India’s innovation landscape is becoming more geographically diverse. As opportunities reach schools and colleges beyond the country’s established startup hubs, students are gaining exposure to innovation competitions and design thinking skills. These experiences are helping young innovators approach problems more systematically while preparing them for the collaborative nature of real-world innovation.
The result is a generation of young innovators developing skills that extend far beyond a single competition or project. Here are five skills shaping this shift:
1. Human-Centric Problem Solving
Every meaningful innovation begins with understanding people before building technology. At Government Degree College, Baramulla, Zamin Anayat Lone discovered this while working through the empathize and define stages of the Design Thinking framework. She examined emergency response gaps and community needs, shaping the concept of an AI-powered SOS application around a clearly defined problem.
2. Applying STEM to Real-World Challenges
Innovation gives students the opportunity to apply classroom concepts to problems they encounter around them. At MSME Technology College, Bhiwadi, Veeru Kumar Verma explored how artificial intelligence and real-time information systems could improve parking management in rapidly growing towns, demonstrating how STEM can address everyday civic challenges.
3. Entrepreneurial Thinking
Good ideas rarely succeed without guidance, mentorship and opportunities to test them. Through mentorship and structured guidance, students begin to understand how ideas can be refined into practical, scalable solutions. For Mohammad Atif from Kongu Engineering College, Erode, entrepreneurship became a structured process rather than an abstract classroom concept.
4. Collaborative Mindset
At New Era School, Ghaziabad, Disha Garg and Rashi Sharma learnt this by working through empathy mapping, stakeholder analysis and iterative problem-solving together before developing an AI-enabled application for India’s digital delivery ecosystem. The process reinforced the importance of building solutions through shared perspectives.
5. Purpose-Driven Innovation
The most valuable outcome of Design Thinking is learning to measure success by impact rather than novelty. At Shoolini University, Solan, Class XII student Mahek focused on solving a specific community challenge instead of pursuing an abstract idea.
These examples reflect a broader shift in India’s innovation ecosystem, where the focus is expanding from encouraging participation to building long-term problem-solving capabilities. Across the country, structured innovation programmes are increasingly combining design thinking with mentorship to help students strengthen promising ideas before taking them further.
Among the initiatives supporting this transition is Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, which is conducting Design Thinking Workshops across 100 cities in 2026 to introduce students to human-centred problem-solving before selected teams receive structured mentorship to further refine and develop their ideas.
As Samsung marks 30 years in India, the company is expanding the scale and ambition of the programme, reinforcing its long-term commitment to India’s innovation ecosystem and the vision of #DigitalIndia.