, a classroom, a college or from a young person simply looking at a problem in their own community.”

That idea is reflected in this year’s cohort. More than half of the participants come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, bringing with them problems and perspectives shaped by communities across India.

Start With People

At Samsung Design Delhi, the young innovators saw that innovation doesn’t begin with technology. It begins with people.

Inside spaces including Rang and the Colour, Material and Finish (CMF) Lab, they explored how designers think about the way people see, touch and experience products — and how choices around colour, material, texture and form can shape that experience.

It was a lesson in looking beyond the solution itself.

Before asking what can be built, understand who you are building it for.

Make It Work

At SRI-Noida, the focus shifted from design to engineering.

The innovators explored areas including PCB design, sensory equipment and AI applications, getting a closer look at what happens when an idea has to work beyond a sketch or a prototype.

Ideas are tested. Assumptions are challenged. Problems emerge. Designs change.

That process of iteration is what turns a promising idea into something that can work reliably in the real world.

At SRI-B, the view widened further. The young innovators explored research across AI, multimedia and camera technologies, advanced communications, IoT and services — technologies that are helping shape the next generation of connected experiences.

Taken together, the visits traced an innovation journey: understand a need, design around people, engineer a solution, test it and keep making it better.

Learning From Each Other

The Bootcamp was also about the people in the room.

Young innovators from different parts of India arrived with different problems to solve — but discovered that many of the questions they were asking were the same.

How do you know if an idea will work? What happens when it doesn’t? How do you make it better?

“A big thank you to Samsung Solve for Tomorrow for this opportunity and for supporting young innovators like us throughout the journey. Now, it’s time to refine, build, learn,” said Priyanka Yadav from Gurugram, Haryana.

“One of my favourite memories from the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Bootcamp was meeting passionate young innovators from every corner of India, each working to solve a different problem, but all driven by the same belief — innovation should improve lives. I am grateful for the friendships, conversations and inspiration,” said Vidit Bhayana from Delhi.

Conducted in collaboration with FITT-IIT Delhi, the Innovation Bootcamp provided the teams with mentoring and prototyping support as they continued developing solutions across AI Living for India, Health and Education, Environmental Sustainability, and Sport & Tech.

The Work After the Idea

For the Top 40, seeing Samsung’s design and R&D ecosystem first-hand offered something that is difficult to learn from a classroom alone.

Innovation is rarely a straight line.

An idea is questioned. A prototype is tested. Something fails. You learn why. You change it. Then you try again.

The most important part of an idea may not be the moment you have it.

It may be everything you do next.

For these young innovators, that work has already begun.

Three young innovators from Maharashtra are bringing technology-led solutions to the national stage through the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. Representing the themes of AI Living for India and Environmental Sustainability, the innovators from Mumbai and Pune are exploring solutions for small-business financial access, safer firefighting, marine conservation and textile waste.

16-year-old Shrihan Jha, 17-year-old Palaash Gang, and 21-year-old Yogeeta Kishor Suwasiya have been selected among the national Top 40 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, Samsung’s flagship CSR innovation programme for young people aged 14 to 22.

AI Living for India

Shrihan Jha from Mumbai is exploring how artificial intelligence can make financial systems more accessible to small businesses. He is developing an app that analyses handwritten bills and UPI payments to generate credit scores, supported by an AI-powered financial chatbot. The solution aims to help small businesses build a more formal financial profile and potentially improve their access to credit.

Environmental Sustainability

Palaash Gang from Pune is working on making firefighting more environmentally responsible. He is developing a biodegradable alternative to traditional PFAS-based firefighting foams. Made using fish-scale waste, the solution explores a collagen-chitosan network designed to suppress fuel vapours without relying on harmful petrochemicals.

Yogeeta Kishor Suwasiya from Mumbai is addressing the growing challenge of textile waste. She is developing a circular denim ecosystem that transforms discarded fabric into lifestyle products, while using material tracking and partnerships with women artisans to extend the life of textiles.

Together, the three solutions show how Maharashtra’s young innovators are approaching challenges across financial inclusion, environmental protection, sustainable materials and circular design, using technology to explore new ways of addressing issues around them.

Their selection is part of a wider national cohort taking shape through Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. More than half of this year’s Top 40 teams are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across India are bringing their own experiences and observations to challenges that matter to their communities.

