15-Dec-2022: Union Minister Dr Jitendra says, Atal Innovation Mission is aimed at translating research into entrepreneurship and StartUps by acting as an interphase between academia and commercial applications.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today said that Atal Innovation Mission launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016 is aimed at translating research into entrepreneurship and StartUps by acting as an interphase between academia and commercial applications.

Replying to a discussion on India's Nuclear Plants in the Rajya Sabha today, Dr Jitendra Singh said, Atal Innovation Centers (AICs) are being set up across the country to create a synergy among research, academia and industry, in order to provide avenues of livelihood, entrepreneurships and Start-ups. He said, AICs function as a unique interface with a futuristic vision.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, so far, the setting up of Incubation Centres in Department of Atomic Energy is concerned, five such Centres are currently operational in India. The Incubation Centre at BARC in Mumbai is projected to turn out 75 StartUps in the next five years. Similarly, Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology at Indore will churn out 22 StartUps in 5 years along with 3 Trade Transfer Agreements.

The Minister further informed that the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat will propel about 32 StartUps, while Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre at Kolkata will turn out 37 StartUps and 7 Trade Transfer Agreements. The fifth Incubation Centre is in Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu.

On the issue of September 2019 cyber-attack on the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, Dr Jitendra Singh informed the members of the House that Nuclear Plants in India are well protected from all kinds of intrusions including Cyber Attacks and Tamil Nadu being one of the important hubs of India’s Nuclear Plants is always a matter of great priority for all of us. The Minister said, following the incident at Kudankulam Plant, government has put in place a mechanism for different levels of screening and monitoring of the Plants. These security measures include authorization, authentication & access control mechanisms, strict configuration control and surveillance.

Dr Jitendra Singh told the House that the location of our nuclear plants is such that these are safe even from earthquake possibilities. For the nuclear installations situated on the western side, the nearest seismic zone is near Karachi in Pakistan and for those on the southern side, the nearest seismic zone is in Indonesia, he added.

15-Dec-2022: Atal Innovation Mission and UNDP India launch 5th edition of Youth Co:Lab for Young Entrepreneurs

The 5th edition of Youth Co:Lab, Asia Pacific’s largest youth innovation movement was jointly launched by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog and UNDP India on Thursday December 15th 2022. The applications for this edition were launched by Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog and Mr. Dennis Curry, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP India.

Speaking at the event Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog said “Entrepreneurs are a powerful force in leading social change and accelerating the movement in meeting the SDGs target actions. Youth has exuberance, ideas and the zeal to change the world and providing them with every opportunity can create a sustainable change. Hence, I invite all of our young innovators and entrepreneurs to participate in this incredible opportunity to unleash their creativity and build their solutions through the Youth Co:Lab.”

Youth Co:Lab is an initiative launched in 2019 by UNDP India in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and aims to establish a common agenda for Asia-Pacific countries to invest in and empower youth to accelerate implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through leadership, social innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Atal Innovation Mission, along with UNDP India are driving this movement through the fifth edition of Youth Co:Lab India and have been supporting young social entrepreneurs who can be a powerful force in leading social change and furthering the implementation of SDGs target actions.

The Youth Co:Lab initiative, till date, has been implemented in 28 countries and territories, reaching over 200,000 participants, benefitting more than 11,000 young social entrepreneurs and supporting over 1,240 social enterprises.

Mr. Dennis Curry, Deputy Resident Representative UNDP India, speaking about the great opportunities for young and aspiring entrepreneurs said ““Young people have the ideas and potential to solve some of the country's pressing problems through innovation and social entrepreneurship. UNDP is thrilled to launch the 5th Edition of Youth Co: Lab with Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and provide young inspiring and existing entrepreneurs a platform to scale up their solutions for the common good. This is a unique initiative with young people at the forefront to solve India’s most pressing issues through social entrepreneurship and innovation”

Through Youth Co: Lab, 30 early-stage start-ups would be supported by the springboard programme, and the best would be provided a seed grant for scaling up their start-up. The 5 focus thematic areas for Youth Co:Lab 2022-23 are:

• Digital and Financial Literacy for Youth
• Gender Equality and Women Economic Empowerment
• Developing FinTech Solutions focused on Biodiversity Conservation
• Promoting Biodiversity-friendly Lifestyles through Technological Solutions in Finance
• Accelerating Circular Economy through Upcycling Innovations
• Behavioural Nudges for LiFE ( Lifestyle For Environment)

Passionate young founders with solutions that solve real problems and/or create meaningful co-innovation opportunities aged 18-29 can apply and will be supported throughout the programme.

About Youth Co:Lab: Co-created in 2017 by UNDP and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab is a multi-dimensional and multi-level response to tackle the challenges young people face by positioning youth at the forefront in finding solutions to global challenges tackling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Youth Co:Lab aims to establish a common agenda for Asia-Pacific countries to invest in and empower youth to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs through leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship.

For more information (related to applications) please visit https://aim.gov.in/youthcolab2022.php

About Atal Innovation Mission (AIM): AIM is the Government of India’s endeavor to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Its objective is to serve as a platform for the promotion of world-class innovation hubs, grand challenges, start-up businesses, and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology-driven areas.

1-Dec-2022: Atal Innovation Mission launches fresh applications for Community Innovator Fellowship

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog on Tuesday, December 1st 2022 announced the launch of applications for Community Innovator Fellowship (CIF), an initiative of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog in collaboration with UNDP India to facilitate knowledge building and provide infrastructure support to aspiring community innovators essential for their entrepreneurship journey. Currently there are 22 Community Innovator fellows being incubated at the Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) program of AIM.

A Community Innovator Fellow is an individual with an entrepreneurial mind-set, with an idea to solve a community challenge through her/his enterprise. The journey of the fellow has been structured into 5 phases and applicants can visit the link - https://aim.gov.in/acic-fellowship.php

Speaking at the launch Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, AIM mentioned “At the micro level, the start-up revolution has reached the tier 2, and tier 3 cities of India and amped up the Startup ecosystem in these regions. Solving local problems at scale ranging across issues like healthcare, education, agriculture, financial services is the key driving force for Atal Innovation Mission to empower the innovators solving local community problems at the grassroots. With the strategic locations Atal Community Innovation Centres are witnessing the grassroots innovators undergoing the transformation journey of pursuing the entrepreneurship as their full-fledged career options. With this launch of applications for fellowship we call upon the applicants to experience the journey of creating a change in the community”.

This is a one-year-long intensive fellowship program wherein an aspiring community innovator can apply irrespective of their socio-economic background is aimed at creating a conducive environment where knowledge, mentorship, community immersion and inclusion can prosper through adequate infrastructure and funding. During the course of this fellowship, each fellow would be hosted at an Atal Community Innovation Centre and would acquire SDG awareness, entrepreneurial skills and life skills while working on her/his idea.

AIM has been setting up Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACIC) across the country. Currently there are 14 such centres, spread across 9 states and 36 more are coming up in the near future to take the collective number to 50 ACICs. 

14-Nov-2022: ATL Schools across India celebrate Children's’ Day with Mega Tinkering Activity

In a first of its kind occurrence, around 1.5 lakh students from more than 5000 schools from India in the Atal Tinkering Labs programme of the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog took part in a unique mega tinkering activity on the occasion of Children's day, on Nov 14. Several schools from the length and breadth of the country along with their students, ATL in-charges, principals, mentors, AIM team, and partners participated in the event virtually from their respective ATLs. In this event, participating students all across India built an innovation project together in one of the largest ever global tinkering events done collectively in a single day.

With a vision to ‘Cultivate one Million children in India as Neoteric Innovators’, Atal Innovation Mission is establishing Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India. Recently AIM has achieved the objective of establishing more than 10,000 ATLs in schools across India with an objective to foster curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.

Ms. Deepali Upadhyay, Program Director, AIM started the event by congratulating all students on the occasion of Children’s Day and establishment of 10000 ATLs across schools of India.  As part of the event students were explained the scientific concept behind the activity and demonstrated the steps for building the hand-held fan using equipment from the ATL. This activity was aimed at developing the attitude and aptitude to experiment and tinker amongst young students. These students were invited to participate in a contest where they will share pictures and videos of the tinkering activity done in their schools.

ATL students across the country have been ambassadors of the tinkering movement and have used their creative energies to make better versions of the hand-held fans. They also modified it to incorporate 3D printing in it. Some students also took it to the next level by designing complex robots and drones. ATL has been a front runner in helping with infrastructure and technical know-how of these innovation projects in schools.

Ankush, from Aditya Vidyashram School, Puducherry and Sufeenah from Green Valley School, Srinagar said “It was great being a part of this mega tinkering event and building the project together with other ATLs. We thank the entire AIM team for organizing this activity”.

Famous Bollywood actor Sharman Joshi also congratulated the students via a video message saying that “This scale of a tinkering activity hasn’t been done before and paves the way for acceleration of the tinkering movement in India”.

Dr. Chintan Vaishnav Mission Director AIM in his message shared his remembrances from the first time he did such a tinkering activity as a child and said that “Children in today’s age have the tools and resources which were not available earlier. This event truly exhibited the ‘spirit of making’ in taking India to greater heights”.

9-Nov-2022: Atal Innovation Mission hosts Mentor India round table to celebrate ‘Exemplary Mentors of Change’

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog hosted a ‘Mentor India Round Table’ today to acknowledge the contributions of the Top 35 exemplary Mentors of Change (MoC). The top mentors from across the country were invited to participate in the event.

Mentor India is a strategic national building initiative of the AIM, NITI Aayog which onboards professionals, academicians, industry experts to mentor students in Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and startups. These professionals facilitate innovation and entrepreneurship activities in ATLs and mould a new generation of neoteric innovators in India.

A handbook called ‘The Gems of Mentor India’ was launched during the event held inside the NITI premise. The book captures best practices that the mentors have been following to foster tinkering among school students.

With the help of ‘Mentor India’ community, students get to acquire technical and entrepreneurial skills to develop their digital product every year under Atal Tinkering Lab’s flagship bootcamp known as ‘Tinkerpreneur’.

Under Tinkerpreneur, Top 100 ATL students each year receive mentoring from prestigious Indian School of Business (ISB) for 8 months in Atal Catalyst Program conducted in collaboration with AIM. Last year, top 20 students got the chance to pitch their ideas in front of investors and 10 of them have received funding to develop their prototype. A Coffee Table Book “The Ingenious Tinkerpreneurs” to celebrate these 20 students was also launched during the Mentor India Round Table.

Speaking about the AIM’s Tinkerpreneur initiative during the event, CEO NITI Aayog Shri Parameswaran Iyer said “It is fabulous to see that girls are at a forefront of this particular campaign. I think that they are taking a lead on most other fronts as well.”

“I am glad that Mentor India program has also a great participation of women and today I congratulate all the mentors who have made it to our top list,” he added.

Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director - Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog said “Our mentors have shown outstanding commitment to mentoring especially over the last 12 months by  helping  schools  navigate  through the pandemic and after getting back to normal to ensure continued tinkering  and learning through both physical and virtual means.It is through this event that we are able to express our gratitude to them and also get a chance to know them better and inspire them to keep carrying out the great work of mentoring and taking forward the spirit of tinkering, innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The event was graced with the presence of celebrated Indian athlete Ms. Anju Bobby George and Prof. Bhagwan Chowdhury, Faculty Director I-Venture, ISB. They congratulated the mentors and students and, encouraged the students to keep their spirit up and always be at the forefront.

Additionally, Pratik Gauri - CEO, 5ire - Blockchain Unicorn; Utkarsh Amitabh, CMO of 5ire and CEO of Network Capital; Madhura DasGupta Sinha, Founder - Aspire for Her; Abhilasha Sinha CPO - Open Secret; Saket Agarwal - Founder and CEO, Onnivation Ventures also graced the occasion and conducted various workshops.

9-Nov-2022: Atal Innovation Mission launches women centric challenges under its ANIC program

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today launched Woman centric challenges under phase-II of the 2nd edition of the Atal New India Challenge (ANIC). ANIC is an initiative by AIM, NITI Aayog targeted to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance. through a grant-based mechanism of up to INR 1 crore.

Keeping in mind that “a woman is an architect of society”, ANIC’s Woman centric challenges address the major issues faced by woman from all spheres of life. These include driving women hygiene through innovation, innovations to improve women’s safety, professional networking opportunities for women, innovations that make working mothers’ life better, and easing the life of Rural Women.

Addressing the gathering, CEO NITI Aayog Parameswaran Iyer said “At NITI Aayog and AIM, our huge focus is on women empowerment and today’s event is especially important because we are launching women centric challenges. I congratulate the AIM team and I am glad to be opening such challenges to our young innovators. These challenges are thought provoking and can lead to major innovations and solutions.

While launching the challenges, Mission Director AIM NITI Aayog said “we at AIM are launching the Woman Centric Challenges in line with our honourable Prime Minister’s vision to enable women and girls to live up  to  their fullest potential. These Challenges crafted ANIC to address the major issues faced by woman from all spheres of life. I encourage innovators to visit our website and apply for this noble initiative at earliest.”

To apply, visit - https://www.aim-challenges.in/

The challenge was launched during the annual mentor round table organized by AIM, NITI Aayog to felicitate the exemplary mentors of change.

4-Nov-2022: Atal Innovation Mission launches coffee table book featuring 75 successful women entrepreneurs of India

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) NITI Aayog today launched the fourth edition of ‘Innovations for You’ coffee table book featuring 75 successful women entrepreneurs of India.

The 75 women entrepreneurs are supported by Atal Incubation Centres (AICs) of AIM, NITI Aayog. As the country celebrates the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav – 75th Year of Independence, Innovations for You series captures how startups in various sectors are innovating to create a sustainable future for the communities.

'Innovations For You' is a Coffee Table Book series with 3 editions being released previously. The book captures success stories of start-ups supported through Atal Incubation Centres, Atal Community Innovation Centres and Atal New India Challenges, three flagship programs under the Atal Innovation Mission. Each edition showcases the journey of entrepreneurs working in different sectors and is dedicated to creating new, disruptive, innovative products, services, and solutions that can pave the path for a sustainable future.

The first edition was focused on the Healthcare sector; the second on Agriculture and the Allied sector and the third on Transport and Mobility. Out of the 2900 plus startups supported by AIM, more than 850 plus are led by women.

While releasing the book, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, said  ‘Naari Tu Narayani’ has been the tradition of our country. We dedicate this book to all the women who are and who aspire to become future leaders of the nation. India will have the largest working-age population in the world in the coming decade and women's participation in the workforce will play an integral part in transforming India’s economic and social development.”

2-Aug-2022: Atal Innovation Mission commences Call for Application  for setting up Incubation Centres

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today launched Call for Applications for its two leading programs Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) and Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC). The call for applications is a step to expand the current ecosystem of incubators and to provide them with access to global benchmarks and best practices. 

Both the programs envision to create and support the innovation ecosystem in the country by establishing world-class institutions which shall help budding entrepreneurs of the country.

AIC is an initiative of the AIM, NITI Aayog to foster innovation and entrepreneurial spirit while creating a supportive ecosystem for start-ups and entrepreneurs in India. Each AIC is supported with a grant of up to INR 10 crores over a period of 5 years. Since 2016, AIM has established 68 Atal Incubation Centres across 18 states and 3 UTs which have supported more than 2700 startups.

ACIC is envisaged to serve the unserved/underserved areas of the country with respect to the start-up and innovation ecosystem. Each ACIC is supported with a grant of up to INR 2.5 crores over a period of 5 years. AIM has established 14 Atal Community Innovation Centres across the country.

These AICs and ACICs will play a pivotal role in enriching the start-up and entrepreneurship ecosystem of India and echo the anthem of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

While launching the call for applications, CEO NITI Aayog Mr. Parameswaran Iyer said “Innovation is an unparalleled driving force for development and the drive for innovation has to be coupled with social entrepreneurship”. He also reasserted the Hon. Prime Minister's vision of tackling the country's challenges by innovating for India and Innovating from India.

Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav in his speech said “Becoming a 5 trillion economy as a nation will require a lot of impetus and support from the startup ecosystem and we at Atal Innovation Mission are committed to that vision. Today we see much more focused and inclusive incubation initiatives which will provide access to all sectors of the economy”.

7-Jun-2022: Atal Innovation Mission & Startup Réseau successfully concludes ‘Investor Demo Day’ on ‘Innovations in Audio-Tech’ sector

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today successfully concluded the #5th Edition of AIM-iLEAP program on ‘Innovations in Audio-Tech’ - a unique step towards using technology to solve the audio industry’s most pressing problems, innovate the future of audio-tech, and boost the Indian culture.

The final enterprise and investor demo day of the #5th edition was organised on 2nd June, 2022 after a series of virtual boot camps held in collaboration with Startup Réseau and Visa under its ambitious AIM-iLEAP (Innovative Leadership for Entrepreneurial Agility and Profitability) initiative-an initiative to back tech start-ups with much-needed access to industry, markets and investors.

In the Audio-Tech cohort, a total of 10 startups got a chance to showcase and pitch their innovations to 20+ number of investors/enterprises.

Speaking during the virtual opening of the ‘Demo Day’, Mission Director AIM, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav said “We are proudly moving ahead with the creation of different cohorts and bringing together the start-ups, enterprises, investors and financers onto one platform to achieve major goals for Indian entrepreneurship ecosystem. Over the past, we have seen some outstanding innovations in crucial social sectors; however, this is for the first time India is exploring innovations in an area that intersects arts and entrepreneurship via Audio-Tech sector under our AIM-iLeap initiative.”

Founder & CEO, Startup Réseau Ajay Ramasubramaniam while speaking during the launch of virtual ‘Demo Day’ said "the audio industry has come a long way since the first microphone was created in 1875, and while in the 1960s video killed the radio star, the evolution of the internet and penetration of smartphones has brought about a revival of sorts, driving the future innovation of audio technology. Audio Tech has a huge role to play in consumer, enterprise, and Government applications. We are delighted to onboard this 5th cohort of the AIM iLEAP program, and look forward to working with the audio tech ecosystem in India.”

