As artificial intelligence begins to reshape classrooms, learning is becoming increasingly interactive, digital and personalised. But for visually impaired students, accessing these new possibilities can present a different set of challenges. As educational tools evolve, how can students who cannot rely on screens navigate this changing landscape and participate more independently in their learning?

For Aditya and Sparsh, two 17-year-olds from Delhi, this is a question worth working on.

Together, they have built Team Equinox and are developing SARA AI, a voice-first, agentic AI companion designed to make digital learning more accessible to visually impaired students. Their idea is now among the Top 20 solutions submitted for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026.

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.

The idea is rooted in a simple ambition: as technology changes how students learn, access to those opportunities should not depend on whether someone can see a screen.

SARA AI is being developed to let students interact with learning through voice commands, convert speech into text, track their learning progress and participate in tests and assessments. It can also check in with users after periods of inactivity, helping create a more interactive learning experience.

For the two young innovators, the challenge goes beyond building a piece of technology. It is about exploring how AI can support students in navigating their education with greater independence and confidence.

Building for the learner, not just the technology

Ideas often begin with a problem, but making them useful requires listening to the people who experience it. Team Equinox has tested SARA AI with more than 40 students in Delhi and engaged with schools and trusts to better understand the needs of visually impaired learners.

These interactions have helped the team explore how the solution might work in real learning environments, where accessibility, ease of use and reliability matter as much as the technology itself.

The experience has also highlighted an important lesson for the young innovators: a promising prototype is only the beginning. For a solution to make a difference, it must respond to everyday needs and work for the people it is intended to serve.

Team Equinox is among the Top 20 teams selected for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow (SFT), a global problem-solving platform that encourages young people to use science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to address challenges in their communities.

Through the programme, the team is receiving guidance to take SARA AI beyond its initial prototype and explore how it could become a practical, scalable solution for visually impaired students.

From a working prototype to a real-world solution

The SFT Bootcamp gave Aditya and Sparsh an opportunity to look at their idea from perspectives beyond technology. Sessions on design thinking, marketing and the startup ecosystem encouraged them to consider not just how SARA AI functions, but also how students might use it, how its reliability could be improved and what it would take to introduce it into educational settings.

Mentorship helped the team refine its prototype, while one-on-one sessions with Samsung and FITT, IIT Delhi, along with inputs from AI experts in Samsung’s R&D ecosystem, helped them work through technical challenges and explore a potential go-to-market strategy.

For two 17-year-olds navigating the journey from an idea to a potential real-world solution, this exposure has broadened the scope of what building technology entails. It has brought questions of usability, implementation and adoption into sharper focus.

The team is now exploring how SARA AI could be adopted by schools, non-governmental organisations and other institutions that support visually impaired students.

A bigger classroom for the idea

Team Equinox hopes to expand SARA AI across schools in Delhi, with the potential to reach approximately 6,000 students, subject to further development and adoption.

The ambition is significant, but the idea begins with an everyday need: making learning easier to access for students who may otherwise face barriers when educational experiences are designed primarily around visual interfaces.

For Aditya and Sparsh, the journey through Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is an opportunity to understand what it takes to turn that ambition into something practical. Their experience reflects a larger lesson about innovation: meaningful solutions are shaped not only by technical possibilities, but also by the willingness to listen, learn and keep improving.

As AI becomes a more prominent part of education, Team Equinox is working towards a future in which visually impaired students can engage with these tools on more inclusive terms.

At 17, the two Delhi students are still developing their idea. But with SARA AI, they are asking a question that matters far beyond their own classroom: as technology moves learning forward, how can we make sure everyone has a chance to move forward with it?

The next breakthrough may begin with a problem a young person sees every day: unsafe drinking water, stubble burning, barriers to communication or a gap in local services.

The 16 startup founders mentoring Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026 finalists say young innovators are increasingly drawing on their own experience and understanding of the people they want to serve. Among them are Ankit Garg, Robin Singh, Samridhi Bhardwaj and Dishant Mishra. They see wider access to technology and information helping ideas emerge from smaller cities and communities across India.