For Maharashtra, the three finalists showcase how young innovators from Mumbai and Pune are applying technology to both everyday economic challenges and pressing environmental concerns.

Through design thinking, mentorship and hands-on learning, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow enables young innovators from across India to identify real-world challenges and develop potential solutions, helping them move from the early stages towards prototypes.

The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, receiving intensive mentoring from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. They will also visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Noida and 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 their solutions ahead of the Grand Finale.

At the culmination of the programme, 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 readiness.

For Maharashtra’s three young innovators, reaching the national Top 40 marks the next stage in their journey — bringing locally observed challenges to a national platform and exploring how technology can help create more accessible and sustainable solutions.

What if a material discarded by one industry could become a useful resource for another? For 19-year-old Varma Swati Birbahadur and 20-year-old Vadher Pushti Amitbhai from Rajkot, this question has led to Stencil2School, a solution that explores how discarded nylon stencil sheets from the city’s saree-printing industry could be given a second life.

Their idea reflects the kind of community-led innovation that Samsung Solve for Tomorrow seeks to support. Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung’s flagship CSR innovation programme for young people aged 14 to 22. In its fifth edition, the programme brings together young innovators from across India to identify real-world challenges and develop potential solutions through design thinking, mentorship and hands-on learning, helping them move their ideas from the early stages towards prototypes.

From Discarded Stencils to New Possibilities
For Swati and Pushti, the starting point was waste generated by Rajkot’s saree-printing industry. Nylon stencil sheets used in the printing process are often discarded after a design cycle and may be burned, creating pollution while leaving behind a durable material that could potentially be reused.

Their solution, Stencil2School, explores how these discarded sheets can be converted into educational products such as document folders, pouches and waterproof book covers. The prototype is ready, with the products designed for government school students and children supported by NGOs. The model also explores opportunities for local women and Self-Help Groups to manufacture the products.

The idea brings together waste reduction, education and livelihood opportunities — turning a material that would otherwise be discarded into products that can serve a practical purpose.

Their selection among the national Top 40 gives Swati and Pushti an opportunity to further develop the prototype, test their approach and explore its potential beyond the initial context.

Their achievement comes as India’s innovation landscape continues to expand, with more than half of the national Top 40 teams in this year’s Samsung Solve for Tomorrow coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The participation highlights how young innovators are drawing on challenges in their own communities to explore potential solutions.

For Gujarat, the presence of two young innovators from Rajkot among the national Top 40 reflects how ideas can emerge from local industries and communities beyond India’s traditional technology hubs.

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 – Bengaluru, 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 readiness.

Agricultural residue burning is a prominent challenge in Punjab, particularly during the crop-harvesting season. In Amritsar, 18-year-old Shivansh Sarin is exploring whether agricultural residue could be turned into useful resources instead of being burned. In SAS Nagar, Prabinder Singh, Anish Grover and Deepesh Kakkar are looking at a different challenge — how technology could help families monitor stroke survivors after they return home from the hospital. All four young innovators have made it to the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.

Their ideas are rooted in challenges they see around them, reflecting how young innovators from Punjab are looking at problems in their communities and exploring how technology could help address 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 their ideas from the early stages towards prototypes.

Two Local Challenges, Four Young Innovators
For 18-year-old Shivansh Sarin from Amritsar, the starting point is a challenge familiar to Punjab’s agricultural landscape: what happens to crop residue after harvesting?

His team, AgriVolt, is exploring how agricultural residue could instead be converted into electricity, biochar and other carbon-rich resources. Building on a school-level prototype that generated electricity from agricultural residue, the proposed solution uses sensor data and reinforcement learning to explore how the process could be optimised while reducing emissions.

For 19-year-olds Prabinder Singh and Anish Grover, and 21-year-old Deepesh Kakkar from SAS Nagar, the challenge begins after a stroke patient leaves the hospital. Their team, NeuroTrace, is developing an AI-powered smartphone solution designed to help families monitor patients at home, when identifying early signs of neurological changes can be difficult.

The solution explores a 45-second daily check-in using voice patterns, facial movement and reaction time to establish an individual neurological baseline and identify sustained changes that could warrant attention.

While the two ideas address very different challenges, both reflect the same starting point for these young innovators: looking closely at a problem in their surroundings and asking whether technology could offer a new way to address it.
Their selection comes as the innovation landscape represented by Samsung Solve for Tomorrow continues to expand. More than half of the national Top 40 teams this year are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across India are bringing perspectives shaped by their own communities to real-world challenges.