The call for applications for this cohort was thrown open in March this year and closed on May 15 following which, an exciting panel discussion with industry experts was held, followed by a number of virtual boot camps that were held for the selected start-ups. After going through rigorous polishing, the start-ups showcased their solutions to various enterprises for market access and investors for funding in virtual ‘Demo Day’ that saw participation from a large number of corporates and investors.

The #5th Edition of AIM-iLEAP concluded with another insightful panel discussion today with eminent industry experts on the topic- ‘How can Audio-Tech Innovations ensure that the legacy of great Indian artists is carried forward?’. The Panels included several notable personalities including Founder, Pandit Jasraj Cultural Foundation Durga Jasraj, Programme Head, All India Radio, Lucknow Meenu Khare, Music Producer, Live Performer Mahesh Raghvan, Performer, Researcher, Teacher, & Archivist, Hindustani Raga Sangeet Srijan Deshpande.

A similar panel discussion was conducted right in the beginning of this cohort whose topic was –“Innovations in Audio-Tech”. That panel included eminent personalities like renowned India singer of Hindustani Classical music Shubha Mudgal,  Honorary Member, Sanskriti Haat Samiti, Center for Cultural Resources and Training, Ministry of Culture Namrata Kohli, Co-founder and CEO, Indian Raga Sriram Emani, and Co-founder and CEO, Agrahyah Technologies and aawaz.com Sreeraman Thiagarajan.

In the past, AIM-iLEAP has successfully completed 4 cohorts which included Fin-Tech, Cyber-security, Home-based Healthcare solutions, and Fighting Air pollution through Innovation.

The start-ups whose innovations stood out in the previous editions were entitled to benefits such as an opportunity to earn a POC with participating corporates, Access to extended network of Startup Réseau, Business Insights, Access to Enterprise Assests, Industry Credibility, and Access to Investors.

28-May-2022: Atal Innovation Mission organized national outreach meet for second edition of Atal New India Challenge in collaboration with AIC-GIM Foundation

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog today organised 'National Outreach Meet' for the second edition of the Atal New India Challenge (ANIC) at International Centre Goa, hosted by AIC-GIM Foundation.

ANIC is a flagship program of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog. The program aims to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance. Continuing on the path to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, AIM has launched the ANIC 2.0 program to proactively collaborate with esteemed Ministries and the associated industries, and provide a steady stream of innovative products & solutions. Each ANIC winner will be eligible for a funding of up to INR 1 crore. These winners will get mentorship, networking and incubation support by Atal Incubation Centres across the country.

The sectors in which ANIC 2.0 launched the challenges include E-mobility, Road Transportation, Space Technology and Application, Sanitation, Medical Devices and Equipment, Waste Management and Agriculture.

Program Director, AIM,  NITI Aayog Pramit Dash interacted with Atal Incubation Centres and startups from Goa present at the event. He highlighted the relevance of ANIC 2.0 in current innovation landscape and encouraged the stakeholders to champion the program at national and state level. He emphasised on supporting 100+ innovations in year 2022-23 through ANIC 2.0, across sectors.

The first edition of the ANIC program received more than 1000 applications for 24 challenges and is currently supporting 30+ startups through grants, partnerships, networking, tech support, mentorship, infrastructure and access to investors.

10-May-2022: AIM, NITI Aayog launches the AIM-PRIME Playbook to help academicians launch deep-tech spin-offs

"The AIM-PRIME Playbook was launched today at the Dr. Ambedkar International Center, New Delhi, in the presence of the Chief Guest Mr. Suman Bery Vice-Chair, NITI Aayog, Guest of Honor Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Hon’ble Union Minister of State, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Dr VK Paul, Member, NITI Aayog.  This event marks the culmination of the nationwide AIM-PRIME program, an initiative of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, that is being implemented by Venture Center, Pune and is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Office of Principal Scientific Advisor. Post the launch event, the dignitaries interacted with selected cohort start-ups and incubators at a startup showcase.

The AIM PRIME (Program for Researchers in Innovation, Market Readiness and Entrepreneurship) program was aimed at promoting early-stage science-based, deep technology ideas to market through training and guidance over a period of 12 months using a blended learning curriculum. Other program benefits include the PRIME Playbook, a guide for science-based entrepreneurs and ventures, the PRIME Library, a curated resource shared by the faculty and expert mentors associated with the program, and the PRIME Videos, an open-access video collection of the lectures delivered as part of the PRIME Classroom.

Talking at the event, Chief Guest Mr. Suman Bery, Vice-Chair of NITI Aayog, said “Startups represent an important part of the economy that shape the future industries of the world and thus can shape the jobs, products and economy of the future. Science-based startups are particularly exciting due to their potential for delivering large scale social impact (like for example, via vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, climate change resistant crops, carbon capture technologies etc.) but also providing India the opportunity to leap-frog into the future and position itself as a leading innovation-led country of the world. Programs like AIM PRIME can nurture vehicles that can attract capital into high risk-reward pursuits — something that can be important for achieving higher growth rates in the country.”

Guest of Honour, Dr. Bharati Pawar, Hon’ble Union Minister of State, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said: “During COVID, we saw startups rise up to the occasion and make very important contributions in diagnostics, PPEs, ventilators and last mile vaccine delivery. This demonstrated the potential that Indian startups hold in solving problems in the Indian healthcare sector. We also realized that developing products in sectors like healthcare need deep technical knowledge and new inventions, and thus there is a need to nurture science-based deep tech startups. India has chosen to invest in science and build indigenous R&D capacity for many years now. Many of these capabilities are very relevant to building solutions for the most pressing problems of our society. The key challenge is to convert these publicly funded R&D capabilities into products and services in the market. In this context and given the honourable PM’s call for Atma Nirbhar Bharat, the AIM PRIME program is serving a very important purpose. It has come at just the right time to catalyse the ambitions of India becoming an innovation superpower with very strong indigenous manufacturing capabilities in all important and critical sectors.”

Dr. Chintan Vaishnav. Mission Director of the Atal Innovation Mission said: “The AIM-PRIME program was focused on promoting science-based deep-tech entrepreneurship, which is a knowledge intensive pursuit. The first year of AIM PRIME was also aimed at exploring and demonstrating methods and content for accelerating such startups that are India-appropriate, and making it available to all innovators and entrepreneurs. I am pleased to see that the first year of this program has been able to train a group of trainers who can scale the program in multiple locations. Further, it has also led to creation of a Playbook and course videos that are available to everyone freely under an open access model. These are all valuable contributions of a quality comparable to any top innovation ecosystem of the world.”

The first cohort of the AIM PRIME program consisted of science-based startups, faculty entrepreneurs and incubator managers, where they worked on progressing their idea by teaming up with an incubator. The cohort included 40 organizations and 64 participants, representing 23 different cities across 7 states. The cohort represented a wide variety of science-based sectors, including industrial automation, IoT, electronics, robotics, energy and environment, health and rehabilitation, and food, nutrition and agriculture. Over 17 national and international faculty members were on-boarded as part of the program, who have collectively spent more than 640 hours on mentoring.

Speaking at the launch event, Dr. Premnath, director Venture Center said, “The Venture Center team and the AIM PRIME faculty and mentors are so excited to see the final outcomes of the program with most startups making significant progress in their investor readiness and the cohort even raising almost Rs 20 crore in funding within the duration of the program itself. 18 patents were filed and 6 patents and 2 trademarks were issued. Over 15 key partnerships have been forged with marquee companies such as Mahindra, and Kimberly Clark during the course of the program.”

29-Apr-2022: Atal New India Challenge 2.0 (ANIC 2.0) Launch

Atal Innovation Mission launched the phase 1 of the 2nd edition of the Atal New India Challenge (ANIC 2.0) on 28th April 2022.

Atal New India Challenge is a flagship program of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog. The program aims to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance.

One of the primary goals of the ANIC program is to support innovations in areas critical to India’s development and growth – Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Agriculture, Food Processing, Housing, Energy, Mobility, Space Application etc.

Launching the Challenge, Dr S. Chandrasekar, Secretary, DST in his address said that Government will hand-hold the path breaking innovations and asked the start-ups to take up hard challenges. He said, sectors like Agriculture and Health need huge start-up push apart from tough areas like Chemicals, Pesticides etc.

The Atal New India Challenge aims to address the Commercialization Valley of Death - supporting innovators scale over the risks associated with access to resources for testing, piloting and market creation. ANIC solicits innovations from start-ups and MSMEs in the prototype stage and after a competitive process of selection supports them through to the commercialization stage over a course of 12 – 18 months with a funding of up to INR 1 crore along with other associated support from the AIM’s innovation ecosystem.

Working in collaboration with the different verticals of NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, ISRO and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the 1st phase of ANIC 2.0 will see 18 challenges being thrown open from 7 sectors.

Sector: E-mobility

Challenge 1: Electric Vehicles – Innovations in indigenous Electric Vehicle and EV component technology

Challenge 2 : EV charging Infrastructure – Solutions for easier and faster charging of EV batteries

Sector : Road Transportation (in partnership with Ministry of Road Transport and Highways)

Challenge 1: Safe Transport - Innovations to improve rider / driver safety

Challenge 2: Smart Mobility - Smart solutions to develop Intelligent Transport Systems

Challenge 3: Sustainable Mobility - Sustainable innovations in mobility

Sector : Space Technology and Application (in partnership with Department of Space - Indian Space Research Organization)

Challenge 1: GIS Solution - GIS solutions across sectors - agriculture, water, forestry, urban affairs, road transport etc.

Challenge 2: Propulsion - Innovations in green propellants, electric propulsion, advanced air-breathing.

Challenge 3: Navigation - NavIC based navigation solution in IoT applications

Challenge 4: AI/ML Modelling – AI/ML models for space applications

Sector: Sanitation Technology (in partnership with Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment)

Challenge 1: Preventing Human Intervention - Innovations to mechanize cleaning of septic tanks, drainages and manholes.

Challenge 2: Protecting Humans Engaged in Sewage Cleaning - Protective gears, equipment and other solutions for ensuring the health and safety of humans engaged in sewage cleaning.

Sector: Medical Devices and Equipment

Challenge 1: Portable point-of-care (POC) diagnostic or monitoring devices.

Challenge 2: Low-cost Consumables & Implants.

Challenge 3: Advanced Surgical and Non-Surgical Equipment.

Challenge 4: Advanced Assistive and Rehabilitative Devices.

Sector: Waste Management

Challenge 1: Municipal Solid Waste Management

Challenge 2: E-waste Management

Agriculture

Challenge 1: Climate Smart Agriculture

8-Apr-2022: Cabinet approves extension of Atal Innovation Mission

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved continuation of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), till March 2023. The AIM shall work on its intended target of creating an innovation culture and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. This will be done by AIM via its various programs.

The intended targets that will be achieved by AIM are:

• Establishing 10000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs),
• Establishing 101 Atal Incubation Centers (AICs),
• Establishing 50 Atal Community Innovation Centers (ACICs) and
• Supporting 200 startups via the Atal New India Challenges.

The total budgeted expenditure of  Rs.2000+ crore shall be incurred in the process of the establishment and supporting the beneficiaries.

The Mission has been set up under the NITI Aayog, in accordance with the Hon'ble Finance Minister's declaration in the 2015 Budget Speech. The objectives of the AIM are to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country via interventions at school, university, research institutions, MSME and industry levels. The AIM has focused on both infrastructure creation and institution building. As evident from these examples, the AIM has worked on integrating innovation ecosystem both nationally and globally:

• The AIM has created bilateral relations with various international agencies for building synergistic collaboration on innovation and entrepreneurship such as the AIM – SIRIUS Student Innovation exchange program with Russia, AIM – ICDK (Innovation Centre Denmark) Water Challenge with Denmark, and IACE (India Australian Circular Economy Hackathon) with Australia.
• The AIMs played a pivotal role in the success of InSpreneur, an Innovation Startup Summit hosted between India and Singapore.
• The AIM partnered with the Ministry of Defence to set up the Defence Innovation Organization which is fostering innovation as well as procurement in the defense sector.

Over the past years, the AIM has worked to provide an institutional mechanism to integrate innovation activities across the country. Through its programmes, it has brought innovation to lakhs of school children. The AIM supported startups have raised 2000+ Crores from the government and private equity investors and have created several thousand jobs. The AIM has also executed several innovation challenges on topics of national interest. Together, the programmes of AIM cover 34 states and Union Territories with the goal of leveraging India's demographic dividend by inspiring greater participation in the innovation ecosystem.

With the cabinet’s approval to continue, AIM assumes an even greater responsibility to create an inclusive innovation ecosystem where engaging in innovation and entrepreneurship get increasingly easier.

25-Mar-2022: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog & GIZ Project Her&Now join hands to end gender based barriers for Women Entrepreneurs across India

In a major step to end the gender-based barriers that pose significant obstacles to women entrepreneurs across India, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, today announced their collaboration with the Indo-German Development Cooperation Project ‘Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs and Start-ups by Women (Her&Now)’ commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the Ministry for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India, to help women play a greater role in the economy as entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship represents an important opportunity to increase the participation of women in the economy and to realise India’s growth potential.

The partnership between AIM and Her&Now  will impart the ‘WINcubate Training Programme’ to the AIM Incubators and Innovation Centres and equip them in adopting a gender-focused approach. It  will help the participants to design and implement women centric incubation programmes. The WINcubate Training Programme has been developed by Her&Now together with the Indian NGO Dhriiti – the Courage Within and is based on best practices of women entrepreneurship support programmes implemented in the country since 2019.

The training involves equipping incubators with the knowledge, tools, and methods for holistic programming to integrate gender sensitive approaches into general incubation programming and processes. The training consists of live lectures, offline modules, exercises, and film screenings.

A Statement of Intent was signed by AIM and Her&Now on Wednesday, 02 March 2022. Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog,  while announcing the partnership said, “There are multiple factors responsible for the low participation of Indian women in any sector and one of the biggest factors is gender-based bias. If we consider it as a game of snakes and ladders, then for women, certainly there are more snakes. This system has to be ended and I am sure we with the help of GIZ can progress in this direction.”

Considering that social norms on the role of women with regard to marriage and household duties, women are exposed to more undeserved challenges, he added.

Adding to it, Julia Karst, Head of the Her&Now project at GIZ India, said: “Together with Dhriiti – the Courage Within we have developed the WINcubate training with the ambition to create a level playing field for women entrepreneurs in India. This training supports incubators across the country to adopt women centric incubation programmes that address the specific challenges and needs of women entrepreneurs. Our new partnership with AIM will be crucial in achieving this ambitious goal.”

The collaboration will emphasise on designing and implementing women centric support programmes in order to promote enterprise creation and growth by women entrepreneurs. The premise of this training exercise is to acknowledge that the support needs of women entrepreneurs often differ from that of entrepreneurs of other genders due to specific gender-related barriers, which makes it essential for incubators to design and deliver support programmes that specifically address these needs.

10-Mar-2022: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog & KidEx collaborate to promote innovation & entrepreneurship

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog today announced partnership with KidEx Venture Private Limited to leverage KidEx’s existing technology platform “IKIGAI” to host AIM’s flagship programs “Tinkerpreneur”, “ATL Marathon” and other similar ATL related challenges. The programs will be available to 1 Crore+ school students on the AIM network across India. These programs would be accessible to every student affiliated with ATL’s network of schools in a digital, convenient manner at zero cost.

Over a two-year timeframe, AIM & KidEx will outreach at least 10 Lakhs+ young learners & enable them to get exposure to AIM proprietary programs on Innovation & Entrepreneurship. KidEx technology platform has been evaluated over last 1 year during which 1 lakh+ students from 1,500+ schools have used the platform & found it convenient & engaging resulting in a Net Promoter Score of 85%+.

KidEx shall be adopting 100 schools under Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) initiative. KidEx shall be offering free licenses for company’s flagship products for implementation of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 to these 100 schools. Launched in 2020, KidEx’s flagship product aims at enabling holistic development of children through experiential learning of age-appropriate activities and discovery of innate potential of children.

Sharing his views, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav said “At AIM, we’re committed to leveraging our network of state of the art Atal Tinkering Labs to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. This partnership with KidEx will provide an enhanced experience for our innovators, teachers and mentors. Having smart and intuitive technology solutions such as these will augment the innovation experience for ATLs.”

The partnership’s first engagement will go live on 1 May 2022 with AIM Bootcamp, ATL Tinkerpreneur for students of 9600+ schools. The event is a 9-week virtual bootcamp to equip students with 21st century digital and entrepreneurship skills. The event is available for free for students of ATL network schools in Std. VI-XII.

Kapish Saraf, CEO, KidEx said, “We are honored to collaborate with NITI Aayog. India has 15L+ schools – if every school produces one entrepreneur every year & 0.1% of those entrepreneurs build a Unicorn, India will see 1,500 new Unicorns every year. The technology solution we have built is to make this dream a reality, soon. Atal Innovation Mission’s aim to create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India, is what we resonate with very closely.”

About KidEx - KidEx is a Startup India recognized company, started by alumni of IIT Kharagpur & IIM Calcutta, working on improving holistic development of each & every child, through extracurriculars & real life skill learning programs. The company’s flagship product includes “National All Rounder Championship” & “Age Appropriate Holistic Development Report Card”.

About AIM - Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is Government of India’s flagship initiative to create and promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across the length and breadth of our country. AIM’s objective is to develop new programmes and policies for fostering innovation in different sectors of the economy, provide platforms and collaboration opportunities for different stakeholders, and create an umbrella structure to oversee the innovation & entrepreneurship ecosystem of the country.

8-Mar-2022: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog joins hands with Snap Inc to drive AR skilling amongst Indian youth

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog today announced their partnership with Snap Inc. to drive Augmented Reality (AR) skilling among the Indian youth. Snap Inc. is a global camera company and Snap’s camera plays a transformative role in how people experience the world around them, combining what they see in the real world, with all that’s available to them in the digital world.

