Samsung India has signed a MoU with IIT Kharagpur to set up Samsung Digital Academy at the institutes’ campus, thereby strengthening its commitment towards the government’s Skill India mission and also bolstering the Digital India initiative.

Mr. YoungKi Byun, Managing Director, Samsung Research & Development Institute, Delhi and Prof. Sriman Kumar, Deputy Director, IIT Kharagpur signed the MoU

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kharagpur, will host the Samsung Innovation Lab and train students on Internet of Things (IoT) through Tizen-based operating systems helping them learn industry-relevant skills and making them job-ready. Tizen is the operating system that is used by Samsung in its mobile phones, televisions, refrigerators and many other smart home appliances.

Samsung Digital Academy is the Company’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 Kharagpur, the academy targets to train over 100 students in the next three years.

“Samsung is happy to partner with IIT Kharagpur to help students leverage the growing digital technologies market, especially Internet of things which is the future of connectivity. With Samsung Digital Academy, students will be able to hone their programming skills on Tizen, the operating system for IoT. We are committed to work in the field of next generation technology development and participate in the growth of advanced research areas of IoT. Innovation is the future and we at Samsung encourage students, on a regular basis, to develop their talent,” said Mr. YoungKi Byun, Managing Director, Samsung Research & Development Institute, Delhi.

“We are delighted to work with Samsung for this initiative. The partnership will help our students in developing their skills on the emerging areas of IoT and Artificial Intelligence. Students enrolling for the courses will be able to utilize this opportunity to be part of an exciting, new era in smart devices that will help shape the future,” said Mr. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

The curriculum at the Samsung Digital Academy has been conceptualized for easy comprehension of beginners in app development. The course includes the basics of web application development on Tizen, learning how to test, debug apps and later develop Tizen ecosystem tools and other framework libraries associated with Tizen. 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.

“We are looking forward to partnering with Samsung on setting up an IoT Lab in our department. This lab will enable our students to have hands-on experience with the Tizen operating system as well as facilitate research and app development on IoT platforms and embedded systems,” said Prof. Sudeshna Sarkar, Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kharagpur.

Earlier this year, Samsung launched the Samsung IoT Innovation Lab, under its Samsung Digital Academy initiative, with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi at the latter’s campus. The lab will endeavour to build a smarter communication landscape for end users and its current focus is on three major activities including research at IIT Delhi, collaborative research with Samsung and lab exercises for IoT course/training offered by Samsung. The IoT lab will carry out research on areas such as sensor data processing, network architecture and embedded intelligence.

What is Internet of Things?

Internet of Things is the concept of connecting physical and smart devices, other than traditional devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets, to the internet. This can include devices such as cars, kitchen appliances, heart rate monitors, lights inside a home or an office building, alarm clocks and others gargets so that data can be exchanged through the sensors inside them. The concept of the Internet of Things was invented by and term coined by Peter T. Lewis in September 1985.

Gartner, Inc forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017, up 31% from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Total spending on endpoints and services will reach almost $2 trillion in 2017.

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!