“They really want to solve a problem that is actually hurting someone somewhere. Even if the market is looking small, these young innovators are attempting it, they are going for it, and they are solving those problems,” said Dishant Mishra, founder of IIT Delhi-incubated Water Resources. “Creating a market is going to be the second step, and they are not focused on the second step. Perhaps that is the refreshing change that I have observed with this year’s cohort.”

Robin Singh, founder of water-quality intelligence startup Cluix, has seen how an idea can continue beyond the programme. A team he mentored from rural Bihar developed a filtration system to address arsenic contamination in water, won the challenge and went on to commercialise its product.

“They came from rural Bihar and, essentially, they could see that there was no solution available in the field. At a very young age, when they were just students, they developed a filtration system. That filtration system won the challenge, and now they have gone on to commercialise the product,” Singh said.

This year, Singh is mentoring SignBridge AI, a team working to help people with disabilities communicate more independently. He said, “I think this increases inclusivity in the society, and we need such solutions.”

Samridhi Bhardwaj, a founder working in women’s health, said access to technology has changed the relationship between geography and opportunity. “Students across India, including those in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, have access to technology and the kind of exposure that many of their peers and seniors did not have. So, I don’t think geography is a hindrance anymore. Any innovative solution can come from any part of India.”

For Ankit Garg, founder of clean-label food brand EemuMasale, local problems can have relevance well beyond the communities where they first emerge. “Stubble burning is not a local issue. It is a national challange that they are working to solve. They have seemingly developed a prototype that could also address nutrition in India by providing alternative protein options,” he said.

Half of the ideas in this year’s cohort came from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, according to Singh. He said, “The ideas that people are getting in tier 2 cities are sometimes even better than the ones that you see in tier 1 cities. The exposure has increased, and the application of such ideas has become better.”

The founders see mentorship as a way to help young innovators move from identifying a problem to developing and testing a solution. Samsung Solve for Tomorrow brings finalists together with startup founders, academia and industry, offering guidance and opportunities to develop their ideas.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung’s global innovation and education programme for young people. The 2026 edition marks its fifth year in India.

What if the agricultural waste left behind after every harvest could become a source of protein?

That is the question driving Nitish Kumar and Gulshan Kumar, two young students from Sonipat, Haryana, who are exploring how artificial intelligence and biotechnology can transform crop residue into sustainable protein.

Students at the National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM-K), Haryana, Nitish and Gulshan are the founders of Kinva Bio, a team among the Top 20 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026. Their idea addresses one of the biggest challenges facing the world’s food system: how to produce more nutritious food for a growing population without putting greater pressure on land and water.

Their solution starts with agricultural byproducts that are often treated as waste, including sugarcane bagasse. Kinva Bio uses fermentation, in which a fungal strain converts this biomass into protein. An AI-powered digital twin then helps the team predict protein production, allowing them to optimise the process and understand its potential at scale.

According to the team, the approach could use 98–99% less water, significantly reduce carbon emissions and require substantially less land than conventional protein production.

For the two young innovators, however, the journey has been about more than developing a scientific solution. It has been about learning how to turn an idea from the laboratory into something that can make a difference in the real world.

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.

Who is the end user?

When Nitish and Gulshan started working on Kinva Bio, their focus was largely on the science behind their innovation.

“We were projecting our idea scientifically and without storytelling,” the team said.

Their experience at the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Bootcamp changed that perspective. Interacting with mentors, experts and fellow innovators exposed them to questions beyond the laboratory: Who is the end user? What problem are we solving? How do we communicate its impact? And what would it take to turn the idea into a viable startup?

“The biggest takeaway from the Bootcamp was the people we connected with and the exposure to the business environment,” they said.

The team began approaching their pitches differently. Instead of only explaining how their technology worked, they learnt to communicate why it mattered — to consumers, investors and society.

For Nitish and Gulshan, storytelling became more than a presentation skill. It changed the way they looked at Kinva Bio itself — from a scientific project to a potential business capable of creating real-world impact.

From Sonipat to the global food innovation stage

The team’s work had already begun attracting international attention.

The recognition offered the young innovators a glimpse of how far their idea could travel beyond the classroom and laboratory.

Their Samsung Solve for Tomorrow journey has since pushed them to think about the next questions: Who will use the solution? How can it be scaled? What would it take to build a user base? And how can an innovation rooted in biotechnology become a commercially viable solution?

