Orissa, INDIA – Sept 02 – India’s sporting ecosystem for para-athletes has seen growing attention on identifying and supporting them beyond established sporting centres, but discovering talent can still be difficult when specialised scouting and performance evaluation are not easily accessible. For 21-year-old Vatala Harika and 20-year-old Ritesh Routray from Sundargarh, Odisha, this gap led them to explore whether technology could help promising para-athletes get noticed.
The two young innovators have made it to the national Top 40 of the fifth edition of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow with ParaSync, an AI-powered solution that explores how smartphone-recorded sporting performances can be analysed to help identify para-athletic talent and connect promising athletes with coaches and scouts.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung’s flagship CSR innovation programme for young people aged 14 to 22. Through design thinking, mentorship and hands-on learning, the programme enables young innovators from across India to identify real-world challenges and develop potential solutions, helping them take ideas from the early stages towards prototypes. From Limited Scouting to Greater Visibility For Harika and Ritesh, the challenge is the limited access to specialised scouting and evaluation for para-athletes outside established sporting centres. ParaSync allows athletes to record or upload videos of their sporting performance, with computer vision designed to analyse movement and sporting technique. The idea explores how this information could help coaches and scouts assess athletes remotely, creating another way for promising para-athletes to gain visibility without first having to reach major sporting centres.
Under the Sport & Tech theme, ParaSync explores how emerging technology could be applied to a practical challenge around access, inclusion and opportunity in sport.
Harika and Ritesh’s journey is also part of a wider shift within Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. More than half of this year’s national Top 40 teams are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, highlighting how young people across India are bringing their own experiences to challenges that matter to their communities.
For Odisha, the selection of Harika and Ritesh from Sundargarh highlights how young people are applying technology to address gaps in access and opportunity. ParaSync brings together AI and sport to explore how promising para-athletic talent could gain greater visibility beyond established scouting networks.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gives young innovators access to mentorship, technology, design-thinking skills and a platform to take their solutions forward. The Top 40 teams will now participate in a 10-day Innovation Bootcamp, receiving intensive mentoring from startup founders and industry experts at FITT-IIT Delhi. They will also visit Samsung R&D Institute India – Delhi, Noida and Bangalore, Samsung Design Delhi and Samsung’s Regional Headquarters in Gurugram.
The teams will then compete for a place in the Top 20, which will receive further support to strengthen their solutions ahead of the Grand Finale.
At the culmination of the programme, four winning teams will collectively receive incubation grants worth INR 2 crore, along with incubation support from FITT-IIT Delhi, helping them take their solutions towards further development and market readiness.