Samsung Announces Samsung Innovation Awards 2011 Winners

Dec. 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Samsung Electronics has announced the winners for the prestigious ‘Samsung Innovation Awards’, instituted by the Company at the IIT, Delhi this year in association with the Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT). Instituted with the objective of recognising the spirit of innovation amongst the IIT students, the Samsung Innovation Awards sought student innovations in the areas of product design, user interface and research. Speaking at the Felicitation Ceremony, Mr. JungSoo Shin, President & CEO, Samsung South West Asia said, “We are very encouraged by the response we have received for the first ever Samsung Innovation Awards. Through the Samsung Innovation Awards, we are seeking to foster a culture of innovation and encourage young minds to think differently so that we can get more innovative and relevant solutions for products. We hope through this partnership, we will get innovative ideas that can be further supported and incubated at the Samsung R&D Centre.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Anil Wali, Managing Director, FITT said, “We strongly welcome and encourage initiatives like the Samsung Innovation Awards that provide a platform to our students to get recognition for their creativity and at the same time lead to meaningful contributions to different aspects of products. We believe such initiatives will serve to further strengthen industry academia partnership and contribute towards making India a stronger innovation led economy.”

The first ever Samsung Innovation Awards recognised projects on the basis of criteria like the degree of innovation, feasibility, usability, relevance, time to market and the overall impact amongst others identified by the jury comprising of senior members from IIT, Delhi and Samsung R&D. The winners for the Samsung Innovation Awards in the area of Product Design were Prabal Goyal and Saurabh Sanyal for their Refreshable Braille Display; Jaunani. S for his idea to enhance the interaction of the mobiles with users to induce more humor into our lives. Ankit Kansal, Parag Jain and Sanjay Dhakar received the Award in the Research Category for their project on ‘ Augmenting 3D Video Stabilisation with Intertial Sensors’. The trophies were presented to the winners by Mr. JS Shin and Dr. Anil Wali, Managing Director, Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer (FITT).

The projects that are the best within their respective categories for the 2011 Samsung Innovation Awards are:

Product Category : ‘Refreshable Braille Display’
A prototype of a Refreshable Braille Display has been developed using 5x5 array of electro-magnetic actuators that takes up input image, processes it and produces tactile output. In the prototype, low-cost electromagnetic actuators have been used which makes it simple and easy to develop upon. It will enable the visually challenged to realise the characters, geometries and process the digital information that is presented on the computer screen. The concept can be extended to larger grid sizes which can be used for full page displays.

As large proportion of the visually challenged population of the world lives in the developing and the less developed countries, the Refreshable Braille Display will be a low-cost product developed will appeal to the masses. A simple product, like low-cost Refreshable Braille Display, can not only add talent to these nations but also bolster their economy.

Mobile Interface Category: ab3 eyes - A design to enhance interaction of the mobiles adding more humor into our lives
Before machine era, human interacted with their tools of work, namely animals like bullocks, horses by ‘sensing’ them, machines later involved only intellect. Can we make the human life full of sensing again, instead of mere cogitating and acting? The way to achieve this would be to sense these emotions by facial recognition applications and see the state of the mobile communication display a suitable, sensitive and interactive response through characters. The character could be as simple as a pair of eyes, over a period of time the users starts seeing the ‘mobile eyes’ as true eyes of a living mobile and the interaction would become richer and more rewarding for the user. It is intelligent to evolve and familiarise with the user’s usual responses. They can indicate the caller’s state of mind, infer sociability by knowing the emotional states of other people, and also personalise your entertainment experience.

Research Category- Augmenting 3D video Stabilisation with inertial sensors
Casual videos taken with hand-held devices always seem shaky due to user motion. In a professional production environment, cameras are moved along smooth, straight paths with sophisticated equipment mounted on rails or steadicams. Such facilities are too cumbersome or expensive for amateurs. As such, one of the challenging tasks in Computer Vision today is compensating for camera motions. Existing stabilisation algorithms operate in two dimensions and do not use camera trajectory information or scene depth. They are successful in removing only small jitters, but fail to synthesise idealised camera paths. We demonstrate a totally new approach of integrating inertial sensors with the imaging system to capture actual camera path, and then use it to transform hand-held videos to have the appearance of an idealised camera motion such as a tracking shot. Using low-cost MEMS sensors readily available in smartphones, we also propose how to implement our algorithms in real time.

The Samsung Innovation Awards is part of the company’s CSR initiative - Samsung Hope Project which is committed to the cause of the Indian community through projects in the areas of education, culture and social welfare. Dedicated to the cause of innovation and education, Samsung through its Hope Project has continuously supported and encouraged young talent/professionals who have incorporated innovative approaches, sought to improvise different systems and processes, developed indigenous products and services for fulfilling mass needs thereby transforming lives and creating sustainable solutions for the benefit of the society at large.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2010 consolidated sales of US$135.8 billion. Employing approximately 190,500 people in 206 offices across 68 countries, the company consists of nine independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Digital Imaging, Memory, System LSI and LCD. Recognised as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, semiconductor chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit http://www.samsung.com/in.

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Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2009 consolidated sales of US$116.8 billion.