Samsung R&D Institute India, Bangalore (SRI‑B), the company’s largest software R&D hub outside Korea, has once again dominated the Zinnov Awards, taking home four top honours at this year’s Confluence.

Three individuals from SRI-B were recognized for their exceptional track record as technologists and mentors. Roopa Sheshadri was honoured as one of the Next Generation Women Leaders for her contributions in mentoring and technological leadership. Dr. Raja Sekhara Reddy D. M. and Dr. Srinivas Soumitri Miriyala were chosen as Technical Role Models, marking SRI‑B’s continued excellence in nurturing technical leadership. This is the 11th year of SRI-B winning multiple awards at Zinnov Confluence, setting new industry standards.

At an organizational level, SRI-B was declared the sole winner of the “Great Place to Innovate” award, a recognition of its sharp innovation culture, a robust patent portfolio crossing 11,000 filings, and a thriving intrapreneurial ecosystem that fuels next-gen solutions.

These recent SRI-B accolades reflect a deliberate R&D strategy, led by strong leadership and unique innovation culture.

Zinnov Confluence 2025, the flagship industry forum centered on the theme “Limitless Leadership in the Age of AI”, brought together visionaries from across the globe to spotlight engineering excellence and industry-defining ideas. SRI-B stood tall among peers, further anchoring its legacy of impact-driven innovation.

“Our multiple wins at Zinnov Confluence reinforce our position as a global innovation engine, driving breakthroughs that matter. Every year in the last decade, we have been recognized for our unwavering commitment to the technology ecosystem. In this high-speed world of technology, SRI-B has always pioneered industry-first innovations that create a true real impact. We are happy and proud that our contributions are recognized consistently,” said Mohan Rao Goli, CVP and Managing Director, SRI-B.

SRI-B focuses on technologies around Communication Protocols, Multimedia (including Camera Solutions), AD Tech, Data Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence and IoT. The center has built end-to-end expertise in COEs through product management and UX Design thinking. The R&D center’s key focus is to create global product differentiation and solutions for the Indian market by identifying unique insights and deliver value to consumers.

In the 29 years since its foundation, SRI-B has developed several products and solutions for both the national and global market, with several ‘world’s firsts’ conceptualized and developed out of this R&D center. The company is also recognized as India’s #1 patent filer, with the highest number of patents in the country filed out of this R&D center.

The 15th edition of the Zinnov Awards focussed on recognizing and celebrating visionaries and change makers, shining the spotlight on the Titans in Tech – the India GCCs and individual role models who have created an impact on a global scale. SRI-B has been winning the Zinnov Awards continuously for a decade now, setting new industry standards.

SRI-B won the Technical Role Model award

This year, SRI-B won the Technical Role Model award, an individual contributor award in the established category, recognizing technology stalwart and SRI-B’s Chief Technology Officer, Mohan Rao Goli, for creating a significant impact by leading the team that worked on the world’s first mmWave (5G) mobile phone launch and the design revamp of 4G components, such as Modem software, Call software, Management software and Operator Administration Management software, to optimize the network.

Over the last 3 years, under Mohan’s guidance, SRI-B developed the world’s 1^st combined 4G/5G VRAN, the world’s 1^st low light camera solution – Nightography, the world’s 1^st  inter-operable single radio chip solution for Zigbee & Matter Thread communications in IoT, and the world’s 1^st and best On-device AI engine with highest performance.

“This recognition goes to show how dedicated SRI-B has been in making a global impact over the last decade. I am elated to represent this extraordinary company, making strides in innovation, especially in the areas of Advanced Wireless Communication, Internet of things, Camera and Artificial Intelligence Services.”

“I am proud and sincerely thankful to my leaders and the teams I’ve led along the way, for their enduring and perceptive efforts to bring SRI-B where it is today. However, this is just the beginning. SRI-B will continue to strive not just for excellence, but also to push the boundaries of research and inspire the future with our innovation”, said Mohan Rao Goli, Chief Technology Officer, SRI-B.

SRI-B has also won the Technical Role Model award in AI&BDA in the senior level category

SRI-B has also won the Technical Role Model award in AI&BDA in the senior level category, awarded to Dr. Lokesh Rayasandra Boregowda, Senior Director, SRI-B.

SRI-B focuses on technologies around Communication Protocols, Multimedia (including Camera Solutions), AD Tech, Data Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence and IoT. The center has built end-to-end expertise in COEs through product management and UX Design thinking.  The R&D center’s key focus is to create global product differentiation and solutions for the Indian market by identifying unique insights and deliver value to consumers.

In the 28 years since its foundation, SRI-B has developed several products and solutions for both the national and global market, with several ‘world’s firsts’ conceptualized and developed out of this R&D center. The company is also recognized as India’s #1 patent filer, with the highest number of patents in the country filed out of this R&D center.

Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B), the Company’s largest R&D centre outside Korea, has won the ‘Impactful GCC Driven Collaboration’ and ‘Excellence in Building Talent of the Future’ Awards at the recently held Nasscom GCC (Global Capability Center) Awards.

These awards recognize Global Capability Centers (GCCs) that are making a significant contribution to Global ER&D operations in terms of portfolio transformation, technical talent development, establishing next-gen centre of excellence and innovation contribution.

The Bengaluru R&D centre has also won two awards – ‘Unlocking Centre Value Award’ and ‘Technical Role Model Award’ – at the Zinnov Awards earlier in September.

