Hyderabad, Sep. 29: At 12, Homanshika Reddy Pullagurla picked up a rifle as a hobby. Nine years later, the Hyderabad-based national-level shooter and national medalist is using technology to confront a problem that can abruptly end an athlete’s journey: injury.
The 21–year-old is developing Somatrace, a wearable system that uses sensors to track spinal movement in real time. Initially designed for rifle shooters, the technology aims to give athletes and coaches deeper insights into posture and movement during training—and help them identify patterns that may be associated with injury risk.
Her innovation has taken her to the Top 20 of Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2026, Samsung’s flagship national education and innovation programme, which helps young people transform ideas addressing real-world challenges into potentially scalable solutions.
For Homanshika, Somatrace is rooted in lived experience. She has dealt with injury herself and has also watched a friend leave sport because of one.
“I wanted to solve this for others as well,” Homanshika said. “I have seen how an injury can change an athlete’s journey.”
From the Shooting Range to Wearable Technology
Homanshika had not always planned to become an innovator. Growing up, she imagined becoming a doctor or an engineer. Shooting entered her life almost unexpectedly when she took it up as a hobby at the age of 12.
The hobby soon became a serious pursuit. Competitions brought discipline, pressure and national medals. Inspired by Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and the young shooters training alongside her, Homanshika discovered what talent and persistence could achieve.
Sport also taught her how much an athlete’s performance depends on the body—and how quickly injury can take that opportunity away.
In rifle shooting, precision is everything. Small variations in posture or repeated movements can influence performance. Homanshika began wondering whether these movements could be captured and analysed, giving athletes and coaches information that is difficult to see with the naked eye.
That question became Somatrace.
The wearable system is being developed to capture spinal movement patterns during training. By making this information measurable, Homanshika hopes Somatrace can help athletes better understand their bodies and enable coaches to make more informed training decisions.
Her ambition is straightforward: help athletes remain in the sport they love for longer.
How Samsung Helped Turn an Athlete’s Idea into a Potential Venture
Selection for Samsung Solve for Tomorrow gave Homanshika an opportunity to move Somatrace beyond its early concept.
Through the programme’s Bootcamp, she tested her assumptions, received feedback from mentors and began examining the solution from technical, user and commercial perspectives.
“The Bootcamp was an amazing experience. It helped me validate my idea practically,” she said.
The experience also changed how she thought about Somatrace. What began as a solution to a problem she had personally encountered started taking shape as a potential venture with wider relevance.
“Meeting so many mentors put a lot of things into perspective for me. My idea transformed, especially when I started looking at the business aspect of things,” she said.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow supports young innovators through mentorship, prototyping guidance, design-thinking workshops and exposure to Samsung’s technology and innovation ecosystem. For Homanshika, that support has encouraged a shift from asking whether the technology can be built to considering how it can create meaningful value for athletes.
“SFT has made me confident and pushed me to go past my comfort zone,” she said. “I have started seeing that creating value for others is the most important thing at Solve for Tomorrow.”
Helping Athletes Stay in the Game
Homanshika’s journey now sits at the intersection of two demanding worlds: competitive sport and technology-led innovation.
The girl who once picked up a rifle simply as a hobby is now thinking like an athlete, entrepreneur and problem-solver. Through Somatrace, she is attempting to turn the lessons of injury into a tool that could help others better understand their movement and protect their sporting journeys.
For Homanshika, success is no longer defined only by medals. It is also about whether her experience can help another athlete continue doing what they love.
Because when an athlete understands their body better, an injury may not have to mean the end of the game.