As Kinva Bio moves towards the Grand Finale of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, Nitish and Gulshan are carrying with them an idea that began with a simple but consequential question: Can we produce more food while asking less of the planet?

For these young innovators from Sonipat, the answer could lie in bringing together AI, biotechnology and agricultural waste — and turning what was once considered residue into a building block for the future of food.

For Team Code Blooded’s 21-year-old Vatala Harika and 20-year-old Ritesh Routray, the idea began with a simple observation: talent can exist anywhere, but opportunity does not always reach everywhere.

Students from the same college in Sundargarh, Odisha, and friends long before they became co-founders, Harika and Ritesh began discussing the challenges faced by para-athletes during a trip. What stood out to them was the absence of accessible scouting infrastructure for talented athletes in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities and rural areas.

Their idea, ParaSync, is now among the Top 20 innovations at Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026. The AI-powered platform is designed to help discover and support para-athletes by allowing them to record or upload a 10–20-minute video of their sporting performance through a smartphone. Its computer vision system analyses sporting technique and physical mechanics, while the platform aims to connect promising athletes with national-level talent scouts.

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.

The solution also envisages tailored warm-up routines, automated progress tracking and secure records that could support medical screening and athlete development.

For Harika and Ritesh, the challenge goes beyond simply identifying sporting talent. Para-athletes are not a homogenous group, they point out, with different athletes requiring different forms of adaptation, coaching and support based on their individual needs.

“We wanted to solve the exact problem we were seeing, and we knew we wanted to use AI to do it,” said Vatala Harika. “There is nothing for para-athletes and their recruitment. Para-athletes are a niche market, but they are not a singular group. There are different models that need to be built for individuals based on the challenges they face.”

The experience at Samsung Solve for Tomorrow helped the team look beyond the technology itself. When they entered the programme, their focus was primarily on solving the problem. The Bootcamp encouraged them to think about whether the solution could work at scale, who would use it, and how it could become a sustainable proposition.

“We were only thinking about solving the problem. But the Bootcamp made us realise that it should solve the problem at a much larger scale,” said Ritesh Routray. “We understood revenue models and got a much clearer sense of the market size. We are techies, so learning to look at the idea from a market perspective helped us understand how we could take ParaSync forward.”

For the students, mentorship became an equally important part of the journey. Harika says the mentors challenged them to look at the problem from different perspectives and, importantly, gave them the confidence to continue pursuing their idea.

“The mentors made me believe in my idea. They made me see the problem from different perspectives. Mentorship helped us understand the problem better,” she said. “Problem-solving depends on how well you understand the problem.”

Their own journey as a team also began organically. Having studied at the same college and being friends, the two were discussing the issue during a trip when the idea for ParaSync began to take shape.

What started as a conversation between two young engineers from Odisha has now evolved into an attempt to build a technology-led pathway between undiscovered para-athletes and the opportunities they need to progress.

For Harika, the journey also reflects a personal evolution. “I always wanted to be in the social space. But then I studied to become an engineer, and now I am using engineering to solve problems,” she said.

As Code Blooded moves forward as one of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow’s Top 20 teams, Harika and Ritesh hope ParaSync can help ensure that where an athlete comes from does not determine whether their talent gets noticed.

For Prabinder Singh, Anish Grover and Deepesh Kakkar, the problem they set out to solve was not an abstract one. All three young students from SAS Nagar, Punjab, have seen the impact of stroke on their own families. That personal connection led them to a question: what happens to stroke patients once they leave the hospital?

The three friends, who study at the same college and are currently in their third and fourth years of engineering, are developing NeuroTrace, an AI-powered smartphone solution designed to help families monitor stroke survivors at home. Their innovation is among the Top 20 teams of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026.

The challenge they are addressing is the gap between hospital care and everyday monitoring. After discharge, families often become the primary caregivers, but subtle neurological changes may be difficult to recognise until they develop into a serious emergency.

NeuroTrace proposes an accessible, wearable-free approach. The platform uses a 45-second daily check-in through a smartphone’s camera and microphone to capture three signals: voice patterns, facial movement and reaction time. Over the first 35 days, the system learns an individual patient’s neurological baseline. It then looks for sustained deviations from that baseline.