For Punjab, the presence of young innovators from Amritsar and SAS Nagar among the national Top 40 highlights how innovation is emerging from beyond traditional technology hubs. Their solutions are rooted in distinctly local observations — from the management of agricultural residue in Punjab to the challenges families can face while caring for stroke survivors at home.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives young innovators access to mentorship, technology, design-thinking skills and a platform to take their solutions forward. For Shivansh, Prabinder, Anish and Deepesh, the programme provides an opportunity to test their thinking, strengthen their concepts and move their solutions from early-stage development towards prototyping.

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 – Bengaluru, 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 readiness.

India’s sporting ecosystem for para-athletes has seen growing attention on identifying and supporting them beyond established sporting centres, but discovering talent can still be difficult when specialised scouting and performance evaluation are not easily accessible. For 21-year-old Vatala Harika and 20-year-old Ritesh Routray from Sundargarh, Odisha, this gap led them to explore whether technology could help promising para-athletes get noticed.

The two young innovators have made it to the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow with ParaSync, an AI-powered solution that explores how smartphone-recorded sporting performances can be analysed to help identify para-athletic talent and connect promising athletes with coaches and scouts.

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.

From Limited Scouting to Greater Visibility

For Harika and Ritesh, the challenge is the limited access to specialised scouting and evaluation for para-athletes outside established sporting centres. ParaSync allows athletes to record or upload videos of their sporting performance, with computer vision designed to analyse movement and sporting technique.
The idea explores how this information could help coaches and scouts assess athletes remotely, creating another way for promising para-athletes to gain visibility without first having to reach major sporting centres.

Under the Sport & Tech theme, ParaSync explores how emerging technology could be applied to a practical challenge around access, inclusion and opportunity in sport.

Harika and Ritesh’s journey is also part of a wider shift within Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. More than half of this year’s national Top 40 teams are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across India are bringing their own experiences to challenges that matter to their communities.

For Odisha, the selection of Harika and Ritesh from Sundargarh highlights how young people are applying technology to address gaps in access and opportunity. ParaSync brings together AI and sport to explore how promising para-athletic talent could gain greater visibility beyond established scouting networks.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives young innovators access to mentorship, technology, design-thinking skills and a platform to take their solutions forward. The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, receiving intensive mentoring from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. They will also visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Noida and 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 their solutions ahead of the Grand Finale.

At the culmination of the programme, 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 readiness.

Six teams from Tamil Nadu have earned a place among the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, bringing forward solutions that use AI, IoT, wearable technology and other innovations to address real-world challenges in their communities.

Sajith J, Mithran B, Kavin Nanadha M K, Sanjay Kumaar, G B Aswindbaghat, Varunprasath K, Nirmalkumar V, Gokul Appusamy, Mohanbabu J, Manoj Kumar Kasinathan, Jena R, Chriswin William D, Nishiithaa G, Dhiikshanyaa G, R S Adhidhiya, Rahul R and Hemanthth P are among the young innovators behind these six solutions, which span education, road safety, healthcare, mobility and rehabilitation.

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 solutions from the early stages towards prototypes.

Six Teams, Seventeen Young Innovators

20-year-old Sajith J, 20-year-old Mithran B and 20-year-old Kavin Nanadha M K are creating MicroLearning which delivers 2-3 minutes videos, adaptive, native-language training directly on WhatsApp – a tool every worker already uses – so new hires learn on the shop floor without pulling senior operators away from their work. The platform adjusts to each worker’s pace and progress, turning training time into productive time from day one.

Twenty-year-olds Sanjay Kumaar, G B Aswindbaghat and Varunprasath K are developing an AI-powered road-safety solution using smartphone technology, IoT and sensor data to identify road hazards such as potholes, waterlogging and damaged roads. The solution explores how real-time information could help authorities prioritise risks while giving commuters safer route recommendations.

For 19-year-old Nirmalkumar V, 18-year-old Gokul Appusamy and 19-year-old Mohanbabu J, the focus is the classroom. The team is developing a low-cost system that can turn existing projectors and classroom surfaces into interactive learning platforms, giving schools an alternative to expensive smart-board infrastructure.