Over a two-year timeframe, Snap Inc is expected to train over 12,000 teachers affiliated with the Atal Tinkering Labs on Augmented Reality, enabling the reach of the program to millions of students affiliated with ATL’s network of schools.

Snap Inc also announced its partnership with the Atal Incubation Centers (AICs) to support the Indian start-up ecosystem with AR advertising bootcamps, Ad credits and other opportunities.

Sharing his thoughts, Mission director Atal Innovation Mission Dr Chintan Vaishnav said that “At AIM, we’re committed to leveraging our network of state-of-the art Atal Tinkering Labs to foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Augmented Reality is the future - given its varied applications in a rapidly digitizing India. We’re excited to utilize Snap Inc’s expertise in Augmented Reality to create a cadre of GenZ students that are skilled in this futuristic technology.”

The partnership kick started today, on International Women’s Day, with the launch of a nationwide Lensathon (AR making hackathon), throughout the month of March. The hackathon will be focused on increasing participation of girls and young women over 13 interested in AR.

Uthara Ganesh, Public Policy Head, India at Snap Inc also expressed her views and said, “At Snap, we are excited to be building the future of AR and that future depends strongly on the talent that we nurture, encourage and empower. We are grateful to Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog for giving us the opportunity to share our expertise in AR with the Atal Tinkering Lab’s wide network of schools, and skill students in Augmented Reality through Lens Studio. We at Snap are excited to help the Atal Tinkering Labs in its mission to create a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India, and help India become an Augmented Reality hub.”

As a part of the Lensathon, Snap will be hosting special workshops aimed to introduce young women in India to AR and skills that will be necessary to navigate the digital economy of the future. Workshops are open to participants aged 13 years and upwards and will take place at 16 all-women and 5 co-ed educational institutes across India. The workshops will be hosted by Women Lens Creators, with advanced sessions led by members from the Snap Lens network for women across India to build AR experience in themes representing the women community.

11-Feb-2022: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog & UNDP India launch Community Innovator Fellowship

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog in collaboration with UNDP, India today launched the Community Innovator Fellowship (CIF) marking the “International Day of Women & Girls in Science”.

The fellowship is developed as a pre-incubation model which will provide youth with an opportunity to establish their social enterprise focusing on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) based solutions for solving community issues.

This is going to be a one-year-long intensive fellowship program which has been designed for an aspiring community innovator irrespective of their socio-economic background. During the course of this fellowship, each fellow will be hosted at one of the AIM’s Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACICs) and shall acquire SDG awareness, entrepreneurial skills and life skills while they are working on their idea. The ACICs would nurture youth-led innovations by providing suitable resources in terms of operating facilities, co-working space, maker labs and a dynamic business network to the innovator.

Through the ACICs, the fellowship will propel the journey of an innovator from ideating to commercialising via a focused one-year model. The CIF Program will focus on facilitating knowledge and capacity building among aspiring community innovators essential to their entrepreneurship journey. This is one of the ways with which AIM shall try and achieve participation of youth in mainstreaming social enterprise as a culture in the start-up ecosystem as well as promoting womenpreneurs from different regions in India.

Addressing the launch event Vice Chairman NITI Aayog Dr. Rajiv Kumar said, “This fellowship is a year-long program that aims to provide young community innovators necessary infrastructure and knowledge building in their entrepreneurial journey. This is a propelling initiative to harness the creativity and the innovation potential that grassroots of India hold,”

He added that all the stakeholders must come together to make this fellowship a great success as it would require a lot of passion and enthusiasm.

Launching the CIF CEO NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said, “Creating a pre-incubation space for young and energetic innovators is a very important step in building vibrant, inspiring solutions for community problems. This fellowship is an ingenious way to engage the young change makers as well as various other stakeholders in the community innovation ecosystem in building holistic and inclusive innovations.”

Adding to the thought of engagement with different stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem through this fellowship, UNDP Resident Representative in India Shoko Noda said, “Through this fellowship initiative, we are inviting the youth to find their own solutions to create enterprises that become sustainable business models. AIM and UNDP are determined to work together with government, civil society and private sector to make this happen.”

Emphasising the need for a pre-incubation model that can support community centric innovation in the small towns and villages of the country, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav said, “The fellowship is a convergence of all the elements - values, interventions and stakeholders - that facilitates in building a sustainable community innovation ecosystem. Young innovators have a great opportunity through this fellowship to learn, engage and create an impact in the community and nation at large.”

With the aim to bring out innovations by, for, with and in the community, the fellowship and Operations Manual are expected to motivate thinking beyond and designing novel solutions for the sustainable transformation of communities by targeting Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), he added.

Further, AIM also released the Operations Manual for establishing an ACIC ecosystem. The manual is a knowledge and capacity building framework, which shall support the foundational and operational functioning of an ACIC. The manual focuses on creation of pillars that play an important role in designing and establishing a support system to develop a holistic innovation ecosystem.

ACICs have been established with a focus to develop the start-up and innovation ecosystem in the underserved regions of the country. Currently, there are 12 ACICs across 9 states in the country and the target is to establish 50 such centres in the country.

29-Dec-2021: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog releases ‘Innovations For You’ & ‘The Ingenious Tinkerers’

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) NITI Aayog today released the second edition of – ‘Innovations for You’- a compendium of innovations focused on agriculture featuring 70 startups supported by Atal incubation Centers (AICs) of AIM and ‘The Ingenious Tinkerers’ – a compendium on the innovations on technology featuring 41 innovations from Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) of India.

As the nation rejoices the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav – 75th Year of Independence, both the books are celebration of the success stories of young innovators of India. The ‘Innovations For You’ is a compilation of successful innovations by the entrepreneurial minds of India solving problems of present for future, while as ‘The Ingenious Tinkerers’ is a compilation of the top innovations created by young student innovators who participated in the ATL Marathon - which invites school students to address a problem that they see or face on a day-to-day basis.

‘The Ingenious Tinkerers’ leveraged the up-and-coming technologies available at ATLs to devise a solution. These young tinkerers took it upon themselves to identify their problem statements by interacting with the members of their community and designing a prototype in a manner that fits their needs and demands. Their determination to make a difference in their community has paved a way for their innovation to reach the top 41 innovations of India for the ATL Marathon 2019.

Meanwhile, the ‘Innovations For You’ in its second edition, focuses on the startups and innovations in field of Agriculture and Allied services. The book is a compilation of 70 Ag-Tech startups, incubated at Atal Incubation Centres spread across the country. These startups are leveraging frontier technologies such as AI, IoT, ICT and others to provide socially relevant solutions to problems of modern farming. The first edition of this book was focused on innovations in Health Care, which was launched in October, this year.

The Digi-books were unveiled virtually today in the presence of Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Prof. Ramesh Chand, Member Agriculture, NITI Aayog, Mr. Abhishek Singh, CEO, MyGov and Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog.

The Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog accoladed both the tinkerers and entrepreneurs by saying– “More than ever before, its’ today that we need more tinkerers and innovators, who can understand the problems and give a solution that is suited for Indian Society”

Adding to the Vice Chairman, Member Agriculture Prof. Ramesh Chand congratulated the AIM team and appreciated the efforts done in compilation of the books. Further he said “It is great to see that numerous startups in the Agri-tech domain are able to access emerging markets and attract institutional investments and other stakeholders besides the vision of supporting the society at large.”

Mission Director, Atal innovation Mission Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, congratulated the entrepreneurs and the young tinkerers featured in both the books and said “I hope the stories and ideas behind every innovation inspire millions of other startups, innovators, and young tinkerers across the country to create new, promising, and sustainable solutions with socio-economic impact not just for our country but the world.”

Adding to this, CEO, MyGov, Abhishek Singh said, "I am very pleased to see the grassroots innovations featured in the compendium and this is a snapshot of the way our young innovators think. I congratulate all the participants for conceiving such brilliant ideas and developing the innovations with so much of creativity and enterprise.  I am sure these ideas are going to make a huge difference in already evolving market of India and the world. The featured innovators are role models for all the budding innovators of India and will motivate them to develop their ideas to make a huge impact for India through science & technology.”

The Digi-book series - Innovations for You by Atal Innovation Mission brings to you the best of innovations and entrepreneurs from startups supported by the Atal Incubation Centres. The subsequent editions of the series will focus on other emerging sectors like EduTech, Mobility, EV among others. ‘The Ingenious Tinkerers’ series captures the stories that showcase the growth and mindset of young innovators and is an attempt to celebrate and boost the students who produced exemplary solutions for problems put forth to them in Atal Tinkering Lab’s nation-wide innovation challenge called ATL Marathon.

21-Dec-2021: AIM, NITI Aayog & UNCDF announce first Agritech cohort under South-South Innovation platform

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) rolled out their first AgriTech Challenge cohort for its ambitious innovative Agri-tech program that aims to help smallholder farmers across Asia and Africa to address their challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic. The event was held on 21st December, 2021.

AIM, NITI Aayog in partnership with UNCDF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rabo Foundation launched a South-South innovation platform to enable cross-border exchange of innovations, insights and investments in July this year 2021. Through this platform, cross-border collaborations among emerging markets across India, Indonesia, Malawi, Malaysia, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia would be enabled.

For its first platform AgriTech Challenge Cohort and Agri-Fintech innovators, applications were invited to facilitate their expansion to the international markets through two tracks- Main track and AIM track. A total of 10 high-growth innovators have been selected in the Main track, out of a total 100 applications. The key objective of the main track applications was ‘Expansion – Support solution pilot in the chosen international market.’

Speaking during the virtual announcement of the cohort, VC, NITI Aayog Dr. Rajiv Kumar, said “In India, more than 50% of the population is dependent on agriculture and it contributes to about 15-18% of the GDP. As agriculture is a sector that emotionally appeals the masses, Indian agencies are prompted to undertake policy measures to stimulate industry landscape. We at NITI Aayog are leaving no stone unturned to improve the agriculture sectoral landscape and we will continue till the milestones are achieved and beyond.”

The Cohort represents a diverse range of solutions across the value chain of the smallholder farmer, including soil analysis, farm management & intelligence, dairy ecosystem, carbon credits, solar-based cold storage, digital marketplace, fintech, livestock insurance, among others.

Director, Inclusive Finance Practice Area, UNCDF Henri Dommel while sharing his views said “UNCDF has been working towards leaving no one behind in the digital era, particularly in the least developed countries. Our engagement in Asia and Africa is anchored on collaborative initiatives to improve lives of the vulnerable and help achieve SDGs. The synergies and learning opportunity between the two regions is immense, underscored by a thriving innovation ecosystem that is working to address many shared challenges. The South-South Platform is a co-created effort in this direction to enable exchange of knowledge and solutions, with Agritech Challenge as the inaugural initiative. We are delighted to welcome the cohort and work with them in facilitating their solution adoption to benefit the smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa.”

Over the coming weeks, the selected participants will receive support to enable their international expansion through direct industry linkages, target market and sector understanding, investor connects, insights to scale up across borders and opportunity to receive financial grant.

In his address, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav said, India’s innovation ecosystem has matured rapidly over the last decade and the creativity and vigour of Indian entrepreneurs and researchers can play a critical role in solving some of the toughest societal challenges. The Agritech Challenge focuses on improving the financial health of smallholder farmers and will work towards helping the participants build and test their solution in the new market, as part of UNCDF’s work under the Global Centre for Financial Health, with subsequent support on scaling the solution as well.”

The Challenge is also engaging with AIM-incubated early stage innovators under a dedicated AIM-track, to help build readiness for international expansion. An additional 15 promising AIM-incubated innovators have been selected across irrigation technology, fintech, online marketplace, smart farming, cold storage, among others. They will receive support to explore expansion through masterclasses by global experts and opportunity to engage with industry mentors.

Asserting upon their engagement in Asia and Africa to help achieve the SDGs, Anjani Bansal, Private Sector Partnerships Lead, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said, “Our engagement in Asia and Africa is anchored on collaborative initiatives to help achieve the SDGs. The synergies and learning opportunity between the two regions are immense, underscored by a thriving innovation ecosystem that is working to address many shared challenges. The Agritech Challenge is an inaugural initiative of the South-South Platform created to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and solutions between the two regions. We are delighted to welcome the cohort of this challenge and work with them to improve and grow the adoption of their solutions by smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa.”

Consolata Acayo, Assistant Commissioner, Agricultural Information and Communications, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Government of Uganda said the Ministry is keen on the value of this South-South cooperation especially enabling innovations from India and what they can add to the Ugandan AgriTech ecosystem as they strive to address persistent challenges in the agriculture sector.

 “We recognize the strategic potential of digital transformation in driving Uganda’s agro-industrialisation programme. Digital technologies are effective in bridging the information gaps that hinder market access for many smallholder farmers, increase knowledge through extension services, and improve supply chain management. Digital transformation in agriculture require many sectors of our economy to work together; and indeed the joint effort by the government, private sector, and development partners,” she said.

Executive Director, Rural & Development Banking/Advisory, Rabobank Arindom Datta spoke about the challenges and termed the agriculture as a subject of unpredictable factors.

“While agriculture is a lifeline in many developing countries, it is also a high-risk sector. It is subject to unpredictable factors from prices, policies, diseases, to erratic weather and climate change. Rabo Foundation is happy to support The Agritech Challenge, which is aligned with our focus on innovations in addition to traditional approaches to help develop a more self-reliant and shock responsive agriculture ecosystem that can address the issue of food security and also benefits the smallholder farmers.”

Moreover, there were over 130 innovators who applied to join the Challenge with solutions addressing key productivity, climate risk and supply chain gaps for smallholder farmers. A select set of solutions were presented to a global jury comprising industry, banking and ecosystem leaders from Asia and Africa, to form the cohort of the Agritech Challenge.

13-Dec-2021: AIM NITI Aayog, & Embassy of Denmark launches 2nd edition of water innovation challenges to address global water woes

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and the Royal Embassy of Denmark to India announced the second edition of water innovation challenges here on Monday to address the global water woes through innovations as part of the Indo-Danish Bilateral Green Strategic partnership.

Doubling down on the efforts to scale up innovations in the water sector, the AIM-ICDK water challenge is being rolled out under the year-old ambitious partnership of AIM, NITI Aayog and Innovation Center Denmark (ICDK) under the aegis of Denmark Embassy in India, and the Denmark Technical University (DTU).

The initiative aims to identify innovative & next-gen solutions to solve proposed challenges in collaboration with corporate and public partners. The initiative will engage young talents from leading universities and innovation hubs across the nation to build their skills and apply their technical disciplines and innovation capacity.

The winners of the challenges will also represent India at the International Water Congress 2022. The Denmark Embassy in India, and the DTU will be preparing the Indian participants for the Global Next Generation Water Action (NGWA) program to be hosted by DTU.

The applications are live now and participants can apply through the linkhttps://aimapp2.aim.gov.in/icdk2021/login.php also given on the AIM, NITI Aayog’s official website. The participants will receive awards in different categories and will be able to network with innovators across the globe.

Addressing the virtual event, Vice chairman NITI Aayog Dr. Rajiv Kumar said that this collaboration will provide solutions to improve sustainable water supply in India and at the global level.

“This will aid in catalysing global cross-sectorial learning environments, innovation & impact on SDGs. We need innovation to augment supply, conserve water &rationalise our water consumption as regional disparity of water availability is one of the biggest problems in our country,” He asserted.

Ambassador of the Royal Danish Embassy to India H.E Freddy Svane while speaking on the occasions said “On the ground, the climate crisis is first and foremost a water crisis, especially in rural communities. I hope to see concrete and scalable water tech solutions coming from our 2022 AIM-ICDK Water Challenge.”

Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav while launching the challenge said “The collaboration between AIM & ICDK is in line with our efforts to bring together stakeholders with an aligned vision of addressing & mitigating the water-related issues faced by our country & the world.”

He further said the India-Denmark partnership holds great potential for impactful innovations across other sectors as well most importantly health sector.

Deputy Director General at Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education Dr. Stine Jørgensen, while sharing her views said “An important driving force in the green transition – and the Green Strategic Partnership - is technology, especially entrepreneurship driven technology. The water challenge will foster this, but also bring it to on the ground implementation. I am thrilled to see the initiative go forward this year.”

Mr. Carsten Orth Gaarn-Larsen, Senior Vice President, Denmark Technical University also spoke during the virtual launch and expressed great interest in building even stronger relations with India, both within research and entrepreneurship, supporting the Green Strategic Partnership between the two countries.

He said “Next Generation Water Action is a university-powered initiative to boost international cross-sectorial innovation to inspire, empower and connect a next generation of young talents from around the world. I am thrilled to see that the Indian government and our Innovation Center Denmark in India have decided to partner with us in this project. I look forward to welcoming the Indian students and entrepreneurs to Copenhagen September next year as part of the IWA World Water Congress, and I hope this will be the first of many similar joint projects for us.”

Member NITI Aayog Ramesh Chand stressed upon the water crises, he said the water sector comes at the top in terms of need for innovations.

“I can see several reasons for putting water sector at the top for developing innovations, the foremost reason that comes to my mind is that many developing counties including India having water crisis, both in terms of availability and quality of water,” he said.

The challenges were launched in the presence of dignitaries including VC NITI Aayog Dr Rajiv Kumar, Ambassador at the Royal Danish Embassy H. E. Freddy Svane, Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Member NITI Aayog Prof. Ramesh Chand, Program Director AIM Ishita Agarwal, Advisor water Vertical, NITI Aayog, Mr. Avinash Mishra, Programme Manager, international cooperation, Danish environmental protection agency Mr. Tobias Kvorning, Dr Stine Joergensen, Deputy Director General at Danish Agency, Carsten Orth Gaarn-Larsen, Senior Vice President, Denmark Technical University.

Last year, ten innovation teams identified in the challenge were provided support to develop their products through partners on boarded specifically for the purpose. The Indian teams along with their peers from 5 countries also participated in the global finals held in May this year and out of the 10 teams selected, 5 teams won six awards at the global finals.

23-Nov-2021: Atal Innovation Mission and Vigyan Prasar announce collaboration between Atal Tinkering Labs and Engage with Science

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), a flagship initiative of Niti Aayog on Monday announced a collaboration with Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organization of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India to drive synergies between AIM’s Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and Vigyan Prasar’s unique interactivity platform, Engage With Science (EWS).