SRI-B has undergone a transformation over the last decade. This includes developing breakthrough innovation that has been adopted in global products of Samsung, co-working with start-ups and collaborative projects with academia that have helped boost innovation.

“SRI-B has developed multiple impactful innovations over the last twenty-five years. This success can be attributed to the collaboration with cross-functional teams from within and beyond, converging to draw insights and finding solutions for our consumers. As part of our Powering Digital India vision, we will create breakthrough innovations through our many Centres of Excellence,” said Dipesh Shah, SVP and Managing Director, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore.

SRI-B has collaborated with vendors for product deployment, including Samsung’s recent tie-up with Vodafone UK for Europe’s first-ever wide-scale commercial deployment of Open RAN, where SRI-B played a key role.

The organization is also deeply connected with the Indian start-up ecosystem for strategic partnerships based on market needs and internal technology requirements, with investments in Swiggy, Magicpin and Railyatri.

“Over the last decade, alongside our in-house innovation, we have built a strong culture of open innovation. Whether it is collaborative work with technology vendors, strategic partnerships with start-ups or research collaboration with universities, Samsung is playing a pivotal role in helping build India’s innovation ecosystem,” said Dr. Aloknath De, Vice President & CTO, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore.

Earlier this year, SRI-B had also won the ER&D Organization of the Year and the Social Impact Solution of the Year Award at the first edition of the NASSCOM Engineering & Innovation Excellence Awards 2021.

In the last few years, the R&D centre has also established more than twenty research collaborations with universities/research institutes in India and overseas, working in areas of Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Wireless Networks and Multimedia which are its centres of excellence.

The PRISM (Preparing and Inspiring Student Minds) program that SRI-B launched last year has seen positive results, scaling up to a cohort of over 3,000 engineering students and 300 professors, who are working on real world problems with Samsung engineers. This program has helped make students industry-ready while also improving the innovation quotient at Samsung.

Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore (SRI-B) was recognized as a ‘Great Place to Innovate’ for the third straight time at the prestigious Zinnov Awards 2020. The awards recognize and celebrate the stalwarts of technology world and honour Indian R&D centres that have created an impact on a global scale.

The award has recognised SRI-B for excellence in multiple focus areas, and for establishing itself as the ‘Innovation Hub’ in emerging technologies. SRI-B’s in-house innovation culture with focus on patent creation has enabled R&D engineers at the centre to build impactful solutions around Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Vision & Camera and 5G. University collaboration and start-up engagement has enabled SRI-B to bring together open innovation and in-house innovation.

“Our innovation is deep-rooted in technology. We nurture it in our day-to-day activities where innovators, the strongest anchor of this organization, are encouraged to have a ‘Research-to-Market’ mindset. Our ‘Make for India’ efforts, coupled with excellence in AI, IoT, 5G and Multimedia, are aimed at creating solutions for Indian and global consumers,” said Dr Aloknath De, CTO, Samsung R&D Institute Bangalore.

This year, Zinnov Awards received more than 350 nominations from over 150 companies across eight different categories. A total of 28 winners were selected by 45 eminent jurors.

SRI-B has won the Zinnov Awards in the “Great Place to Innovate” category in 2015 and 2017. The winners this year were selected by a jury comprising eminent members from various India R&D centres, CTOs, industry influencers and previous award winners. SRI-B had also won the Zinnov Awards for ‘Design Thinking’ in 2015 and ‘Center of Excellence’ in 2016 and Zinnov “Open Innovators Award” last year.

SRI-B focuses on technologies around Communication Protocols, Multimedia (including Camera Solutions), Intelligence, Payment, Web Services, Memory, Network and IoT. The R&D centre’s key focus is to create global product differentiation and solutions for the Indian market by identifying unique insights and deliver value to consumers. SRI-B has expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and networks including 5G. It has also filed over 2,900 patents in India so far.

As part of Samsung’s ‘Make for India’ initiative, SRI-B has worked on several India-specific innovations that are based on consumer insights.

Over the years, the centre has engaged with multiple universities and educational institutes such as Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc), International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) IIT- Kharagpur and IIT-Kanpur for research collaborations on areas such as artificial intelligence and its applications to multimedia and vision tech, IoT, sensors and networks.

It recently launched a unique industry-academia program – Samsung PRISM (Preparing and Inspiring Student Minds) – to stimulate the Indian innovation ecosystem, and build capabilities among students that meet industry needs.

Every year Zinnov Awards celebrates the titans in technology and felicitate outstanding individuals and organizations and this is the fifth consecutive year the SRI-B has won the award. SRI-B is Samsung’s largest R&D center outside South Korea and has been recognized for its incredible strategic engagement with broader ecosystem from start-ups and developer community to academia and research fraternity.

“Samsung has taken up multiple initiatives towards building the local eco-system in last few years. Our thrust on 5G, IOT, AI, Multimedia and Services has been fueled with the aim of creating consumer centric innovations.  These efforts have helped us combine our technological prowess with the expertise of local start-ups- and-developer community to create enhanced products and services. The recognition by Zinnov further encourages our mission,” said Dr Aloknath De, Chief Technology Officer, SRI-B.

Over the last few years, SRI-B has introduced several products and services for Indian customers. For instance, Bixby Voice optimization to understand English in Indian accents was developed by SRI-B. The R&D center also recently developed Social Camera mode in smartphones. The first commercial iris recognition table, approved by UIDAI for Aadhaar and KYC verification was also developed here.