In Sport & Tech, 21-year-old Manoj Kumar Kasinathan, 20-year-old Jena R and 20-year-old Chriswin William D are developing an AI and wearable technology-based solution to distinguish intentional movement from Parkinson’s tremors and support patients in remaining physically active.

Eighteen-year-olds Nishiithaa G and Dhiikshanyaa G are developing an AI-powered wound-checking solution designed to identify early signs of infection while accounting for differences across skin tones. Meanwhile, 19-year-olds R S Adhidhiya, Rahul R and Hemanthth P are developing a smart wearable wrap designed to combine multiple recovery therapies and make rehabilitation more accessible.

Six teams. Seventeen young innovators. And a shared belief that technology can make everyday challenges easier to understand, navigate and address.

Their achievement reflects a larger shift taking place across India’s innovation landscape. More than half of this year’s national Top 40 teams are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people beyond the country’s traditional technology hubs are bringing locally observed challenges into a national innovation conversation.

For Tamil Nadu, the presence of six teams among the national Top 40 is a reflection of the breadth of solutions emerging from its next generation. With innovators from both Chennai and Coimbatore, their solutions span education, road safety, healthcare, mobility and rehabilitation, showing how young people are looking beyond technology itself to the needs of the communities they hope to serve.

A vehicle breakdown in the middle of a highway can quickly become more than an inconvenience. For drivers stranded on unfamiliar stretches of road, finding a mechanic, understanding the problem or getting timely assistance can be difficult. For 17-year-old Tandreem Trishan Kalita from Kamrup Metropolitan, Assam, this everyday experience led to a larger question: could technology make getting roadside help faster, safer and more reliable?

Tandreem has made it to the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow with RoadFix, an AI-powered roadside assistance solution that diagnoses vehicle faults and connects users with verified mechanics instantly.

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 to identify real-world challenges and develop potential solutions, taking them from early stages towards prototypes.

From Highway Breakdowns to Reliable Roadside Assistance
For Tandreem, the challenge is the uncertainty that follows a vehicle breakdown. When a vehicle stops working on a highway, drivers may struggle to understand the fault, find a trustworthy mechanic or know how quickly help can arrive. These challenges can become even more pressing in terrain-heavy regions like Assam, where immediate roadside assistance may be limited.

RoadFix explores using AI to diagnose vehicle faults and connect stranded drivers with verified mechanics instantly, helping simplify the process of getting roadside assistance when it is needed most.

Tandreem’s journey reflects a wider shift in India’s innovation landscape. More than half of this year’s national Top 40 teams are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across the country are bringing their own experiences to challenges that matter to their communities.

Under the AI Living for India theme, RoadFix explores how emerging technology can be applied to a practical mobility challenge with potential relevance beyond Assam.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives young innovators access to mentorship, technology, design-thinking skills and a platform to take their solutions forward. The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, receiving intensive mentoring from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. They will also visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Noida and 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 their solutions ahead of the Grand Finale.

At the culmination of the programme, 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 readiness.

In an emergency, keeping blood at the right temperature can be critical. For someone at risk of a fall, changes in the way they walk may offer useful clues. And in grassroots sport, a clear record of scoring can make competition more transparent. These are the challenges being explored by four young innovators from Karnataka, who have made it to the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow.

Karthik Pratheep Paramadathil, A V Kruthi Krishna, Bhavya Chawat and Roopal Guha Neogi are developing potential solutions that use technology to make difficult-to-capture information more accessible — spanning emergency healthcare, everyday health monitoring and grassroots sports.

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 their ideas from the early stages towards prototypes.

Three Ideas, Four Young Innovators

For 20-year-old Karthik Pratheep Paramadathil from Dakshina Kannada, the challenge lies in managing blood temperature during emergency transfusions. His solution explores a compact, portable device that could regulate blood temperature at the point of infusion. The concept is being explored for emergency situations such as shock, hypothermia and heat stroke, where maintaining appropriate blood temperature may be important to patient care.

For 20-year-olds A V Kruthi Krishna and Bhavya Chawat from Bengaluru, the idea begins with an everyday object: a shoe. Their team, 404NotFound, is developing StepSense, a smart system designed to capture gait and movement data. The solution explores how this information could help identify potential risks associated with falls, neuropathy and physical strain.

Roopal Guha Neogi from Bengaluru focusses on making grassroots sports more transparent. His team, NyaayKhel, is developing an AI-powered system that uses smartphone cameras to detect scoring events, create match records and generate athlete performance data for sports such as kabaddi, wrestling and kho-kho.