Engage with Science as part of the collaboration, will onboard all 9200+ ATL-enabled schools and engage their students, teachers and Principals in perennial activities. These activities will lead to accumulation of points based on which certificates and incentives will be provided to motivate students and teachers about STEM content consumption.

With a vision to ‘Cultivate one Million children in India as Neoteric Innovators’, Atal Innovation Mission has established 9200+ Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) in schools across India. The main aim of ATL is to foster curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young minds simultaneously inculcating skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.

ATL is a workspace where young minds give shape to their ideas and learn skills through hands on do-it-yourself mode. Young children get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).

Welcoming the collaboration, Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, said: “The collaboration between AIM and Vigyan Prasar is a great opportunity for both organizations as it will play a vital role in reviving and updating our education practices to keep up with the technological advances. The Engage with Science program with ATLs will help foster the culture of STEM innovation and serve as a platform where young minds are exposed to experiential learning with the focus on invention, innovation, and collaborative problem-solving to maximize impact.”

Engage With Science is a part of the India Science OTT channel project and aims to publicise and popularize STEM video content on India Science (www.indiascience.in), the nation’s own STEM OTT channel. EWS already has more than 10,000 schools on board, and has regular activities targeting school Principals, teachers and students. Currently, EWS activities are available in Hindi and English, while an expansion into other Indian languages are also on the cards.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Nakul Parashar, Director, Vigyan Prasar, said: “The impressionistic STEM content consumer today demands interactivity – wants to be part of the action. By adding Engage With Science’s interactivity to the India Science OTT channel offering, Vigyan Prasar is set to create India’s first interactive OTT channel. And this collaboration with Atal Tinkering Labs will only galvanise schools to create a multiplier effect on STEM content consumption and interactivity.”

The event was also attended by renowned personality, Mr. Sharman Joshi, Brand Ambassador of Engage With Science.

21-Oct-2021: Launch of NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission Digi-Book Innovations for You Sector in Focus – Health Care

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has launched – “Innovations for You” an attempt to showcase the success stories of Atal Innovation Mission’s Startups in different domains. These startups have worked to create new, disruptive and innovative products, services, and solutions that can pave a path for a sustainable future. The first edition of this book is focused on innovations in Health Care and soon other sectors shall follow.

As the country celebrates the Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav – 75th Year of Independence, Innovations for You series by Atal Innovation Mission captures how startups in various sectors are innovating to create a sustainable future in a post pandemic era.

The book is a compilation of 45health tech startups, incubated at Atal Incubation Centres spread across the country. These startups are leveraging frontier technologies such as AI, IoT, ICT and others to provide socially relevant solutions to problems like Anemia, Malaria, dental care, mental health, neonatal and child care and monitoring human vitals, among others.

The digi-book was unveiled in the presence of Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Dr. V K Paul, Member Health, NITI Aayog, Mr. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Dr. Rakesh Sarwal, Additional Secretary(Health), NITI Aayog and Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog.

The Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog accoladed the startups and their innovations by stating – “This book serves as an encouragement to upcoming entrepreneurs to work on the path of creativity and imagination to address some of India’s pressing challenges.”

Adding to the Vice Chairman, Dr. V K Paul – Member Health, congratulated the AIM team and appreciated the efforts done in compilation of this book. He also commended the Atal Incubation Centers and their incubated startups by acknowledging their work and innovations done in the healthcare sector.

The CEO, NITI Aayog said – “Innovations for You is an attempt to showcase how the young India is slowly but steadily moving towards becoming a world class leader. Government of India with Atal Innovation Mission is supporting the startups and young leaders to achieve their dreams.”

Dr. Rakesh Sarwal, Additional Secretary (Health), NITI Aayog also appreciated the efforts of AIM team and acknowledged the work done by the startups in field of health care innovations.

Mission Director, Atal innovation Mission - Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, congratulated the 45 innovators mentioned in the book and emphasized on how the startups of today are working towards solving the HealthCare puzzle for a better tomorrow.

The digi-book series - Innovations for Youby Atal Innovation Mission brings to you the best of innovations and entrepreneurs to the forefront. The subsequent editions of the book will focus on other emerging sectors like AgriTech, EduTech, Mobility, EV among others.

About Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog: The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote innovation and entrepreneurship culture in the country. AIM is mandated to create an umbrella structure to oversee innovation ecosystem of the country and revolutionizing the innovation eco-system - touching upon the entire innovation life cycle through various programs.

The Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) create innovators, Atal Incubation Centres and support to Established Incubation Centres ensure innovations are taken to the market and help create enterprises around these innovations, Atal Community Innovation Centres are promoting benefits of technology led innovation to the unserved/underserved regions of India. Atal New India Challenges are creating product and service innovations having national socio-economic impact and ARISE ANIC Challenges promote innovation in a phased manner in the MSME/Startup sector.

16-Sep-2021: Atal Innovation Mission in partnership with Dassault Systèmes’ all set to give another boost to innovation

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) NITI Aayog in partnership with Dassault Systèmes’ is all set to rave up the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem across the country.

In this regard a Statement of Intent (SoI) was signed between AIM and Dassault Systèmes today in a virtual event to support various current and future initiatives of AIM programs and AIM beneficiaries in India.

Under this SoI, Dassault Systèmes will support and promote AIM beneficiaries including Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), AIM incubators (AICs and EICs), Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACIC), grantees under Atal New India Challenge (ANIC), and Atal Research & Innovation for Small Enterprise (ARISE).

With an aim to promote innovation and entrepreneurship amongst aspiring entrepreneurs, this program will act as a catalyst for an open innovation collaboration to accelerate disruptive innovation in the community.

The SoI features six aspects of engagement between Dassault and AIM, NITI Aayog. These include access to Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE Lab start-up acceleration program to selected AIM start-ups; mentorship to  selected AIM start-ups for  capability building of their products; 3DEXPERIENCE Lab related global community access to selected AIM start-ups; industry connect for selected AIM start-ups with Dassault Systèmes’ worldwide customers, partners and technology collaborators as and when applicable; participation of selected AIM start-ups in Dassault Systèmes national and global events; and organization and participation in joint events, hackathons, challenges with AIM and NITI Aayog

Expressing his views, Mission Director AIM, Dr Chintan Vaishnav said that the partnership with Dassault is a win-win partnership and earmarks the expanding ecosystem of AIM in the country across all the beneficiaries.

“This initiative will open a new window for select Indian startups as they get access to the Dassault Systèmes global start up ecosystem- their accelerator program and a chance to connect with peers, industry experts, engineers, designers and be a part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, which I must say I am very excited about because of its ability to accelerate startups, and with community worldwide,” he added.

Managing Director, India, Dassault Systèmes Deepak NG while sharing his views said that the engagement with AIM is the beginning of a long-term relationship that reinforces Dassault’s commitment to nurture an ecosystem of makers, innovators in the country.

“Our engagement with AIM will further strengthen on our common objectives on how startups can leverage technology, industry best practices and policies driven by the Government,” he added, “Our 3DEXPERIENCE lab will give access to technology and community for emerging startups in new domains like electric vehicles, batteries and charging infrastructure, medical devices, energy & materials sector and even to frugal innovators providing sustainable solutions for the industry of the future,” he asserted.

10-Sep-2021: Atal Innovation Mission launches Space challenge in collaboration with ISRO & CBSE across India

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) successfully launched the ATL Space Challenge 2021 for all school students across the country.

The challenge has been designed for all the school students, mentors and teachers across the country who not only are associated with schools having ATL labs but for all the non ATL schools as well.

This is to ensure that students of classes 6 to 12 are given an open platform where they can innovate and enable themselves to solve digital age space technology problems.

The ATL Space Challenge 2021 aligns with the World Space Week 2021 which is being observed from 4 to 10 October each year at the global level in order to celebrate the contributions of space science and technology.

Speaking during the official launch, Mission Director AIM Dr Chintan Vaishnav said that the aim of this challenge is to enable innovation among young school students to create something in space sector that will not only help them learn about the space but create something that space programme can use itself.

“We are envisioning that the young innovators across the country will learn and engage in creating new the space sector and develop solutions that might be further beneficial as well. We are grateful to ISRO and CBSE who have partnered with us to make it a great success. Students who secure top positions will be presented exciting prizes at the conclusion of the challenge,” he said.

He further mentioned that the ATL Space Challenge 2021 one-of-a-kind challenge for school students across India that aligns with this year’s theme of celebrating 75 years of India’s independence as “Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav”, an initiative of the Government of India to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of progressive India and the glorious history of its people, culture and achievements.

The Space Challenge perfectly aligns with the objective of the nation-wide Mahotsav and support the young innovators and introduce them to newer technologies and skills.

Director Capacity Building Programme office (ISRO) Dr Sudhir Kumar expressed extreme joy on launching such a challenge for students. He said, “We take pride in collaborating with AIM & CBSE to launch this challenge where students can explore space with creative freedom. We are hoping to launch this challenge every year,” he asserted.

Chairman CBSE, Shri Manoj Ahuja in his address said that ATL space challenge 2021 has a huge potential in terms of allowing the children to come up with ideas and having an environment where they can see their ideas turning into a reality through the ecosystem that AIM, ISRO & CBSE are providing through this challenge,” he said.

“I feel for the sake of education sector and for the bigger arena of innovation and creativity among students, government organizations often need to come together” he added.

Meanwhile, Students (from ATL and Non-ATL schools) can submit their entries be it a solution or an innovation in team of up to three members. Teams must be aligned to one of the Challenge Themes under which the problems can be identified.

Students can create a solution that can be implemented and adopted leveraging technologies such as:

1. Explore Space
2. Reach Space
3. Inhabit Space
4. Leverage Space

The application for the Space Challenge can be submitted on the AIM online portal. Each team based on their interest and understanding, must select one problem which falls under any one of the Space Challenge themes.

Each unique solution must be submitted under one theme only. Submitting the same solution/ innovation under multiple themes will result in immediate disqualification.

The online application form submission will include- document submission (description of the innovation/ solution) and video submission (capturing a 360-degree view of the working prototype/ solution)

School Teachers, ATL In-Charges and mentors have been advised to support the student teams. Individual member entry is not allowed. Also if the team size exceeds 3 members limit, the entry/ submission will be immediately disqualified.

17-Aug-2021: Atal Innovation Mission in collaboration with Dassault Systemes Foundation launch Student Entrepreneurship Program 3.0

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) NITI Aayog in collaboration with La Fondation Dassault Systemes (Dassault Systemes Foundation) in India on Monday launched the third series of the ‘Student Entrepreneurship Program’ (SEP 3.0) for the young innovators of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL).

The theme of SEP 3.0 is based on the ‘Made in 3D - Seed the Future Entrepreneurs Program’, conceptualized and rolled out in France by La Main à la Pate Foundation and La Fondation Dassault Systemes Europe in 2017.

As part of this program, a team from each school (6 students and a teacher) will be allocated seed funding towards creating pseudo start-up, design and prototype their innovation using 3D printing, prepare marketing campaign, define product pricing and create expansion strategy. With this they will receive real feel of ‘How a startup works!’. At the end of the program, each school’s pseudo startup will participate in a playful competition and present their marketing campaign in front of experts from industry and academia.

Keeping the essence of the program in mind, SEP3.0 will allow student innovators to work closely with Dassault Systemes Foundation volunteers and gain - Mentoring support, Prototyping and testing guidance, End-User feedback, guidance on Intellectual Property Rights, by working as pseudo start-ups through a hands-on and structured program.

A total of 51 teams from 29 states are selected for the “Made in 3D - Seed the Future Entrepreneurs Program’ under SEP 3.0. Top 20 teams of ATL Marathon 2019, 10 teams selected by Dassault Systemes Foundation, 10 teams from Aspirational Districts and 10 teams from Jammu, Kashmir, Ladakh and North east regions are selected. Out of these 16 schools will have ‘all girls’ teams to motive them to be future women entrepreneurs.

One of the interesting parts of the program will be interaction opportunities for students and teachers, between French and Indian schools. In addition to the development of Innovation mindset and exposure to start-up culture, school students and teachers will have a unique opportunity to interact and collaborate with French schools and French students for cultural and technical interactions.

Mission Director, AIM, NITI Aayog Dr. Chintan Vaishnav while congratulating and complimenting top students of ATL Marathon 2019 said that SEP is a life changing opportunity for the young innovators to reach new heights.

“All the students who participated in this program must know that they have climbed the third range of mountains in terms of growing in the field of entrepreneurship having already worked on problem and innovation. I have no doubt in saying that these students are going to excel. SEP is not only about bringing solutions to table, but knowing how crucial the solution is for all of us,” he said.

Chairman, Dassault Systemes Foundation India Sudarshan Mogasale, while sharing his views said, “With this edition, we worked with Atal Innovation Mission to assist our future generation of students become Future Innovators.”

He further added that the programme seeks to provide opportunity to school children to develop an entrepreneurial and inventive mind set, as well as suitable exposure through activities-based learning, exploration and challenges. School students and teachers will have a unique opportunity to connect and interact with French schools and students for cultural and technical knowledge sharing.

Speaking during the virtual launch of SEP, Mission Director, Aspirational District Program NITI Aayog, Dr. Rakesh Ranjan said that SEP falls in line with the vision and mission of aspirational district program and that it has given a new hope to students who were looking forward for such opportunities.

“There is no dearth of talent in the aspirational districts of India so I am sure SEP is going to be a huge success going forward,” he added.

In his address, Attaché for Scientific and Academic Cooperation for Western Region at French Embassy in Mumbai, Dr Olivier FUDYM, said “Students learning for this pedagogy of hands-on learning is going to be a change from conventional learning.”

Moreover, AIM and La Fondation Dassault Systemes in India announced launch of the SEP 3.0 in the presence of AIM’s Mission Director - Chintan Vaishnav, Chairman, Dassault Systemes Foundation - Sudarshan Mogasale, Mission Director, Aspirational District Program, NITI Aayog - Dr. Rakesh Ranjan and Attaché for Scientific and Academic Cooperation for Western Region at French Embassy in Mumbai - Dr Olivier FUDYM.

The Top teams of SEP 3.0 are selected through the ATL Marathon, a nationwide contest where students identify community challenges and create grassroot innovations and solutions within their ATL lab.

Industry partnerships like these are critical to nurture the inventiveness of young students, and will enable them to create our planet a better place.

5-Aug-2021: Atal Tinkering Labs

Atal Innovation Mission (“AIM”) is Government of India’s endeavour launched to create an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in India by establishing new incubation centres, scaling up established incubation centres and setting up Atal Tinkering Labs in schools. Till date, 8,706 schools have received the ATL sanction and grant-in-aid. The State wise summary of the schools spread across the country under the ATL program is enclosed at Annexure.

A 3rd party review conducted during 2019 showed that 27 schools displayed room for improvement. To facilitate smooth functioning and monitoring of ATL schools across the country, AIM is working closely with the ATLs through various channels e.g. email, phone, social media, ATL Dashboard and Query Resolution Portal.

The selection and establishment of ATL is being done as per a document compliance and due-diligence process. Schools which successfully complete their compliance process as per AIM requirements are sanctioned ATL grant-in-aid, subject to budgetary provisions. The maintenance of these ATLs is the primary responsibility of the school authorities.

A total Grant-in-Aid of Rs. 20,00,000/- is sanctioned to schools. Out of which, Rs. 10,00,000/- is provisioned as establishment cost and Rs. 10,00,000/- is provisioned as operations and maintenance cost for 5 years, at the rate of Rs. 2,00,000/- per year.

To facilitate smooth functioning and monitoring of ATL schools across the country, AIM has created an online monitoring tool – ATL Dashboard. Through ATL Dashboard, schools are able to update their activities in real time and submit reports on a monthly basis. Various ATL related elements such as contact details, pictures, workshops, events, advisory body meetings, etc. are recorded digitally through the ATL Dashboard. The ATL schools are reviewed on a periodic basis through ATL Dashboard. Schools are mandated to submit Audited Statement of Accounts and Utilization Certificate every year, as a part of application for subsequent tranches. These documents along with the other relevant compliance documents are checked and verified before the sanction of subsequent tranche for the school.

14-Apr-2021: Atal Innovation Mission announces partnership with AICTE to adopt Atal Tinkering Labs and empower, mentor school student innovators across the country through AICTE Institution Innovation councils (IICs)

On the occasion of Dr. BR Ambedkar Jayanti, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Education’s Innovation Cell announced their strategic collaboration to empower Atal Tinkering Lab school students for world class future ready innovation skills across the country.

The partnership offers to begin with to connect around 7200+ Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) established in schools with 2500+ Institution’s Innovation Councils (IICs) functioning in higher educational institutions spread across all the states and UTs.

ATLs in schools are equipped with facilities and provide tinkering opportunities to school students to ideate and work on innovative projects and improve their innovation abilities. Whereas IICs in HEIs take the institution’s innovation capability and facility to engage students and faculties in innovation and entrepreneurship activities and provide opportunity to ideate, innovate and become entrepreneurs.

Both ATL and IIC models have proved as efficient and effective institutional mechanisms to unleash the creative potential of youth and engage in entrepreneurial manifestations. To make these models stronger and impactful, adoption of ATLs by IICs and continuous mentoring support to ATLs is an integrated ecosystem build up step from AICTE, MIC and AIM, NITI Aayog.

Moreover, this move is also aligned with the NEP 2020 objective of bridging gap between schools and higher educational institutions. The adoption process will see actions of online mentoring, lecture sessions, group projects, visits of key stakeholders etc. from both sides.

Speaking during the virtual event, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, R Ramanan said “AICTE and AIM have developed a strategic partnership over the last couple of years. The adoption of ATLs and their students by AICTE IICs in proximity to the ATLs will greatly enhance the spurring of relevant knowledge and innovative thinking in the ATL school students leveraging the various innovation related training and innovation workshop initiatives from IICs”

Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education, Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe while speaking on the occasion stressed upon training students as well as inculcating Indian Knowledge Systems and values associated with it.

