India got left behind in the Industrial Revolution that swept the world in the last century. But India does have a unique opportunity to contribute in the knowledge based revolution that is sweeping the world today. Towards this end a strategic national flagship initiative Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has been set up under the auspices of the NITI Aayog. AIM’s focus is to create and promote a world class innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout the length and breadth of our country and to provide such an innovation ecosystem that will also transform our job seekers to job creators of the future.

A Holistic Framework :

The Atal Innovation Mission has adopted a holistic framework to achieve its objectives.

• At the school level there is a tremendous need for creation of an innovative, problem solving mindset in the students of the high schools.
• At the university and industry levels, there are a growing number of startups. Thanks to several startup initiatives in the country both from the private sector as well as from the government.
• But there is a growing need for world class Incubators in various institutions of the country to foster and nurture start-ups enabling their success. Incubators would help in providing this support.
• With 100 smart cities identified in the country, we need to ensure world class Incubators in all these smart cities.
• Finally a cultural shift in attitudes towards entrepreneurship in needed. Education and awareness of the immense opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures is needed

About Atal Tinkering Labs:

• With a vision to ‘Cultivate one Million children in India as Neoteric Innovators’, Atal Innovation Mission has established  Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India.
• The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.
• ATL is a work space where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills.
• Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
• ATL would contain educational and learning ‘do it yourself’ kits and equipment on – science, electronics, robotics, open source microcontroller boards, sensors and 3D printers and computers.

Practical knowledge, access to tinkering with latest tools and technologies ignites the imagination of children as they learn to apply abstract concepts learnt in the classroom to real world solutions. It triggers a problem solving innovative mindset in the school students. This is very important for the children and youth of our country. If one can start creating innovative prototypes and solutions at the school level, one is also creating a mindset to become potential job creators of the future.

Atal Incubators:

• The Atal Incubators initiative is to create world class incubators to support the burgeoning number of startups in the country.
• AIM has already launched incubators, all of which would be operational by end 2019.
• These incubators will provide the necessary ecosystem of access of technology labs, hiring, training, mentoring, finance, venture capital networks and corporate networks.

Atal challenges:

There is, an urgent need to incentivize relevant problem solving innovations levels across the country at school, university and industry, levels.

• The Atal Tinkering Challenge at a school level, the Atal New India Challenges at Industry levels, the Atal Small Business Innovation and Research challenges at a national level will incentivize relevant problem solving.
• Corporates and SMEs can adopt ATLs and students into problem solving, ideation, prototyping, triggering small innovations.
• Global partnerships can enable sharing of best practices.
• NGOs and multinational companies can collaborate on almost all these initiatives with succeed without a certain degree of selfless commitment and passion to the cause of innovation and to the cause of betterment of the world we live in.

Collaboration will be key to the success of these, initiatives, AIM has, therefore, launched a Mentors of Change – Mentor India Network across the country and plans to extend it worldwide

Long Term Goals of AIM:

AIM’s future initiatives include establishment and promotion of Small Business Innovation Research and Development on a national scale for accelerating innovation on a large scale in small business/startups/MSME sector.  AIM would also collaborate in Science and Technology Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Rejuvenation (AIM STEE) of innovations in major research institutions of the country like Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Medical Research (ICMR) aligned to national socio economic need.

TID-BITS

National Challenge for Youth

A National Challenge for Youth, “Ideate for India – Creative Solutions using Technology” vas launched in New Delhi recently.

• The aim or this National Challenge is to give school students across the country a platform and opportunity to become solution creators for the problems they sec around them and their communities.
• “Ideate for India” will empower and enable these students to transition from being ‘users’ of technology to become ‘creators’ of new indigenous technologies to solve local problems in their community by re-imagining solutions to work out critical local issues.
• The National Challenge is open to students of classes 6 – 12 all across the country.
• There are 11 core theme areas on which students can share their ideas.
• The Challenge requires students to access online videos and understand how to identify problems and share a 90 second video explaining the problem and their proposed solution.