Young innovators from SRI-B, Shweta, Anusha and Meghana (from L-R)

Innovation is not born in labs—it takes shape in minds that dare to ask “what if?”

At the heart of Samsung R&D Institute India, Bangalore (SRI-B), three remarkable women—Meghana, Anusha, and Shweta—are pushing those boundaries.

And their journeys prove that curiosity is not just a spark, it’s a force. From quiet moments of problem-solving to the thrill of seeing an idea patented, these remarkable engineers are paving the way for a future where more women lead innovation in tech.

Discipline and Depth: Anusha’s IP journey in Cellular Tech

Anusha has 92 global patent filings! Her pathway to success is driven by diligent learning and disciplined innovation. Since her patent journey began in 2015, she has become a powerhouse in the physical layer of cellular communications, with many global patents spanning 4G and emerging 6G technologies. For Anusha, her innovation journey centers on deeply mastering the intricate 3GPP standards and receiver algorithms within the cellular physical layer, then identifying and solving advanced problems that bridge these frameworks. She emphasizes the importance of protecting and nurturing one’s unique problem-solving skills to carve out a distinct niche for oneself. “Innovation is a skill that can be cultivated through the right practice with great discipline,” she says. Her collaborative approach fuels continuous growth.

From Curiosity to Creation: Meghana’s journey through explorative research 

“Building something from scratch is messy, iterative but is deeply rewarding,” says Meghana. When she joined SRI-B in late 2022, her goal was simple: design a high fidelity multicapture rig for hand tracking in the immersive XR space. What began as a hands-on engineering challenge soon turned into a progressive patent journey with over 29 global filings, and still counting. Her explorations, in setting up a state-of-art multicapture rig with her team soon became a launchpad for discoveries on hand kinematics, low-light tracking, and fatigue detection. Meghana’s story reveals how innovation is often less about grand visions and more about meticulous, iterative exploration.

Exploration and Excellence: Shweta’s journey Through Network Innovation

Shweta’s experience offers a glimpse into the early sparks of curiosity that fuel long-term innovation. Her first stint with patents came through a shelved idea on RF elements, which nonetheless ignited a lasting interest in intellectual property. Specializing in Non-Access Stratum (NAS) and later expanding to network layers, Shweta has contributed to critical patents in 5G and beyond. Her journey highlights the importance of mentorship and a supportive environment. Shweta firmly believes that patience to nurture ideas from start to finish is key in the generation of patents. “Collaboration with the right people also helps to refine and elevate these ideas into impactful innovations,” she added.

Her track record of 73 patent filings continues to inspire many.

Unstoppable Spirit: Beyond Numbers

What unites these three women is a shared belief that innovation is about more than just the number of patents filed. It is about solving meaningful problems, pushing boundaries, and nurturing a culture of curiosity and collaboration. Their stories remind us that women innovators are not just participants but leaders in shaping technology’s future. By bringing in deep passion, hands-on engineering, disciplined scholarship, and open collaboration, Meghana, Anusha, and Shweta are quietly setting new benchmarks in technology.

With a strong R&D focus to develop meaningful innovations for India and the world, Samsung is the leader in filing patents in India. Owing to the patent filing culture, Samsung Research Institute – Bangalore (SRI-B) has seen a 100% increase in annual patent filings over the last four years.

The commercialization of patents filed by Samsung has increased by four times in last 3 years that means these innovations are ultimately offered in Samsung products. The majority of patents filed are in emerging areas such as 5G, AI, ML, IoT, camera & vision technologies.

“For patents, we work with business teams, do our research and come up with unique consumer needs in the design team. Then we collaborate with engineering teams to see which ideas make the cut. It is a journey full of fun and learning,” said Swadha Jaiswal, Design Manager at SRI-B. Swadha has been with Samsung for seven years and has filed ten patents so far.

SRI-B also has a specialized IP team that conducts invention-creation training, advanced inventive step training to help employees understand the idea and process of innovation. Most of the patents have been filed by the young millennials and Gen Z who have just entered the workforce.

“At Samsung, freshers are trained on the patenting process by the IP (intellectual property) team, the engineering team, and others. Teams guide them on what the broad customer needs are and the areas they need to focus on,” said Payal Anand, Chief Engineer, Machine Learning at SRI-B. Payal has been with Samsung for 7 years and has filed 3 patents.

Samsung strongly believes in nurturing young talent and has built a strong culture of innovation and patent filing. To simplify the process for the inventors, SRI-B has also set up an internal portal. This portal is a one-stop-shop for all patent filing information that an engineer requires during the process.

“At Samsung, we believe in meaningful innovation and encourage our engineers to bring their novel ideas, techniques to develop new-age solutions to problems. We are immensely proud of our young millennials and Gen Z employees who have contributed significantly and have filed for patents at such an early stage of their careers. We will continue to work towards creating an environment that inspires, supports and develops young innovators,” said Dr Aloknath De, CTO, SRI-B.

In order to strengthen Industry-Academia partnership, Samsung R&D has been working with young innovators across top engineering colleges as part of a popular students’ engagement program named Samsung PRISM. Among the successes over the last two years of the program is many students getting to file joint patents with SRI-B engineers. Earlier this year, Samsung also set up a world-class artificial intelligence, machine learning and data engineering lab at the KLE Technological University to offer young students an exciting opportunity to research in emerging cutting-edge tech areas.

No prizes for guessing…it’s Samsung.

Keeping in mind its core philosophies of People, Innovation and Change, Samsung encourages employees to think out of the box while providing holistic training for creativity and research. The knowledge to innovate as well as patent that innovation has resulted in some cutting-edge technology and exceptional features.

With three R&D centres in India alone (in Delhi, Noida and Bengaluru) and several others across the world, Samsung has invested close to USD 15 billion in R&D globally. Some of the best minds from prestigious Indian institutes including the IITs are hired year on year who go for training to Korea. The engineers specialize in several fields including artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, augmented reality, Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G.

The Samsung Research Institute- Bangalore is the largest R&D centre outside South Korea and has alone filed over 2900 patents since 2011-2012, which is close to 250-300 patents a year. It organizes annual knowledge sharing workshops that are attended by R&D centres across the world. At SRI- Noida, close to 2500 engineers have been trained on patent filing. Ideation workshops, thematic contests and quizzes on Intellectual Property are organized to create a culture for innovation. SRI-Delhi is responsible for not just generating patents, but also for curating organization wide patent activities to drive people to newer heights of innovative technology. To achieve that one-on-one guidance sessions, patent clubs, in-house magazines are organized. In addition, distinct short and long term programmes are conducted for freshers, mid-level and senior employees. The teams leading patents across Samsung India have won several awards that recognize their work in the field.

 The patent team being presented the National IP Award 2018

Under the Make for India initiative, engineers have developed India-specific features for various devices. For instance, the ActivWash feature in washing machines to ensure better cleaning of shirt collars and sleeves, and the Tandoor Technology in microwaves to cook crisp rotis and naans, were developed by Indian engineers. With these features, Samsung India is also moving towards a Make For The World initiative.