While the three solutions address different problems, they share a common thread: using technology to capture information that can otherwise be difficult to measure — whether it is blood temperature, changes in movement or sporting scores — and make that information more useful.

Their selection comes as the innovation landscape represented by Samsung Solve for Tomorrow continues to expand. More than half of the national Top 40 teams this year are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across India are identifying challenges in their own surroundings and exploring ways to address.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives young innovators access to design-thinking skills, mentorship and hands-on learning as they develop their solutions. The programme supports participants as they move from identifying a problem towards testing and refining potential solutions.

The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, receiving intensive mentorship from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. As part of the Bootcamp, they will also get an opportunity to visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Samsung R&D Institute India – Noida, Samsung R&D Institute India – Bengaluru, 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, 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 readiness.

For Karnataka’s young innovators, making the national Top 40 is an opportunity to take challenges observed in healthcare, everyday life and sport and explore how technology could help address them.

It is a simple sentence, but one that captures what Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC) hopes every student takes away from the programme.

Across classrooms in South India, young engineering students are learning Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and Coding & Programming through Samsung Innovation Campus, Samsung’s flagship CSR initiative. They arrive looking for technical skills and leave with something far more valuable like confidence, curiosity and a renewed belief in their own potential.

For many, the transformation begins quietly.

Dhanya, a Computer Science student specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, remembers walking into her first Coding & Programming class feeling excited but unsure of herself. Like many students, she had completed coursework before, but translating theory into practical problem-solving seemed intimidating.

Over the next few weeks, that changed.

The structured curriculum, industry-grade labs and hands-on assignments made complex concepts feel approachable. More importantly, the encouragement she received from her mentor changed the way she viewed her own abilities.

That confidence extended well beyond the classroom. Today, Dhanya mentors junior students at her college, a role she never imagined taking on before joining Samsung Innovation Campus.

Her story is one of the many student lives who have benefitted from SIC.

For Maddula Varshini from RNS Institute of Technology, engineering had gradually become an exercise in memorising diagrams and preparing for examinations. The excitement that first drew her towards technology had faded.

Samsung Innovation Campus helped bring it back.

Working with sensors, microcontrollers and cloud platforms, she experienced the thrill of building something that worked outside a textbook. The defining moment came when her team’s IoT prototype successfully transmitted live data to the cloud.

Instead of simply providing answers, trainers encouraged students to troubleshoot, ask questions and think through problems independently. Those experiences helped students develop not only technical competence but also the confidence to solve unfamiliar challenges.

That confidence has opened new doors for students like Meghana.

Coming from a modest background, she often felt that opportunities in technology were reserved for students with better access to resources and guidance. Samsung Innovation Campus challenged that belief.

The practical learning environment helped her develop programming skills while giving her the confidence to ask questions without fear of being judged. Since completing the programme, she has made her first open-source contributions and secured her first internship opportunity.

Sanjana, who enrolled in the Artificial Intelligence course, admits AI initially felt overwhelming.

Through project-based learning, she gradually built machine learning models and eventually developed an emotion detection application as part of her capstone project.

The project represented more than technical progress.

It was proof that she could build solutions capable of addressing real-world challenges. Today, she is preparing for advanced certifications in Data Science and participating in AI hackathons, confident that technology is where she belongs.

While every student’s journey is different, the underlying transformation remains remarkably similar.

“Technology education should do more than teach technical concepts, it should empower young people to believe in their own potential. Through Samsung Innovation Campus, we want students to experience the excitement of creating, solving problems and innovating. When we see students mentoring others, securing internships, participating in hackathons or simply becoming more confident learners, we know the programme is making a meaningful difference,” said Amit Mannan, VP, Software R&D (E).

He believes the programme plays an important role in strengthening India’s innovation ecosystem by complementing academic learning with industry-relevant skills.

“Our goal is not only to prepare students for future careers but to nurture a generation of innovators who will help solve real-world challenges using technology.”

As India continues its rapid digital transformation, initiatives like Samsung Innovation Campus are helping bridge the gap between classrooms and careers.

For students like Dhanya, Varshini, Meghana and Sanjana, the programme may have started with coding exercises, AI models or IoT projects. But what they truly gained was something much harder to teach, and perhaps even more valuable. The confidence to imagine a future they once thought was beyond their reach.