“I am really happy about this collaboration through which we not only just mentor innovative students but also embed the Indian knowledge sharing value systems among them. I believe giving back to society is much more crucial value to be imbibed in itself. Therefore, while we aim to embed IoT, Robotics, machine learning, deep learning, 3D, blockchain, augmented reality, virtual reality etc. and train students, we must also focus on how it also endorses along with value systems,” he asserted.

In his address, Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at Ministry of Education, Govt. of India Dr. Abhay Jere said “If we really wish to emerge as a truly innovative nation then we have to ensure that we have a huge pipeline of great ideas. In this context, I believe that this partnership between Atal Innovation Mission and IICs will contribute immensely, enabling a seamless flow of ideas and human resources thereby creating a generation with entrepreneurial mindset.”

Meanwhile, the collaboration will also offer a unique opportunity for students to participate in innovation contests, even as they have a chance to receive mentoring support, access to university ecosystem support etc.

14-Apr-2021: Atal Innovation Mission & Dassault Systemes Foundation announces partnership for seeding future innovators and entrepreneurs

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today signed an agreement with Dassault Systemes Foundation to jointly work towards providing a digitally rich ecosystem of Innovation in India and promoting STEM based innovation and entrepreneurship among aspiring young minds across the country.

One of the flagship programs of AIM, the Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) has played a pivotal role in fostering creativity and imagination amongst school children. Dassault Systemes Foundation dedicated to transform the future of education and research in India with 3D technologies and virtual universes, is all set to contribute to the ATL program in three broad areas - project based, self-paced learning content, hackathons and challenges and inter-country academia collaborations.

Dassault Systemes Foundation has designed and developed an initiative as part of its CSR objectives, initial set of ‘Ready to use’ well documented self-learning training cum instructional playbook, with appropriate videos for visual understanding which they would be sharing with the ATL students that they can access digitally. This playbook comes with instructional videos for teachers so that it can be implemented with minimal support from experts. This content shall be available for AIM to offer to all schools with ATLs and other schools as well as out of school children in India for use.

Under this SoI, Dassault Systemes Foundation shall design and organise innovative challenges / hackathons for ATLs, promoting problem solving skills, scientific and technology based exploratory learning skills and innovation culture amongst students and teachers.

Speaking during a virtual session of SoI signing today, Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said, “We feel privileged to launch the partnership of Atal Innovation Mission with Dassault Systemes Foundation. Dassault Systems are global leaders in design and engineering of large-scale mission critical systems. This would not only enable great interest in scientific research and innovation for our ATL Tinkering Lab students but also stimulate engineering innovation capability making them Future ready innovators and job creators from India accessing world class content available through Dassault.”

Sharing his thoughts about the collaboration with AIM, Chairman of Board of Directors, Sudarshan Mogasale, Dassault Systemes Foundation, India said, “Since the inception of Dassault Systemes Foundation in India, we have been engaged in several activities to imbibe the spirit of innovation, and empowering our next generation students to be Future Ready. The association with Atal Innovation Mission will take this journey to newer heights as we work with Atal Tinkering Labs across the country to augment the spirit of innovation in school children. We are happy to contribute to Atal Innovation Mission’s dream to bring out this transformation in schools in India.”

He further said that as part of the association, “Dassault Systemes Foundation will contribute with project based, activities based and self-paced learning content for Atal Tinkering Labs. The learning content has been created and validated by experienced faculty members from this domain. With AIM, joint hackathons will be hosted, student challenges and inter country academia collaboration programs will be organised for schools to inculcate innovation, product design and a maker’s culture among the school students and seed the interest of being future innovators, entrepreneurs.”

Through this collaboration, AIM and Dassault Systemes Foundation shall jointly encourage inter country collaborations amongst schools and school students for collaborative science / technology learning, skilling and cultural interactions amongst students.

13-Apr-2021: Atal Innovation Mission collaborates with Bayer to work towards healthcare and agriculture innovations

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today collaborated with Bayer- a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of healthcare and nutrition, to work towards the mission’s innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across the country.

A Statement of Intent (SoI) of a strategic partnership between AIM and Bayer was signed and exchanged to formalize the collaboration. The SoI will span the promotion of science education, advancing digital solutions and Agri-tech to strengthen supply chains as well as healthcare projects. Additionally, Bayer will collaborate with AIM to support their current and future programs and foster innovation & entrepreneurship across the agriculture and healthcare sectors.

A flagship program of AIM, ‘Atal Tinkering Labs’ (ATL) has played a pivotal role in fostering creativity and imagination amongst school children. Bayer will explore opportunities to mentor school children, inculcate design thinking, problem solving and adaptive learning skills amongst them and support and adopt mutually agreed schools.  Additionally, as a part of the ‘Atal Incubation Centres’ (AIC) and ‘Atal Community Innovation Centres’ (ACIC), Bayer shall mentor young innovators and startups and collaborate with them to further the cause of innovation. Bayer would also explore association with the techno-preneurs from the ANIC and ARISE programs in the area of digital solutions both in agriculture and healthcare sectors.  

Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog, R Ramanan while exchanging the virtual SoI with Bayer said – “The collaboration with Bayer is a long term strategic one for Atal Innovation Mission as their areas of specialization Agriculture, Healthcare and Lifesciences are areas of national importance, especially more so in the times of the Pandemic. The partnership will be holistic in nature spurring and supporting knowledge and innovation at school, university and Startups leveraging Bayer’s domain expertise, global reach and facilities.”

Vice Chairman & Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer – Bayer Crop Science Limited, D. Narain while sharing his thoughts said, “Bayer is pleased to partner with the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog. Through this collaboration, we endeavor to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in India across the sectors of agriculture and healthcare. It will enable us provide multiple opportunities to mentor school children and inculcate scientific curiosity as a part of the ‘Atal Tinkering Labs’ initiative, enable digital solutions across value chains and partner with inventive start-ups. At this critical time, entrepreneurship and science-led innovation can play an important role in accelerating our progress towards doubling farmer incomes and expanding access to health solutions across India.”

Bayer has been present in India for over 120 years and as a leader in agriculture, healthcare and nutrition has consistently aimed at using science and technology to benefit a large section of society. This first of a kind collaboration in the sectors of agriculture and healthcare between AIM and Bayer will aid in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship.

About Bayer: Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to help people and planet thrive by supporting efforts to master the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. Bayer is committed to drive sustainable development and generate a positive impact with its businesses. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. The Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2020, the Group employed around 100,000 people and had sales of 41.4 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 4.9 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

12-Apr-2021: India-Denmark join hands through Atal Innovation Mission for global collaboration towards world class innovative solutions addressing water challenges & SDGs

As part of Indo-Danish bilateral Green strategic partnership, India is all set to take a giant leap towards building a world class innovation ecosystem as Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) of India’s premier policy think tank NITI Aayog and Embassy of Denmark to India today officially announced their collaboration.

Under this ambitious partnership, Innovation Center Denmark in India will collaborate with AIM to support various current and future initiatives of AIM, NITI Aayog and its beneficiaries in India as well as develop global innovation Green economy partnerships addressing SDG goals.

A Statement of Intent (SoI) was signed between AIM, NITI Aayog and Embassy of Denmark to India here at NITI Aayog premises. The purpose of SoI is to jointly work towards promoting innovation and entrepreneurship amongst the aspiring entrepreneurs. The partnership would be executed through Innovation Center Denmark (ICDK) under the aegis of Embassy of Denmark.

Vice Chairman NITI Aayog Dr Rajiv Kumar while lauding the step said “I look forward to this collaboration very much and I hope that whatever we do, we will also focus on water use in agriculture that takes up to 92 percent of the water. I hope with this collaboration we can bring something very innovative in this field as well besides the others.”

The partnership between India and Denmark holds great potential said CEO NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant while sharing his thoughts on the occasion. “For impactful innovation across multiple sectors, this partnership upholds a great potential. Through such global collaborations we can align research and development efforts to achieve results in an accelerated manner even in these challenging times.".

Freddy Svane, Denmark’s ambassador to India in his address said that water is a substance that cannot be replaced and we need to use all kinds of innovative thinking to make use of it so that the future generations do not face a lot of water challenges as compared to current scenario.

The ambassador stressed on three key and crucial points Water, Women, and the World. He said “water is the stream of life hence its importance for present and future generations cannot be stressed enough. Women empowerment is key to the growth of a nation and to the sustainability goals of the World. If we do not solve water management and challenges issue, regardless of the location, it will impact lives across the world.”

He stressed upon the 10 innovations that Denmark and India recently identified through the water innovation challenge that was organised in collaboration with AIM. He said the 10 innovations would play a crucial role in solving water issues and many such innovation collaborations should be taken up through this partnership to address a wide range of issues. He also said that the collaborations would also allow Danish innovations to work on addressing water issues faced in India.

In his address, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said that “This is a very comprehensive collaboration of all our initiatives and particularly focusing on SDG goals and how the SDG goals can be translated into products that can be rolled out to global markets. Our recently launched water challenge with Innovation Center Denmark (ICDK) and the Denmark Technical University (DTU) was also great success and has resulted in a strong relationship with Denmark.”

He added that the 10 innovation teams identified in the challenge are being provided support to develop their products through partners onboarded specifically for the purpose. The Indian teams along with their peers from 5 countries will now participate in the global finals to be held in May 2021. The collaboration between AIM and ICDK, Embassy of Denmark to India would enable both parties to take up more such innovation challenges.

Meanwhile, as part of the SoI, The Collaboration between AIM and Embassy of Denmark in India will help Indian innovators access Danish technical expertise and allow Danish Innovators to work on India specific solutions.

AIM-ICDK shall also explore various areas of collaboration such as AIM-Denmark school students innovation exchange and co-innovation development, hosting Indo-Denmark innovation challenges, facilitating startup-incubator collaborations and exchanges, and promotion of startup and entrepreneurship events and competitions through the networks and channels of both parties.

AIM and ICDK have previously collaborated to host AIM-ICDK Water challenge and the SoI between the two would pave the way for such future collaborations that allow innovation exchanges between two countries.

9-Apr-2021: CSIR adopts 295 Atal Tinkering Labs established by Atal Innovation Mission nationwide

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog’s flagship 295 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) were officially adopted today by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) across the country in an ambitious step towards inculcating scientific research and innovation culture among students.

CSIR with their 36 labs have adopted 295 ATLs and their students across the country. This is going to be a path breaking opportunity for young innovators across India to learn from the best minds and scientists of the nation. The opportunity will enable innovative students to become living inspirations for their school, families, and local communities.

CSIR will be nominating top research scholars and scientists who will mentor each of the ATLs and act as resource persons. AIM and CSIR will also conduct a series of webinars for students on various topics related to scientific and technological concepts, ideas or societal issues.

Mission Director AIM, Additional Secy NITI Aayog R Ramanan while speaking during the virtual launch of this collaboration held today said that the pandemic has reinforced the critical importance of “Scientific and Industrial Research driven applied Innovations. Therefore, this partnership with CSIR is a crucial landmark achievement for Atal Innovation Mission spurring STEM research and innovation collaborations with public and private organizations playing a pivotal role.

“This collaboration with CSIR will add great impetus to the opportunities provided by ATLs to young school students in the country by providing access to the latest technologies and scientific research through the CSIR labs, as it not only aligns with the vision of the NEP 2020 but also paves the way for an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, DG, CSIR Dr. Shekhar C. Mande “It is very interesting milestone in the history of CSIR to be able to reach out to the young students of the country. CSIR has always been connected with the people of India through its innovations, science and technology and through its flagship “JIGAYASA” program has connected to more than 3 lakh students in the past few years. This partnership with AIM offers us the opportunity to  expand our connect to the student community even further,”.

Dr Mande also lauded the work of AIM, in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship across the country and has come a long way in encouraging culture of incubation centers across India.

Director, CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat Dr G. Narahari Sastry, in his address stated “it is a great achievement that we are coming together to fulfill this dream of problem solving innovative mindset which is crucial to CSIR and AIM.

“It is a learning experience how students especially in remote areas are working in ATLs in a very fascinating manner towards becoming future scientists of nation and that is exactly what the country should be proud of,” Dr Sastry said.

HEAD, HRDG Dr Anjan Ray highlighted that CSIR has significant capability with CSIR labs in every zone can connect in regional languages in the country and become local ambassadors.  AIM can become a partner is CSIRs Virtual Lab initiative under JIGAYSA 2.0 program which has been taken up by CSIR as desired by Hon’ble PM. This partnership can leverage the innovation strength of AIM and the R&D capability and capacity of CSIR for the benefit of the youth of the country.

Both AIM and CSIR are working toward achieving new milestones through this new collaboration.

6-Apr-2021: Atal Innovation Mission join hands with CIPS for innovations in public systems

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, and Centre for Innovations in Public Systems (CIPS) today announced collaboration to reinforce the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in India by developing a database of innovations in public systems for improving public services, amongst other things

A Statement of Intent (SoI) was signed between AIM & CIPS. The purpose of SoI is to jointly work to promote innovation and entrepreneurship especially in the area of public systems by leveraging the knowledge and experience of AIM as well as the reach of CIPS.

Collaboration between AIM and CIPS will help startups to access and promote their innovations to grassroot levels by synergizing with the local administration. The challenges faced by the local administration in delivering the services to the citizens can be addressed through the start-ups by drafting a plan of action with the support of CIPS mentors.

As per the SoI, AIM and CIPS will jointly organize round tables involving the district and local level administration officials to create awareness about innovative products and solutions and help them understand standard processes and policies around procurement so that procurement and implementation of relevant innovative solutions can be expedited.

Organizing and hosting series of e-exhibitions of AIM supported innovative and relevant start-ups to showcase their innovations shall be the next step towards transforming the public administration and service delivery mechanisms. Conversation between startups and the officials will also be facilitated to enable pilots, product improvement and market research.

The need of the hour is to ensure capacity building of teachers/mentors at grassroot levels to promote innovative learning among the students. This can be achieved by jointly creating an Innovation Learning Management System (iLMS).

The partnership will also help promote the programs launched by AIM at state and district level and liaison with the states. It will strengthen the AIM Mentor of Change program through larger participation of government officers at district level.

The beneficiaries would be able to leverage CIPS’ facilities for training programmes of AIM initiative and harness CIPS’ research capacity for white papers on rural innovation.

Speaking during the virtual SOI signing, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission R Ramanan said the “This collaboration with CIPS will be path-breaking in some ways as it will help in expediting awareness creation about innovation and entrepreneurship at grassroot levels and

its absorption and implementation in the public delivery systems. Such initiatives and partnerships like the one with CIPS are much needed, and will be beneficial for the Government and the society at large at district and village levels.”

Director, CIPS C. Achalender Reddy while sharing his thoughts said the purpose of AIM NITI Aayog and CIPS-ASCI collaboration is to enhance public innovation by building an innovative ecosystem, as such supporting various initiatives of AIM programs and AIM beneficiaries.

“There is growing evidence that multi-actor collaboration in networks, partnerships and inter-organisational teams can spur public innovation. The involvement of different public and private actors in public innovation processes may improve the understanding of the problem or challenge at hand, bring forth new ideas and proposals, and build joint ownership of new and bold solutions”.

31-Mar-2021: Atal Innovation Mission launches 'AIM-PRIME', in partnership with BMGF &Venture Center

In a major push towards deep technology and driving the country to become a digitally transformed nation, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog today launched AIM-PRIME (Program for Researchers on Innovations, Market-Readiness & Entrepreneurship), an initiative to promote and support science-based deep-tech startups & ventures across India.

In this regard, AIM has joined hands with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to launch this nationwide program which will be implemented by Venture Center - a non-profit technology business incubator.

The first cohort of the program is open to technology developers (early-stage deep tech start-ups, and scientists/ engineers/ clinicians) with strong science-based deep tech business ideas. The program is also open to CEOs and Senior incubation managers of AIM Funded Atal Incubation Centers that are supporting deep tech entrepreneurs.

Deep technology is an outcome of very intense research and development (R&D) with high knowledge content. Consequently, the entrepreneurial journey emphasizes different aspects and requires a different approach to navigating the de-risking process and bringing such ideas to market.

The benefits of this program are aimed at addressing specific issues through training and guidance over a period of 12 months. Candidates selected for the program will get access to in-depth learning via a comprehensive lecture series, live team projects, exercises, and project-specific mentoring.

They will also have access to a deep tech startup playbook, curated video library, and plenty of peer-to-peer learning opportunities. The AIM-PRIME program is specifically tailored for the rapid scaling up of deep-tech science ventures in India, providing not just the necessary intellect and support but also the exposure they rightly deserve.

The announcement was made as a part of the virtual programme attended by officials of AIM, NITI Aayog, BMGF, Venture Centre, Incubators, startups and mentor amongst other beneficiaries. As a part of the launch webinar, Dr. Ashley Stevens – President, Focus IP Group, and Past President, AUTM was invited to talk on global experience on building vibrant high-tech clusters, innovation ecosystems and local technology commercialization capabilities

Speaking during the virtual launch of the program, AIM Mission Director R. Ramanan said, “AIM has been at the forefront of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the nation under its various programs. Through the AIM-PRIME program in partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Venture Center, we plan to enable translation of science-based deep tech research to innovation that enables market ready entrepreneurship drawing from national and global best practices.”

Mr. Anjani Bansal, Deputy Director, Global Development at BMGF said “We are thrilled to partner with AIM and Venture Center to advance deep tech startup ecosystem in India. This initiative builds on the foundation laid by AIM to support startups and provides specialized services to transition research to industry”

Director of Venture Center Dr. Premnath said “The hallmark of the AIM-PRIME program shall be hands-on practical insights and mentoring from experts and mentors who have been nurturing science-based deep-tech startups in global innovation hotspots as well as in India.”

The program is catalyzed by the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, and the Pune Knowledge Cluster. Details on the AIM-PRIME program are available at aim.gov.in or www.primeprogram.in

The official launch for the program was attended by officials of AIM, AIM Supported incubators and start-ups, officials from the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, Venture Center mentors, and international faculty and experts.

