Context: Recently, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has launched an incubator capabilities enhancement program ‘AIM-iCREST’.
About AIM-iCREST

• It is an incubator capabilities enhancement programme for a robust ecosystem for creating high-performance start-ups.
• AIM has launched the programme in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wadhwani Foundation.
• It has been designed to enable the incubation ecosystem and act as a growth hack for AIM’s Atal and established incubators across the country.
• Under the initiative, AIM’s incubators are set to be upscaled and provided requisite support to foster the incubation enterprise economy, which will help them to significantly enhance their performance.
• It will also provide training to entrepreneurs through technology-driven platforms and processes.

About Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)

• It is NITI Aayog’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India.
• It has been established to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship in a holistic manner through various initiatives at school, university and industry levels

The Atal Innovation Mission has thus two core functions:

• Innovation promotion: to provide a platform where innovative ideas are generated.
• Entrepreneurship promotion: Wherein innovators would be supported and mentored to become successful entrepreneurs at Incubation Centres.

It has the following sub-components:

• Atal Tinkering Labs: Creating problem solving mindset across schools in India.
• Atal Incubation Centers: Fostering world class startups and adding a new dimension to the incubator model.
• Atal New India Challenges: Fostering product innovations and aligning them to the needs of various sectors/ministries.
• Mentor India Campaign: A national mentor network in collaboration with the public sector, corporates and institutions, to support all the initiatives of the mission.
• Atal Community Innovation Center: To stimulate community centric innovation and ideas in the unserved /underserved regions of the country including Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
• Atal Research and Innovation for Small Enterprises (ARISE): To stimulate innovation and research in the MSME industry.