To reduce false alarms, NeuroTrace uses multimodal AI, with alerts triggered only when two signals show a deviation simultaneously. Family caregivers can receive the alerts in plain-language Hindi through WhatsApp, creating a simple layer of monitoring without requiring specialised equipment or a wearable device.

For the three friends, the technology was only one part of the challenge. Their experience at the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Bootcamp pushed them to think more deeply about who would actually use the solution, whose needs they were solving for and how the idea could work beyond a prototype.

“Design thinking helped us understand who our end user really is and who we should be speaking to. The idea became much better once we started looking at it from the user’s perspective,” said Prabinder Singh.

The team also came to recognise the importance of medical data and the responsibility that comes with handling it. As they think about developing NeuroTrace as a long-term solution, data security and privacy have become central to their approach.

“We initially focused a lot on the technology and how to build the solution. At the Bootcamp, we started thinking about the larger picture—our end user, the problem we were solving and how we could make this a long-term solution,” said Anish Grover.

The personal nature of the problem has kept the team closely connected to their mission. “All three of us have family members who have experienced this. So this was a common problem for us, and we wanted to work on something that could actually help,” said Deepesh Kakkar.

Their ambitions extend beyond NeuroTrace itself. All three say they have wanted to become entrepreneurs, but for them, entrepreneurship is closely tied to solving a problem that matters.

“We all wanted to become entrepreneurs, but we also wanted to solve a real problem. Now we have the idea, and we will see what support we can get to take it forward,” said Prabinder.

As one of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026 Top 20 teams, NeuroTrace is now focused on taking its technology and understanding of the problem to the next stage. For three friends who began with a problem they had witnessed within their own families, the journey is an attempt to build a simple, accessible safety net for patients and the people who care for them—long after they leave the hospital.

How does a visually impaired swimmer know when the pool wall is approaching?

Twenty-year-old engineering student Pasupuleti Ruthvik from Chittoor believes the answer could lie in a pair of smart goggles.

His innovation, Untethered, uses ultrasonic sensing to measure a swimmer’s distance from the pool wall and haptic feedback to provide a physical alert as they approach it. The technology could help visually impaired swimmers navigate pools with greater safety, confidence and independence.

Untethered is now among the Top 20 teams of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, a national education and innovation competition that empowers young people to develop technology-led solutions to real-world problems through design thinking, mentorship and hands-on learning.

The idea was sparked by an accident involving one of Ruthvik’s friends.

“One of my friends suffered a concussion in an accident, and that stayed with me. It made me think about how technology could prevent injuries and help people participate in activities without constantly depending on someone else,” Ruthvik said.

For Ruthvik, the innovation also brings together his childhood interest in swimming and his growing ambition to become an entrepreneur.

“I always wanted to do something in sports. After joining engineering college, I began thinking about entrepreneurship—not simply as starting a company, but as identifying a real problem, building something meaningful and creating an impact,” he said.

From Engineering Idea to User-led Innovation

Ruthvik entered the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Bootcamp focused primarily on whether the technology could be built. The experience pushed him to confront a more fundamental question: would visually impaired swimmers find it useful and comfortable?

“Earlier, I was asking, ‘Can I make this technology work?’ The Bootcamp made me ask, ‘Who will use it? What problem are they actually facing? Will it make their lives better, and would they want to use it?’ That completely changed how I looked at my idea,” he said.

Through intensive sessions and expert mentoring, Ruthvik began examining the product’s feasibility, user experience and potential for real-world adoption.

“My mentors helped me understand what was technically possible and how I could approach the problem differently. Their guidance helped me move from simply having an idea to thinking like someone building a real product,” he added.

A Chittoor Idea with Global Potential

While Untethered began with Ruthvik’s personal connection to swimming, its potential extends far beyond Andhra Pradesh. He wants to develop the goggles into an affordable and scalable assistive product that could help visually impaired swimmers in India and around the world.

“I do not want this to remain an engineering project or a prototype that works only in a laboratory. If a visually impaired swimmer can enter a pool and feel more confident and independent because of something we built, that would mean far more to me than simply developing a new technology,” Ruthvik said.

As Untethered progresses through Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, Ruthvik is demonstrating how an idea born in Chittoor could help make swimming safer and more inclusive around the world—one stroke at a time.