2-Mar-2021: Atal Innovation Mission Partners with MathWorks to strengthen the Deep-tech startup ecosystem of India

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog partners with MathWorks-the developer of mathematical computing software for scientists and engineers to strengthen the Deep-tech startup ecosystem of India.

Under this partnership, startups supported by AIM, will get access to steps of the art MathWorks tools (including MATLAB and Simulink), engineering support, online trainings, access to MATLAB community, and opportunities for developing awareness of the startup products through their domestic and global reach. The benefits are aimed at fostering innovation and accelerating product development at these early-stage companies.

MathWorks product portfolio includes the MATLAB technical computing platform and Simulink, a block diagram environment for simulation and Model-Based Design, in addition to 100+ toolboxes and specialized products.

These tools have been adopted by many industries across application areas including Smart electronic and engineering designs, manufacturing, electrification, simulation, wireless communications, etc. AIM and MathWorks plan to organize series of knowledge sharing sessions for incubators and startups to train and support them on various relevant topics.

AIM Mission Director Shri R. Ramanan said, “We are delighted to have MathWorks as our innovation partner. The incubators and startups are set to gain from this partnership as we leverage the technology and domain expertise of MathWorks especially in areas of technical computing, engineering design and AI based innovations. By forging these partnerships AIM continues to enhance the efficacy and sustainability of the startup world. We will also explore new areas of synergy in the Indian innovation ecosystem.

MathWorks India Country Manager – Sales & Service, Sunil Motwani also concurred. “We are proud to partner with AIM in this journey of supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India. We look forward to extending our industry standard tools and expertise to startups at AIM located across the country.’

The announcement was made as a part of the virtual programme attended by officials of AIM, NITI Aayog, MathWorks, AIM supported startups, AIM supported incubators and mentors amongst others.

MathWorks is the leading developer of mathematical computing software. Engineers and scientists worldwide rely on these product families to accelerate the pace of discovery, innovation, and development in automotive, aerospace, electronics, renewable energy, financial services, biotech, and other industries. MathWorks supports over 3,000 startups and 300 Accelerators worldwide.

11-Feb-2021:  ISRO has adopted Atal Tinkering Labs across the country in the field of space education and technology

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that ISRO has adopted Atal Tinkering Labs across the country in the field of space education and technology. In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today, Dr Jitendra Singh said that the whole programme is divided into two phases. First phase includes 45 labs and 2nd phase covers balance 55.ISRO is also designing space education & space technology as an extra curriculum activity for the schools to utilise ATLs, which will have the endorsement of Ministry of Education.

12-Jan-2021: On the Occasion of National Youth Day, Atal Innovation Mission launches new edition of Atal Tinkering Lab handbook

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog today launched its new edition of Atal Tinkering Lab handbook which reinforces detailed establishment and operational processes of the Atal Tinkering Labs and its journey towards an innovative ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’.

The publication coincides with the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, also celebrated as the National Youth Day to honor the birthday of Swami Vivekananda who voiced the important role that youth play in the building up of a strong nation throughout his life.

The handbook named ‘The Atal Tinkering Lab Handbook 2.0’ outlines a practical guidance on structural, selection, establishment and celebration aspects of the AIM’s flagship ATL programme. 

This handbook, which is available online on AIM’s official website, also provides a detailed guidance for schools across the country on building a technically robust mechanism of grass root innovations through ATLs.

Gracing the occasion through a special video message, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar said, “Today, on the occasion of Vivekananda Jayanti, we launch the 2nd version of the ATL Handbook which encompasses 3 years of on-the-ground work done by the AIM team in a framework using 4 key pillars of the ATL initiative – Selection, Establishment, Enablement, and Celebration. This Handbook is one more important addition to NITI Aayog’s arsenal of quality Policy works, and is rooted with best practices in grassroot experiences and interventions.” 

Mission Director of AIM, and Additional Secretary NITI Aayog Mr R Ramanan in a virtual release of the handbook, spoke about the objectives of one of the most ambitious programmes of AIM viz Atal Tinkering Labs, and enlightened the participants about its benefits.  

“This book will be a one stop reference for all schools, mentors and innovators in knowing various aspects of Atal tinkering labs and leveraging the same. We have simplified this book in its usage and it contains QR codes which leads to more detailed links about various aspects of the programme,” he added.  

Mission High Level Committee (MHLC) Board Member, AIM, NITI Aayog Dr Vijay Chauthaiwale quoted Swami Vivekananda in his address to students and advised them to go through his teachings in order to aspire higher and achieve audacious goals. 

“ATL has been a great learning experience for all of us to witness as to how the innovation ecosystem is being inculcated among the young minds of the country through Atal Innovation Mission. I would advise all the schools and students to utilise this publication to the fullest.  I would like to emphasize that all students should be able to take risks and must not fear about the failures,” he asserted.

Copy of the handbook can be accessed and downloaded at https://aim.gov.in/pdf/ATL_Handbook_2021.pdf

About ATL: An Atal Tinkering Lab provides a makerspace where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills. To foster entrepreneurship and innovation, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog has established over 7000 ATLs across the country so far enabling over 3 Million+ students between Grade VI to Grade XII acquire a problem solving, tinkering and innovative mindset.

26-Oct-2020: AIM Launches India–Australia Circular Economy Hackathon(I-ACE), with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)

AIM (Atal Innovation Mission), in association with CSIRO, is organizing a two-day hackathon on circular economy, ‘India–Australia Circular Economy Hackathon (I-ACE)’, on 7 and 8 December.

The idea of I-ACE was conceived during a virtual summit on 4 June, between the Indian and Australian prime ministers, exploring innovative ways to boost circular economy in India and Australia.

I-ACE will focus on identification and development of innovative technology solutions by bright-minded students, startups and MSMEs of both nations.

The four key themes for the hackathon are as follows:

1. Innovation in packaging reducing packaging waste
2. Innovation in food supply chains avoiding waste
3. Creating opportunities for plastic waste reduction
4. Recycling critical energy metals and e-waste

Shortlisted students and startups/MSMEs will be called for the hackathon, where two winners (one student and one startup/MSME) per theme from each country will be announced at an award ceremony on 11 December.

Launching the hackathon, AIM Mission Director and NITI Aayog Additional Secretary R. Ramanan said, ‘We are looking at how we can address the circular economy challenge, which can create possible solutions for not only eliminating waste but also for reusing waste.’

CSIRO Chief of Division of Land and Water Dr Paul Bertsch, said, ‘India and Australia have had a strong and productive bilateral partnership since a decade and our collaborations across a broad range of areas have yielded significant results.’ He also highlighted that by coming together, India and Australia can align research and developmental efforts to achieve more at a challenging time in the history of mankind.

Concurring with Dr Paul Bertsch, Dr Heinz Schandl, at CSIRO Senior Science Leader of Land and Water, said, ‘In the long run a circular economy model will provide more jobs and higher economic growth. It will also reduce cost, drive innovation and have significant environmental benefits.’

Gracing the occasion, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar said, ‘This is a very important initiative to make our economy less resource intensive and ensure our economic growth is ecologically compatible.’

Highlighting the importance of combining Australia’s Research and Development base with India’s scale and record of frugal innovations, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, ‘The need of the hour is to adopt a disruptive way of doing things, which is based on sustainability and moving towards a circular economy.

The winning Indian student and startup/MSME teams will be awarded a prize of Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, respectively, coupled with post-hackathon product development opportunities. The winning Australian student will be awarded a prize of AUD$3500 and the winning Australian SMEs/startup team a prize of AUD$9500.

The last date for application submissions is 6 November 2020. Those interested can apply via http://aimapp2.aim.gov.in/iace/.

9-Sep-2020: Atal Innovation Mission Launches Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-ANIC Initiative

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, today launched one of its most awaited programmes, the Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-Atal New India Challenges, to spur applied research and innovation in Indian MSMEs and startups.

The programme will be driven by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), four ministries—Ministry of Defence; Ministry of Food Processing Industries; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs—and associated industries to facilitate innovative solutions to sectoral problems.

Speaking at the virtual launch of the initiative, Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Shri Nitin Gadkari said, “MSMEs are the growth engine of the country and there are a lot of expectations from them. I am sure this initiative will help identify and promote innovations necessary for boosting this sector. "Recalling Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of focusing on scientific research, he added, “Science should help solve socio-economic problems and scientific research should be extended from the labs to the land.”

Agreeing with the Hon’ble Minister, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar said that the initiative will help promote technopreneurs who deserve to be supported because of their immense potential of taking India forward. "This is a historical day as crucial personalities from the science and technology sector have collaborated with us for boosting the MSME sector,” he said.

The Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE–ANIC programme will support deserving applied research–based innovations by providing funding support of up to Rs 50 lakh for speedy development of the proposed technology solution and/or product.

“Other than ISRO, which is a great promoter of technology, Indian departments and big companies never encourage and promote new startups that have done unique work. For ARISE-ANIC’s success, the government must become the first buyer. I am sure AIM will be able to break new grounds with these challenges, which will lead to the creation of new Indian products,” added NITI Aayog CEO Shri Amitabh Kant.

While it is essential to have science and technology advancing products, it is equally important to have an opportunity to procure those products, said Principal Scientific Advisor Prof. Vijay Raghavan. “Government policies have changed dramatically over the years to allow this to happen. Now it needs to permeate across state governments’ procurement mechanism and Indian-made products given a chance to go to market. I assure our fullest support to ARISE on the scientific domain,” he added.

Being a crucial part of the ARISE-ANIC initiative, ISRO Chairman Dr K. Sivan said, “ISRO has extensively supported the MSME sector. I am sure that there are a number of startups and MSMEs that require handholding to transform their ideas into viable products and with this initiative, we look forward to achieve this goal.”

AIM Mission Director Shri R. Ramanan added that MSMEs are a vibrant and one of the fastest-growing sectors that will undisputedly play a crucial role in attaining the PM’s vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

“The fifteen Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE challenges are a pioneering initiative to stimulate Make-in-India innovations in the associated MSME startups’ sector and a unique opportunity to make advanced research and development ideas market viable, and field deployable MSME products that can be procured by the government,” he concluded.

Sidelights:

• ISRO to adopt 100 Atal Tinkering Labs from Atal Innovation Mission
• Officials stressed on attracting innovators using the Mahatma Gandhi Challenge method
• Minister of Road Transport and Highways laid emphasis on developing the MSME sector with the help of the ARISE-ANIC initiative under Atal Innovation Mission

11-Aug-2020: Atal Innovation Mission and Dell Technologies Launch Student Entrepreneurship Programme 2.0

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, in collaboration with Dell Technologies today launched Student Entrepreneurship Programme 2.0 (SEP 2.0) for young innovators of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs).

Following the outstanding success of SEP 1.0, the second series was kick-started in the presence of Dr Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog; Alok Ohrie, President and MD, Dell Technologies; R. Ramanan, Mission Director, AIM; and Dr Anjlee Prakash, Chairperson, Learning Links Foundation.

“Today, I am full of optimism, as I witness the promising innovations by the young pioneers of ATLs. These innovators make me wonder what the young children of this nation can achieve when given the opportunity to think unconventionally to combat challenges faced by their fellow citizens. As we conclude SEP 1.0 and launch SEP 2.0, I am excited to see the impact that these innovations will create in the country,” said NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar.

SEP 2.0 will allow student innovators to work closely with Dell volunteers. They will receive mentor support; prototyping and testing support; end-user feedback; intellectual property registration and patenting of ideas, processes, and products; manufacturing support; as well as the launch support of the product in the market.

Dell Technologies India President and Managing Director Alok Ohrie said, “Dell is leveraging emerging technologies to empower students to craft their own experiences, thereby enabling them to develop an innovative mindset. We are extremely delighted with the outcome of the first Student Entrepreneurship Programme and look forward to what the next batch has in store. Our strong partnership with NITI Aayog has further enabled us in expanding our vision of technology for social good and encouraging budding entrepreneurs.”

Speaking on the occasion, AIM Mission Director R. Ramanan said, “Atal Innovation Mission aims to create over a million neoteric innovators and potential job creators of the country. Our partnership with Dell Technologies in spurring the entrepreneurial capabilities of the budding Atal Tinkering Lab innovators through the Student Entrepreneurship Programme encourages young aspiring school students, as well as creates a value-adding recognition platform for innovative talent across the country.”

SEP 1.0 began in January 2019. Through a 10-month-long rigorous programme, the top 6 teams of ATL Marathon—a nationwide contest where students identify community challenges and create grassroots innovations and solutions within their ATLs—got a chance to transform their innovative prototypes into fully functioning products, which are now available in the market.

As many as 1500 innovations were submitted in the last season of ATL Marathon. After two rigorous rounds, 50 teams were selected for the Student Innovator Programme. More than 75% of the winning teams were from tier-2 cities and/or rural areas, and more than 60% from government schools. Around 46% of the winning team students were girls. The teams were then mentored by Atal Incubation Centres for months via the Student Innovator Programme 2.0. Consequently, the top eight teams were felicitated by President of India Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhawan on 14 November 2019. The top 8 will now take their prototypes to product through SEP 2.0.

AIM Mission Director R. Ramanan congratulated the six teams: “Over the past few months, you have shown the grit and mettle to become an entrepreneur. Your perseverance has resulted in you becoming the ‘co-founder’ of your own startups and enterprises. This is the true essence of Aatmanirbhar Bharat.” He added that industry partnerships such as these are critical to nurture the inventiveness of young students, and will enable them to create our planet a better place.

30-Jul-2020: Atal Innovation Mission launches 'AIM-iCREST', in partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wadhwani Foundation

In a major initiative to encourage and enable holistic progress in the incubator ecosystem across the country, NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), has launched AIM iCREST – an Incubator Capabilities enhancement program for a Robust Ecosystem focused on creating high performing Startups. This is a first of its kind initiative for advancing innovation at scale in India.

AIM has joined hands with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wadhwani Foundation - organizations that can lend credible support and expertise in the entrepreneurship and innovation space. These partnerships will provide global expertise and showcase proven best practices to the AIM's incubator network.

AIM iCREST, as the name suggests, 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, the AIM’s incubators are set to be upscaled and provided requisite support to foster the incubation enterprise economy, that will help them to significantly enhance their performance. This will be complemented by providing training to entrepreneurs, through technology driven processes and platforms.

The program aims at going beyond incubator capacity building.  Given the current pandemic crisis, the effort will focus on supporting start-up entrepreneurs in knowledge creation and dissemination as well as in developing robust and active networks.

Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, sharing his views said, “We firmly believe that the Indian startup ecosystem has evolved into truly world-class movement. NITI Aayog shall play the role of a catalyst in making it happen. India has a great opportunity in its inherent innovative mindset to capture global markets while creating disruptive solutions for the challenges within the country. In order to facilitate an Aatmanirbhar ecosystem that is capable of nurturing such disruptive startups, AIM, NITI Aayog is enabling this partnership with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wadhwani Foundation. We are positive it will propel our portfolio to become #WorldClassIncubators and reach greater heights.”

Sharing his views, Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director, AIM said, “India needs world class incubators fostering world class startups leveraging the tremendous innovation talent of our country. For the first time in the Government, the Incubator capacity development program is being extended to the entire portfolio of supported Atal incubators. This programme is unique also in its design - it is a combination of interactive practices in the field of incubation; enabling the incubators to support sustainable and successful startups. We are pleased to announce the partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Wadhwani Foundation supported by NEN.”

Anjani Bansal, Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said, “We are thrilled to support this initiative of Atal Innovation Mission and NITI Aayog to nurture an ecosystem that enables development and scale up of innovations to solve problems with far reaching impact. Such innovations in technologies and business models can contribute, both incrementally and radically, to the foundation's goals of improving maternal and child health, increasing productivity and income of small farmers, increasing access and usage of digital financial services, and improving livelihoods for women. The large network of incubators under AIM-iCREST program also enables us to deliver this program at scale which is particularly exciting.”

Ajay Kela, President, and CEO, Wadhwani Foundation, added, “The Wadhwani Foundation is honored to partner with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help accelerate and scale Startup success in India. The partnership brings decades of experience and global best practice integrated into a comprehensive platform delivered through AIM iCREST. The program will contribute to much needed economic and job growth in these challenging times”.

Dan Kranzler Senior Advisor to Wadhwani Foundation and lead trainer of iCREST program added, “Teams from AIM iCREST, Wadhwani Foundation, and the leading incubators of India are all excited to engage together to advance outcomes to create increased economic and job growth. The unique nature of the content, programs, toolkits, resources and best practices from over 200 global incubators work seamlessly in a digital model to ensure continuity of the program in the midst of the COVID restrictions”.

11-Jul-2020: NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission launches ATL App Development Module for school students nationwide

In a major step towards revving up the Indian Mobile App Development innovation ecosystem, in line with the clarion call for Aatmanirbhar initiatives of the Hon Prime Minister  Shri  Narendra Modi, NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) today launched the ‘ATL App Development Module’ for school children all across the country.

The ATL App Development modules have been launched in collaboration with Indian homegrown startup Plezmo with an aim to hone the skills of school students and transforming them from App users to App makers in the times to come under AIM’s flagship Atal Tinkering Labs initiative.

Expressing his views on the said module, CEO NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said that Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a big disruption, which is being tackled through the use of technology to aid for everyday lives.

“Our honorable Prime Minister has been encouraging the citizens to use technology and innovate for an #AatmaNirbhar Bharat. It is crucial for the young Indians to learn skills at a young age and to enable them to become the next generation of technology leaders. And under the Atal Tinkering Lab initiative, AIM, NITI Aayog is proud to launch the ATL App Development module for our India’s young minds – our dear children,” he said.

The ATL App Development module is an online course is completely Free. Through 6 project-based learning modules and online mentoring sessions, young innovators can learn to build mobile Apps in various Indian languages and showcase their talent. Additionally, to build capacities and acumen for App Development within school teachers, periodic Teacher Training sessions will be conducted on the AIM App Development course.

