Samsung PRISM
Students in PRISM work on real-world projects, connect with Samsung’s top technical experts, and gain hands-on experience in essential technology disciplines. Teams are formed by both students and professors as an integral component of this programme. Every team is provided with a work-let and an SRI-B mentor. In exchange for completing the project within the allotted time, the group will receive enticing benefits. A worklet is a subset of a larger project or a problem statement that Samsung R&D Bangalore (SRIB) engineers are addressing. The worklets cover the most recent technologies, including 5G, AI, and IoT. A worklet may be constructed using either a singular technology or a fusion of several technologies.
Inclusive, good quality education is a foundation for dynamic and equitable societies and quality education cannot be achieved without practical training—rightly so. The rising gap between academia and industry has been worrisome. Surveys in the past have pointed out that though there has been a huge demand for Indian talent, it’s the skilled employees, especially in IT and engineering services, that are lacking.
Colleges and IT companies across the country are initiating various programs to build the gap between industry and academia and one among them being industrial collaborations with universities. Institutes opines that collaboration completes the need for effective industrial experts by delivering vast expertise and developing engineering solutions in a perspective manner from students.
In one such move, Cambridge Institute of Technology (CIT) has tied up with Samsung PRISM—PReparing and Inspiring Students Minds, a program that offers students a chance to work on real-world projects and interact with Samsung’s top technical experts and provide hands-on experience in core technology domains. As part of this program, students and professors will form teams. Each team will be assigned a worklet (a smaller project or a problem statement of a bigger project worked by Samsung R&D engineers) and a mentor from SRI-B. The team will be expected to deliver the worklets within the given timeframe
What will students learn?
According to Samsung, it’s practical learning. “The world is moving fast, and technology is moving much faster. To stay ahead of the curve, one don’t just need theoretical knowledge, one also need the skills to apply that knowledge. You need to be adaptable in the approach, swift in your thinking, and hungry for knowledge,” the company website stated.
Further, when a student solves the Samsung PRISM work-let, he/she is not just solving a problem but transforming from a student to a developer. In addition, students can also get a chance to publish the paper in international forums and file a patent for the applicable novel ideas.
What’s in it for professors?
According to the company, the worklets are industry-leading problem statements. Tough problems require ingenious solutions. Such innovative solutions, if implemented, present great opportunities for publishing papers or filing patents. The teams would be deemed co-inventors along with Samsung Mentors for the IPs that emerge out of the worklets, the company stated.
Process:
The project is completely remote-based and the teams can work anytime and from anywhere. The students and mentor will be connected online. The worklet may require single technology or multiple technologies ranging from 5G to IoT.
This project is one of the highly successful programs of CIT. In its third year now, the first project began on March 27, 2020. In the first year, the students enthusiastically participated in the industry-based learning drive organized by Samsung under the supervision of Prof M G Jayanthi and Prof Geetha P. The whole project was divided into two phases—dataset creation and model development.
Programs:
Projects offered under Samsung PRISM program are: Phonetic Model for Indian languages, Payment Fraud Alert, Install App on Paired Watch, Secure Confidential Data in Logs and Training under Samsung Innovation (SIC Lab).
Under the SIC, the students can upgrade their skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT, Big Data, Coding and Programming. These skills will help the students to enhance their employment opportunities.
Under Samsung Student Ecosystem for Engineered Data (SEED) Lab, which is set up a lab at the institute by Samsung, will assign the institute with various tasks such as data collection, data management, analysis and so on. However, this program is still in nascent stage.
Domians of Worklets::
- Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)
- Natural Language Understanding
- Image Processing
- Mobile Technology
Training & Applying:
The announcement for applying will be made by the Industry Engagement Coordinator of each department. Fifth semester students with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) greater than 7.5 and no backlogs can apply from these departments (CSE/ECE/ISE/AIML/EEE).
A pre-test will be conducted by the department for shortlisting the students. Then, Samsung will conduct the test for shortlisted students. For PRISM, projects will be allocated for shortlisted students. However, for SIC, the batch size is 35 for each training in (AI/ML, IoT and programming).
The program is held once a year as the typical worklet runs anywhere between 3-6 months depending upon the complexity of the worklet.
Results:
Once the students complete the worklet with Excellence they will be awarded with Amazon Vouchers. If students do well, they will be certified by Samsung and will be recruited into a product-based company with high packages. If deserving, then there could also be job opportunities at Samsung. Overall, working on real-time projects with Samsung R&D will heighten the technical skills of students.