Avi Mohan Kumar and Yash Varshney are developing Sentinel, a solar-powered AI edge device that uses cameras, radar and seismic data to detect wildlife approaching human settlements and provide early warnings.

Watch the team share what making it to the Top 20 means to them and how they hope technology can help build safer coexistence between communities and wildlife.

Manoj Kumar, Jena R and Chriswin William D are developing NeuroStride, an AI-powered wearable that seeks to distinguish involuntary Parkinson’s tremors from intentional muscle movement and provide targeted electrical stimulation.

Watch the team share what reaching the Top 20 means to them and how they hope to explore new possibilities in assistive wearable technology.

At 12, Homanshika Reddy Pullagurla picked up a rifle as a hobby. Nine years later, the Hyderabad-based national-level shooter and national medalist is using technology to confront a problem that can abruptly end an athlete’s journey: injury.

The 21-year-old is developing Somatrace, a wearable system that uses sensors to track spinal movement in real time. Initially designed for rifle shooters, the technology aims to give athletes and coaches deeper insights into posture and movement during training—and help them identify patterns that may be associated with injury risk.

Her innovation has taken her to the Top 20 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, Samsung’s flagship national education and innovation programme, which helps young people transform ideas addressing real-world challenges into potentially scalable solutions.

For Homanshika, Somatrace is rooted in lived experience. She has dealt with injury herself and has also watched a friend leave sport because of one.

“I wanted to solve this for others as well,” Homanshika said. “I have seen how an injury can change an athlete’s journey.”

From the Shooting Range to Wearable Technology

Homanshika had not always planned to become an innovator. Growing up, she imagined becoming a doctor or an engineer. Shooting entered her life almost unexpectedly when she took it up as a hobby at the age of 12.

The hobby soon became a serious pursuit. Competitions brought discipline, pressure and national medals. Inspired by Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and the young shooters training alongside her, Homanshika discovered what talent and persistence could achieve.

Sport also taught her how much an athlete’s performance depends on the body—and how quickly injury can take that opportunity away.

In rifle shooting, precision is everything. Small variations in posture or repeated movements can influence performance. Homanshika began wondering whether these movements could be captured and analysed, giving athletes and coaches information that is difficult to see with the naked eye.

That question became Somatrace.

The wearable system is being developed to capture spinal movement patterns during training. By making this information measurable, Homanshika hopes Somatrace can help athletes better understand their bodies and enable coaches to make more informed training decisions.

Her ambition is straightforward: help athletes remain in the sport they love for longer.

How Samsung Helped Turn an Athlete’s Idea into a Potential Venture

Selection for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gave Homanshika an opportunity to move Somatrace beyond its early concept.

Through the programme’s Bootcamp, she tested her assumptions, received feedback from mentors and began examining the solution from technical, user and commercial perspectives.

“The Bootcamp was an amazing experience. It helped me validate my idea practically,” she said.

The experience also changed how she thought about Somatrace. What began as a solution to a problem she had personally encountered started taking shape as a potential venture with wider relevance.

“Meeting so many mentors put a lot of things into perspective for me. My idea transformed, especially when I started looking at the business aspect of things,” she said.

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow supports young innovators through mentorship, prototyping guidance, design-thinking workshops and exposure to Samsung’s technology and innovation ecosystem. For Homanshika, that support has encouraged a shift from asking whether the technology can be built to considering how it can create meaningful value for athletes.

“SFT has made me confident and pushed me to go past my comfort zone,” she said. “I have started seeing that creating value for others is the most important thing at Solve for Tomorrow.”

Helping Athletes Stay in the Game

Homanshika’s journey now sits at the intersection of two demanding worlds: competitive sport and technology-led innovation.

The girl who once picked up a rifle simply as a hobby is now thinking like an athlete, entrepreneur and problem-solver. Through Somatrace, she is attempting to turn the lessons of injury into a tool that could help others better understand their movement and protect their sporting journeys.

For Homanshika, success is no longer defined only by medals. It is also about whether her experience can help another athlete continue doing what they love.

Because when an athlete understands their body better, an injury may not have to mean the end of the game.

Led by Vidit Bhayana, the team is developing 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.

Watch Vidit share what being among the Top 20 means to him and how he hopes the idea can support children and their caregivers.Sport & Tech