Speaking on the virtual launch of the module, Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said “we need world class technology solutions and apps from India leveraging the tremendous demographic dividend of our country. The launch of Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge  has been inspiring to the young students uniformly at school, university and industry level. AIM, NITI Aayog is now bringing the skills of App Development to the young tinkerers of Atal Tinkering Labs across the country so that they can integrate their Tinkering Lab innovations with mobile apps enhancing the usability and reach of their innovations. This would be one of the largest App learning and development initiatives at a school level in any country.

“To foster learning and creativity within young minds, as part of the ATL #TinkerfromHome campaign, AIM, NITI Aayog has created a growing state of the art platform for the students and teachers across the country to learn and apply the latest of technologies including Artificial Intelligence, Game Design and Development, 3D Design, Astronomy, Digital Creativity Skills, etc. from the comfort and safety of their homes,” he said.

He further added that as part of this ongoing effort, “AIM, NITI Aayog is proud to launch the ATL App Development module in collaboration with Plezmo, an Indian homegrown startup. I hope all children and teachers make use of this module, #MakeinIndia and become the future technology leaders and innovators of our country.”

Amol Palshikar, CEO, Plezmo said, “After agricultural and industrial revolutions, global economies are being shaped by a Technology revolution. Plezmo’s mission is to enable everyone to learn 21st Century technology skills like coding, computational thinking, design thinking and problem solving. This initiative will empower our young generation in making India a global technology superpower and contribute to the vision of #AatmaNirbharBharat.”

Till date, more than 5100 ATLs are established in more than 660 districts across the country by Atal Innovation Mission with more than 2 million students having access to the Tinkering Labs. The vision is to foster creativity and innovation nationwide through its various integrated initiatives including incubators, Startups, community innovation Centers and Atal New India challenges for product and service innovations enabling socio economic growth of the country.

20-Jun-2020: Atal Innovation Mission partners with Coal India Ltd to boost its Innovation & Entrepreneurship initiatives

Coal India Limited (CIL) has agreed to partner with Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog to support proactively the flagship mission’s innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across the country. A Statement of Intent (SoI) of a strategic partnership between AIM and Coal India Limited was signed and exchanged in a virtual e-summit for the same on Friday June 19.

AIM has various innovation programs and entrepreneurial ecosystem building initiatives such as Atal Tinkering Labs ( ATL) at a school level, Atal Incubation Centres ( AIC) at institutional levels, Atal Community Innovation Centres ( ACIC) for Tier-2, Tier3 cities and rural India, Atal New India Challenges ( ANIC) at industry level and Applied Research and Innovation ( ARISE) for stimulating innovations in the MSME industry.

The collaboration between CIL and AIM intends to conduct various activities / programs to support greater awareness and promotion of the innovation ecosystem through the above mentioned AIM programmes and newer initiatives.

A Virtual SoI was signed by Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog Shri R Ramanan and Director (Technical), Coal India Limited (CIL) Shri Binay Dayal in presence of Chairman and Managing Director Coal India Shri Pramod Agrawal.

“It’s a historic and momentous occasion of signing this SoI with CIL. We are very proud that CIL is partnering with AIM to help motivate the talented youth of our country towards developing great innovations thereby enabling an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” said Mission Director AIM NITI Aayog. Mr. Ramanan added that this partnership shall provide an excellent platform to help the unserved and under-served regions of our country benefit from innovation and entrepreneurship led local job creation in the years ahead.

Chairman Coal India Limited, Mr. Pramod Agarwal while signing the SoI said “CIL is proud to announce the partnership with AIM, NITI Aayog and we are excited to take this forward in the most significant contribution towards the mission which would further strengthen the India's innovation ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, according to the SoI signed, the partnership has been categorised program wise where in under Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) CIL has agreed for adoption of select ATLs Schools, help in conducting teacher training sessions and providing mentoring support to ATL students via Mentors of Change.

Similarly, under Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACICs), CIL has agreed for adoption and support of ACICs close to their areas of operation, supporting the youth in their journey of societal innovation, hosting community innovation challenges and other innovation based events to spread the impact of the innovation ecosystems being built in the under-served regions of the country.

13-Apr-2020: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog & National Informatics Centre (NIC) jointly launches CollabCAD in ATL schools

Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and National Informatics Centre (NIC) today jointly launched CollabCAD, a collaborative network, computer enabled software system, providing a total engineering solution from 2D drafting & detailing to 3D product design.

The aim of this initiative is to provide a great platform to students of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) across country to create and modify 3d designs with free flow of creativity and imagination. This software would also enable students to create data across the network and concurrently access the same design data for storage and visualization.

ATLs established across India, provide tinkering spaces to children to hone their innovative ideas and creativity. AIM’s collaboration with NIC’s CollabCAD is a great platform for students to utilize indigenous, state-of-the-art made-in-India software for 3D modeling/slicing to use 3D Printing.

A customized version of CollabCAD for ATLs with features that are most relevant to school students to materialize their ideas and creativity into physical solutions has been developed to enable designing without constraints and, thus, allowing creativity and innovation to thrive.

Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog Shri R Ramanan while launching CollabCAD online via social media said that 3D printing is going to be an integral part of the new 21st century innovations and AIM, NITI Aayog is proud to enable designing through CollabCAD in 5000 Atal Tinkering Labs with over 2.5 million students having access to it.

“I am delighted to announce the launch of yet another important module called CollabCAD design module. It is an amazing software CAD system that would enable students to create innumerable 3d designs. I look forward to students to give freedom to their creativity and imagination and create great innovations using this opportunity while they tinker from home as well as in their ATL labs when the schools open normally,” he added.

Meanwhile, NIC is playing a crucial role in pushing the online module to reach to the students all across the country by providing a huge source of data through this software CAD system.

Sharing her views, Director General NIC Dr Neeta Verma said, NIC is happy to share this make in India 3d product CollabCAD which will be used by around 5000 schools where Atal Tinkering Labs are established.

“It is an indigenous three dimensional computer aided design system which helps the used to build models in virtual 3d space and create and engineering drawings for shop floor which makes it a complete package for smart manufacturing. We take great pride in collaborating with AIM, NITI Aayog to launch this opportunity for students,” she said.

Moreover, in light of the current situation, the ATL program has launched a ‘Tinker from Home’ campaign to ensure that the children across the county have access to useful easy-to-learn online resources to keep themselves fruitfully occupied. The objective of the initiative is to harness the creativity and innovativeness of children by encouraging learning through self-initiation.

AIM also launched the Game Development module in partnership with DELL Technologies and Learning Links Foundation. It is an online platform where students can start their learning journey while tinkering from home. Through the platform they can learn to create their own games and also share it with others. This platform envisages to make students transition from ‘game players’ to ‘game makers’

Similarly, by launching CollabCAD and gaming module as part of the ‘Tinker from Home’ campaign, young students are encouraged to learn and contribute to the journey of nation building from the safe space of their homes.

About AIM: Atal Innovation Mission housed at NITI Aayog is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. At the school level, AIM is establishing ATLs in all districts across India. As of today, AIM has selected a total of 14,916 schools across the country spread across 33 different states and union territories, for the establishment of ATLs.

27-Feb-2020: Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog join hands with NASSCOM to roll out Artificial Intelligence Modules in Indian schools

With an imperative to empower the youngest minds of the country with the latest technologies, NITI Aayog, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) in collaboration with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) today launched an AI based Module rolled out for students in Indian schools.

The AI-Base Module has been introduced with an objective for students to leverage the full potential of AIM’s Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) and further empowers them to innovate and create valuable solutions benefiting societies at large. The module contains activities, videos and experiments that enable students to work through and learn the various concepts of AI.

Sharing his thoughts, CEO, NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant said that India can add 1.3% to its GDP on an annual basis through the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

“Indians can find solutions to the challenges of a shared connected zero emission world, improving learning outcomes, disease like tuberculosis, cancer etc. If we are able to find solutions to these challenges for the 1.3 billion people of India, we can find solutions for the 7.5 billion people of the world too,” he said.

He further added that this AI module is so critical, in the sense that it will start teaching young children from a very young age then Indians will become major players in AI, like it has been done in the past for robots, 3D printing, IoT. “This is path breaking, it combines playing and academics and our job is to make things very interesting. We want to make artificial intelligence a great fun, so that children can enjoy it, they can evolve and learn and take India forward.”

Technology innovation over the last decade was breathtakingly fast as industries got intertwined with emerging technologies like never before. It has been estimated that by 2030, the global market in AI is likely to be in the range of 15 to 15.5 trillion dollars, out of which India’s share will be close to a trillion.

Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said that AI is going to be an integral part of the new 21st century innovations and we are proud to introduce the Learn-It-Yourself module in all our 5000 Atal Tinkering Labs with over 2.5 million students having access to it. “This is the first ever industry government academia initiative on such a scale to keep the school students abreast of latest technologies.”

Meanwhile, for India to lead and remain relevant in this new ‘tech driven decade’, especially in emerging technologies like AI, and the ubiquity of AI in society, it is critical for the government and academia to collaborate and introduce AI learning at schools and prepare young minds for the AI led Digital future.

Speaking on the collaboration, Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, said, “AI has become a strategic lever for economic growth across nations and will continue to be one of the most crucial technologies of the future. Given its impact, it is an embracing step taken by NITI Aayog to introduce the resources for students to learn AI. This will create the right foundations for students, especially the K-12 segment, to onboard onto future technologies and prepare them fully for the digital and AI era. The partnership is a crucial step in building citizens and a workforce that is aware of AI and can work with AI.”

The hands-on AI module has been designed considering academic, co-scholastic and other ATL programs at school and is formulated to encourage young students to contribute to the journey of nation building. The module will be a catalyst for the youth to explore, ideate and learn the latest technologies and build a generation of innovators at the grassroot level.

Atal Innovation Mission housed at NITI Aayog is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. At the school level, AIM is establishing ATLs in all districts across India. As of today, AIM has selected a total of 14,916 schools across the country spread across 33 different states and union territories, for the establishment of ATLs.

NASSCOM acknowledges the role played by AI and other emerging technologies, as an imperative to build a digitally powered tomorrow. By inculcating AI and a ‘learning by doing’ culture in schools, huge opportunities are bound to arise for the overall industries at global scale. To achieve this, NASSCOM and AIM have worked in collaboration with industry members and universities to develop the special modules on Artificial Intelligence learning.

Promoting digital talent for nation building has been one of the consistent efforts laid out by the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council, NASSCOM. For this important initiative and many such programs, the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council has been a key pillar for NASSCOM to catalyse the skill development ecosystem in the country and build industry ready talent for the IT sector in India.

The AI Base Module is ready to be introduced to the ATL students on February 27th. Additionally, an AI Step-up Module is under development which will be the next step, that builds on the base module.

5-Feb-2020: Atal Innovation Mission collaborates with Ministries to stimulate Innovation in various sectors

With a vision to bring together the stakeholders of the food processing and agriculture sector in India, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog (AIM) today started a series of innovation demo days where start-ups, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), entrepreneurs, corporate partners and sector academics are brought together for a showcase of government-funded innovations.

The first such event was held today in association with Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare at Atal Incubation Centre (AIC)- Entrepreneurship & Management Process International (EMPI) Business school, New Delhi.

The innovation demo day series initiative aims at promoting commercialisation of technologies funded by the Ministries of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Food Processing and Industries. It also aims at connecting innovation with sectors like Indian MSME industry and government funded research industries.

Speaking on the occasion, the Mission Director AIM, NITI Aayog Shri R Ramanan said “We are sure that such initiatives will help take the technologies from lab to market, building a collaborative ecosystem. AIM, NITI Aayog will continue to make many such efforts towards making India, the innovation capital of the world.”

“ARISE demo day is our initial attempt to stimulate and showcase innovation in various sectors and we will be working closely with ministries to take this forward. The idea is to ensure the government is able to support start-ups better. Since we are one of the fastest growing economies in the world, there is a tremendous focus by the government to ensure the innovation and entrepreneurship in the country is scaled up,” he added.

Highlighting the need to promote food processing in the country, the Joint Secretary to Ministry of Food Processing Industries Shri Minhaj Aalam said that there is a dire need to push food processing as India is facing huge loss when it comes to recycling of food.

“India is facing issues related to post-harvest crop processing which needs to be addressed. As per a study commissioned by our ministry through Ciphet Ludhiana, nearly 1lakh crore of food products are wasted every year. The processing has to be increased in the country which presently is at an average 10 per cent compared to 50 per cent in other countries. We need to encourage innovations which can help to solve this issue,” he said.

He further said the ministry is encouraging and supporting the entrepreneurs and MSMEs for setting up food processing units by providing grant in aid and networking support with the help of AIM, NITI Aayog under ARISE scheme.

CEO Agrinnovate India Limited Dr. Sudha Mysore also spoke on the occasion and stressed on technology commercialization frameworks in Indian agriculture. She gave an overview of the technology transfer efforts being undertaken by Agrinnovate, a Govt of India initiative to bring Indian agricultural science to the market.

Meanwhile, the event saw a productive panel discussion by officials from both the Ministries, industry representatives, innovators, scientists and venture capitalists. The panelists spoke on ‘commercializing innovations from government R&D institutions into the market and the role of public & private institutions in innovation landscape of India.’ The officials also spoke about public research, importance of communication, technology delivery, technology development, technology commercialization, technology transfer, mentoring, training, job creation, start-up incubation support etc.

More than 30 govt-funded/supported technologies related to food processing and agriculture were exhibited on the occasion. Out of 30, 12 technologies were pitched in detail by the budding innovators and researchers to the stakeholders from the agriculture and food processing ecosystem which was followed by a networking session.

14-Nov-2019: Selected Student Innovators of Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018 Call on the President

A group of selected student innovators of the Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon 2018, called on the President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at Rashtrapati Bhavan today.

Addressing the student innovators, the President was happy to note that they were selected as the best innovators from approximately 50,000 students from 2700 schools across the country. He was impressed to see their exhibits. He said that it makes him wonder what young children of this nation can achieve when given the opportunity to think unconventionally. We may be facing difficult challenges in the world today, but we also have young people, like them, willing to think differently to find the solutions to these problems.

Praising the work done by Atal innovation mission and Atal tinkering lab, the President said that we need to provide an ecosystem where the innovations that these young minds come up with, can be nurtured. By encouraging children to tinker and innovate, we are fostering a generation who will be self-reliant and resourceful. A generation that will be job creators and not just job seekers. He expressed hope to see these young boys and girls one day as successful entrepreneurs.

Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon:

• Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon is organised by the Atal Tinkering Labs of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the NITI Aayog in an effort to identify India’s best student innovators.
• It is a six-month-long nationwide challenge across six different thematic areas, namely, clean energy, water resources, waste management, healthcare, smart mobility and agriculture-tech.
• This is open to all students under the age of 18 years.
• Students of top 30 innovations will be trained on business and entrepreneurship skills, including intellectual property, effective communication, making an elevator pitch, etc.
• These top 30 innovations have been identified from 20 different States/UTs from across India.
• The winners are being awarded with several prizes including a three month-long ATL Student Innovator Program (ATL SIP) in partnership with the industry and start-up incubators.
• The goal of the student innovator program is to test the innovations in the community.
• The ATL Student Innovator Program is an effort to institutionalize a mechanism, where high school students can work with university incubators to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas along with their education.

4-Oct-2019: AIM NITI Aayog, UNDP India Jointly Launch Youth Co:Lab

In a latest initiative to recognize young people as critical drivers of sustainable development, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched Youth Co: Lab which aims at accelerating social entrepreneurship and innovation in young India. To mark the launch, a Letter of Intent (LOI) was signed between AIM, NITI Aayog and UNDP India.

Through Youth Co:Lab, young entrepreneurs and innovators will get a chance to connect with governments, mentors, incubators and investors, who will help equip them with entrepreneurial skills. The initiative will also convene a series of youth dialogues across several cities such as New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai to promote entrepreneurship across India.

AIM and UNDP, as part of UNSDF signed between NITI Aayog and UN India, are collaborating to spread awareness about different issues pertaining to youth, the future of work and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through Youth Co:Lab.

The first phase of Youth Co:Lab will focus on six SDGs: SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 12 (Sustainable Consumption and Production) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

Youth entrepreneurship has immense potential benefits and the most significant one is that it creates huge employment opportunities in the country. With the world’s largest youth population millions in the county are entering the workforce every year, it is critical for India to create a robust employment and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Targeted at supporting young people overcome challenges, UNDP and AIM, NITI Aayog will empower young people through innovative development ideas. In this regard, Youth Co:Lab will convene social innovation challenges at the national and sub-national level, which will invite young people in the age group of 18-29 years and start-ups to showcase their proposed ideas and solutions to tackle some of the region’s biggest social challenges. They will also get the opportunity to pitch their ideas at UNDP’s regional centre in 2020. Aspiring entrepreneurs or nascent entrepreneurs (with less than 3 years of experience) can submit their ideas at http://aimapp2.aim.gov.in/youth2019/entry.php  before 4 November, 2019.

Selected applicants will be invited for a national innovation challenge, where each winning start-up will get an opportunity to incubate and strengthen their ideas at the Atal Incubation Centres.

Resident Representative, UNDP India Shoko Noda said, that 21st-century challenges can’t be solved with traditional approaches. It is essential to position young people front and centre, to solve the region’s most wicked development challenges. We must ensure that they are motivated and excited to learn future skills, particularly leadership, social innovation, entrepreneurship and communication. About Youth Co:Lab, she said that it is an innovative platform for young people to explore their ideas and potentials, and bring to scale viable solutions, to accelerate India’s progress on the SDGs.

About Youth Co:Lab: Co-created in 2017 by UNDP and the Citi Foundation, and operational in 25 countries across the Asia Pacific region, the Youth Co:Lab initiative aims to create an enabling ecosystem to promote youth leadership, innovation, and social entrepreneurship.

About Atal Innovation Mission (AIM): AIM including Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU) is Government of India’s endeavour to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. Its objective is to serve as a platform for the promotion of world-class innovation hubs, grand challenges, start-up businesses and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology driven areas.

31-Jul-2019: Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) launches Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) Program

In yet another step to foster innovation in India, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), flagship initiative of NITI Aayog, launched the Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) program in NITI Aayog, New Delhi. The programme aims at spurring community Innovation in underserved and unserved areas of the country.

Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the ACIC program. Stressing upon the significance of innovation, he said that through innovation, India can become a USD 5 trillion economy by 2024-25. He emphasized on how ACIC can serve as the bridge between the knowledge base existing in communities and the advanced technical ecosystem prevalent in the market base, addressing the needs of society.

India will become the largest consumer of fossil fuel in the next 15 years, so there is a dire need to reduce India’s crude oil import bill which is pegged at Rs 6 lakh crore per annum. He asked Atal Community Innovation Centre to come up with innovative methods, which will help India in reducing its fossil fuel import bill.

AIM through ACIC program should encourage innovation potential for domestic power sector by using real strength of non-fossil and sustainable sources of energy.

The ACIC program should be connected to every Panchayati Raj Institutions to help innovators at grassroots level become part of the policy framework and leverage their creativity to translate their products/services into innovation led commercial utilization for society. Extending his support to the initiative, he said that his ministry would encourage the larger participation in ACIC programme, including the mobilization of resources from CSR funds of PSUs.

The purpose of ACIC is to enable establishment of socially inclusive innovation ecosystem as well as to encourage equitable distribution of necessary infrastructure for stimulating innovation across the country. The new initiative offers opportunity to talented youth and researchers in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, Smart cities, Aspirational Districts, North East, J&K, Rural and Tribal regions of India, unserved and underserved regions of Tier 1 / Metro cities.

The ACIC programme would focus in over 484 districts located in unserved/underserved regions of India. The program would play a major role towards establishing India as Innovation and Technology led Start-up nation and improve the ranking of India in Global Innovation Index.

27-Jun-2019: 8878 schools have been selected for establishing Atal Tinkering Lab (ATLs) to promote research and innovation in schools

Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) is a program run by Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) under NITI Aayog to foster curiosity and innovative mindset in young students across India to encourage research and innovation in schools across the country.

The vision of the initiative is 'To create One million children in India as Neoteric Innovators'. The details about various activities of ATL program are given on AIM website www.aim.gov.in. Till date, 8878 schools have been selected for establishing ATLs, out of which 3020 have completed their compliance process and have been funded successfully.

7-Mar-2019: Cabinet approves Continuation of Atal Innovation Mission

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved Continuation of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), and for incurring expenditure up to Rs. 1000 crore till 2019-20 by Atal Innovation Mission for expanding Atal Tinkering Labs to 10,000 schools in view of their huge success at school level.

Details:

• AIM has multiple programs to encourage and support innovation in the country.
• State of the art Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) are being established in thousands of schools, world class Atal Incubation Centres (AIC) and Atal Community Innovation Centers (ACIC) are being established for universities and industry,
• Promotion of product development in areas of national relevance and social importance is being supported through Atal New India Challenges (ANICs).

Financial implications:

• Each ATL receives a grant in aid of Rs. 12 lakhs in the first year, and up to 2 lakhs per year for subsequent 4 years, for maintenance of the ATL equipment and operational expenses.
• Each selected AIC would be receiving grant in aid up to Rs 10 crore over 3-5 years in tranches per year, based on review and evidence of planned milestones reached.
• Innovators will receive commercialization and technology deployment grants up to Rs. 1 crore under the ANICs.

Impact:

• The Mission has undertaken many bold and forward-looking initiatives such as Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and Atal Incubation Centres (AIC), which have received great traction;
• Many Ministries/Departments of Government of India have initiated innovation related activities with the help and technical support of AIM.
• Under the ATL program, more than 10,000 schools are expected to establish these labs by 2020.
• More than 100 Atal Incubation Centres (AICs) are likely to established around the country, supporting at least 50-60 startups each over the first five years.
• More than 100 innovators/startups are expected to receive some support for productizing their innovations.
• Other programs being supported through Ministries will have even more beneficiaries.
• Each incubator is expected to foster 50-60 technology driven innovative Startups every four years.
• The 100+ Incubators set up would thus foster 5000-6000 innovative Startups and this will multiply with new incubators being set up.
• The potential for employment generation from these innovations driven Startups is quite high.

Implementation Strategy and targets:

AIM selects each beneficiary through open, competitive, online applications, and disburses grants directly. Furthermore, AIM leverages its experts and networks around the country to build capacity in ATLs, AICs, etc. connecting various kinds of populations. Additionally, corporate and international partners are connected to AIM beneficiaries, to ensure flow of information and technology between academia, innovation, and the start-up ecosystem as well as provide mentoring support to ensure success of AIM's initiatives. Till date, 5441 Atal Tinkering Labs have been selected across the country, out of which 2171 ATLs  from  623   districts  have already  received the  first tranche of grant-in-aid  for establishment of the labs in their respective schools. 101 Atal Incubation Centres have been selected nationwide, out of which 31 have received the first tranche of grants.  

 Twenty-four Atal New India Challenges (ANIC) have been launched and more than 800 applications have been received. 2-3 winners per ANIC would be selected and receive a grant of upto Rs 1.0 crore in 3 tranches based on review and evidence of planned milestones achieved.

AIM's Mentor of Change Programme is mandated to ensure the success of the ATLs. Through this programme, well-qualified mentors from different professional backgrounds are selected to provide pro-bono mentoring to ATL students over a range of skills. Mentors also collaborate with the School administrators to ensure the ATLs operate in the manner, mandated by AIM. As on date, more than 2,500 mentors are actively mentoring students in over 1,300 ATL schools.

Background: AlM's objectives are to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country at school, university, research institutions, MSME and industry levels. The Mission has been set up under NITI Aayog, in accordance with the Hon'ble Finance Minister's declaration in the 2015 Budget Speech.

27-Feb-2019: NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission partners with Adobe to enhance creativity in ATL Schools

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Adobe signed a Statement of Intent (SOI) to collectively drive the charter of developing creative skills and spreading digital literacy across all Atal Tinkering Labs in India.

The SoI was signed in the presence of  Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, by Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, Bryan Lamkin, EVP and GM, Digital Media, Adobe and Kulmeet Bawa, Managing Director, Adobe South Asia.

Adobe shall be adopting 100 schools under Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) initiative. Further, Adobe shall be implementing its Digital Disha Program in ATLs, under which free licenses of Adobe Spark premium shall be offered to ATLs. Launched in 2018, the Adobe Digital Disha Programme is aimed at driving synergies in creative thinking and technology-based learning. Under this collaboration with AIM, children and teachers across these schools and communities shall benefit from creative learning resources, thereby empowering them with new age skills to thrive in the current digital era and preparing them for long term success.

By inducting creative tools and skills as part of the ATL content, the collaboration is oriented towards fostering essential digital skill sets across school children in India, to help kindle the spirit of creativity among young minds of a New India.

AIM is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. As a part of AIM, ATLs are being established in more than 5,000 schools in India where students of class 6th to class 12th acquire problem solving and innovation skills, developing innovative solutions leveraging Tinkering technologies like 3D printers, robotics, miniaturised electronics, IOT and programming, do it yourself kits with support from teachers.

The Atal Tinkering Lab is based on the philosophy to identify and nurture innovation in young students across the country. Towards this endeavour, AIM has collaborated with various partners from industry and academia. Such collaborations have resulted in qualitative enhancement of future skills and digital capabilities of the ATL ecosystem.

The Atal Innovation Mission proactively seeks to promote scientific temper and the spirit of entrepreneurship in a New India of tomorrow. Through various initiatives such as the ATL Community Day, Teacher Training Sessions, ATL Marathon, Student Innovator Program, Tinkerfest etc. AIM has successfully integrated students, teachers, mentors, parents and even the governments at the state and local level within a larger fabric of encouraging science skills, digital literacy and creativity.

22-Nov-2018: Cabinet apprised of the MoU between Atal Innovation Mission, India and Fund "Talent and Success", Russia for promotion of science & technology

The Union Cabinet has been apprised of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Atal Innovation Mission, India and Fund "Talent and Success", Russia for promotion of science & technology, strong foundation to the collaborative work through exchange of students, teachers, researchers and scientists between both countries. The MoU was signed on October 5, 2018.

Benefits: The MoU will facilitate promotion of science & technology, strong foundation to the collaborative work through exchange of students, teachers, researchers and scientists between India and Russia.

Major Impact: The MOU will provide a mechanism in taking part in establishing relationships with-schools, universities, cultural institutions, science & technology and specialized education institutions, high-tech companies, startups and innovation centers in both countries. The activities are expected to promote creation of new scientific knowledge, generation of intellectual property, innovations and products development in both countries.

Background: Prime Minister during his visit to Russia during 23-24th December, 2015 visited Sirius Educational Centre in Sochi wherein, it was proposed to invite the Russian students to India to work with Indian students. As a prelude to the recent visit of President of Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin in the first week of October 2018, ten Russian students visited India to work with ten Indian students from five Atal Tinkering Lab schools in an Innovation Boot Camp at IIT, Delhi during October 1-4, 2018. The students worked on innovative concepts for exploring development of new prototypes in five sectors; healthcare, space technology, clean technology, Agri-technology and smart mobility. The prototypes developed were exhibited by the young student innovators before  Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi and  President of Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin and on 5th October, 2018.

Through this MoU, it is proposed to continue the collaborative work between Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), India and Fund "Talent and Success", Russia.

6-Oct-2018: Atal Innovation Mission & SIRIUS sign MoU for promotion of innovative cooperation between students of India & Russia

To promote innovative cooperation between students of India and Russia, a Memorandum of Understanding was exchanged between India’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and the Russian Federation’s SIRIUS Educational Foundation in the presence of the Prime Minister of India Shri. Narendra Modi and the President of Russia H.E. Vladimir Putin, in New Delhi on 5th October 2018.

The MoU hopes to remove cultural and language barriers between students of Russia and India, share the best practices in the promotion of educational, scientific, innovative achievements, promote innovative cooperation, and search and develop talented youth of both countries fostering a knowledge driven innovation ecosystem in both the countries.

“The Atal Innovation Mission continues to grow steadily in its effort to spread the joy of innovation throughout the country. This MoU with SIRIUS Educational Foundation is a step in the right direction. International collaboration will broaden our students’ minds, deepen curiosities, and sharpen their intellect”, said Mr. Ramanan.

About AIM-SIRIUS Innovation Festival 2018: To promote a spirit of collaborative innovation, young innovators of Atal Tinkering Labs and SIRIUS Educational Foundation came together at a four-day Indo-Russian ATL innovation boot-camp from October 1st to October 4th. The boot-camp was organized by Atal Tinkering Labs, Atal Innovation Mission, with support from Department of Design, IIT Delhi. The innovations developed across space technology, healthcare, smart mobility, clean energy and agricultural technology were showcased to  Prime Minister of India and President of Russia  on October 5th.

About Atal Innovation Mission: Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is NITI Aayog’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in India. AIM 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. AIM also serves as a platform for promotion of world-class Innovation Hubs, Grand Challenges, Start-up businesses and other self-employment activities in India, leveraging state of the art, advanced and affordable emerging technologies.

The Atal Innovation Mission has thus two core functions:

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

About SIRIUS Educational Foundation: Fund “Talent and success” is an unitary, non-profit, non-standard educational organization. The activities of the Foundation are aimed to identify and support children and young people who have shown outstanding abilities. Providing assistance in obtaining general and additional education for such personalities, including education in the fields of arts, natural sciences, physical culture and sports.

12-Jun-2018: 3,000 Additional Atal Tinkering Labs Announced

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has selected 3,000 additional schools for the establishment of Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), bringing the total number of ATL schools to 5,441. The selected schools shall receive a grant of Rs 20 lakh spread over the next five years to establish Atal Tinkering Labs for nurturing innovation and entrepreneurial spirit among secondary school children across India. ATLs will soon be established in every district of India, seeking to enable an innovation ecosystem, which will facilitate transformational change in technological innovation and pedagogy.

These additional 3,000 schools will greatly expand the reach of the ATL program, increasing the number of children exposed to tinkering and innovation and providing access to the young innovators of India to technologies like 3D Printing, Robotics, IoT and microprocessors.

These additional schools will facilitate the creation of over One Million Neoteric Child Innovators by 2020. ATLs will function as innovation hubs for these student innovators to explore solutions to unique local problems which they come across in their everyday lives. These new additions take the number of ATLs to 5,441 representing all states and five out of seven union territories.

With these new schools, NITI Aayog’s AIM envisions strong growth in the collaborative ecosystem created by the ATL initiative, where students, teachers, mentors and industry partners work to facilitate innovation, foster scientific temper and an entrepreneurial spirit in the children of today, who will go on to become successful contributors to nation-building tomorrow.

These newly selected schools will be contacted soon with all details regarding the formalities they have to complete to receive the grant and establish the Atal Tinkering Lab on their premises.

About Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog
The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. AIM is mandated to create an umbrella structure to oversee innovation ecosystem of the country and revolutionizing the innovation eco-system - touching upon the entire innovation life cycle through various programs. The Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) create innovators, Atal Incubation Centres and support to Established Incubation Centre ensure that innovations are taken to the market and help create enterprises around these innovations.

26-Apr-2018: NITI Aayog announces the launch of Atal New India Challenges

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) of the NITI Aayog announced to launch the Atal New India Challenges, which came into being following Prime Minister’s clarion call to bring innovations and technologies relevant to the people.

Applicants showing capability, intent, and potential to productize technologies will be awarded grants up to Rs. One crore. This grant support will be supplemented by mentoring, handholding, incubating and other support as needed at various stages of commercialisation. while generating wider deployment.

This initiative will focus our efforts towards solving problems in core areas, which would have a direct impact on improving lives of our citizens and will also generate employment. The topics placed in different phases are aligned with India’s needs.

Partnering with the Ministries of Road Transport and Highways, Housing and Urban Affairs, Agriculture and Family Welfare, Drinking Water & Sanitation and the Railway Board, AIM will attempt to harness the potential of India’s innovators.

CEO, NITI Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant emphasised the need to identify unique technological solutions to problems unique to India. Bringing more innovations to the service of Indian citizens will require more individuals and entities to innovate for Indian needs, and take innovative products to market through several mechanisms, such as startups, government schemes, or other deployment mechanisms. The challenges are being issued after rigorous consultations and discussions with the partner ministries.

Under the Atal New India Challenge, which shall be run in collaboration with five ministries, AIM will invite prospective innovators/MSMEs/start-ups to  design market-ready products, using cutting edge technologies or prototypes across 17 identified focus areas, namely,

1. Climate-smart agriculture
2. Fog vision system for road and rail
3. Prevention of Rail failure using emerging technologies
4. Predictive maintenance of Rolling Stock
5. Alternate fuel based transportation
6. Smart Mobility
7. Electric Mobility
8. Safe transport
9. Instant Portable Water Quality Testing
10. Affordable Desalination / Recycling Technology
11. Waste management recycling / reuse
12. Garbage composition devices
13. Quality of compost
14. Decentralized composting
15. Mixing blades for composting
16. Waste in public spaces
17. Dissuading public littering

The programme is open to Indian companies registered under the Companies Act 1956/2013, primarily a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) as defined in the MSMED Act, 2006. It is also open to Start-Ups, as defined by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government or private R&D organizations (other than a Railway R&D organization), academic institutions, academicians, or even individual innovators are encouraged to apply, provided they partner with entities with appropriate manufacturing capabilities.

Grants shall be awarded in up to 3 tranches within 12 – 18 months, contingent on achieving milestones and up to a total of 50 grants in fiscal year 2018 – 19 may be given out. The grants will not be mutually exclusive - several grants may be given in a focus area.

17-Apr-2018: Atal Tinkering Labs Celebrate Annual Community Day

Atal Tinkering Labs, under the Atal Innovation Mission of the NITI Aayog, were envisioned as innovative makerspaces, setup across India, in every school, accessible to every child. Equipped with modern technologies to help navigate and impart crucial skills in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the ATLs are at the vanguard of the promoting scientific temper and an entrepreneurial spirit in children today.

The ATL Community Day initiative is an effort to spread awareness as well as engage the local communities in the neighbourhood of an Atal Tinkering Lab, to come and experience the exciting new world of science and future technologies. The Annual Community Day was held across India, over the course of April 13 – 16, with the larger theme of Ambedkar Jayanti, which was celebrated on April 14. AIM has selected more than 2400 schools in 2017 for establishing Atal Tinkering Labs.

As the world grapples with evolving technologies, a new set of skills have gained popular acceptance and have come to be in high demand. For India to contribute significantly during this age of rapid technological advancement, there is an urgent need to empower our youth with these ‘skills of the future’.

Computational thinking, Internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, design thinking, advanced robotics – to name a few – are becoming increasingly relevant today. And Atal Tinkering Labs have evolved as epicenters for imparting these ‘skills of the future’ through practical applications based on self-learning. Bridging a crucial social divide, Atal Tinkering Labs provide equal opportunity to all children across the spectrum by working at the grassroot level, introducing children to the world of innovation and tinkering.

Further establishing itself as an agent of community-level, inclusive innovation, children from other schools and/or who are not enrolled in the formal education system are also being introduced to the ‘tinkering’ phenomenon through the ATL Community Day initiative.

AIM is paying tribute to the late Dr. B.R. Ambedkar by hosting its nationwide Atal Community Day Initiative on 14th April,2018. ATLs seek to integrate his philosophy of providing equal opportunity to everyone by opening up the doors of their Atal Tinkering Labs to the neighboring schools and NGOs who support the education of underprivileged children. Up to 30,000 new students were exposed during Community Day celebrations to the Atal Tinkering Labs and its philosophy of creating an environment of creativity and innovation.

The students undertook sessions in Design Thinking and Hands on Learning activities, which composes of the basic elements of the first Atal Innovation Mission integration module for the Atal Tinkering Labs. The sessions were conducted by trained mentors, teachers and Atal Tinkering Lab students who have completed the Atal Tinkering Lab modules. Innovation for all, by all, peer-to-peer learning mixed with expert guidance and enthusiastic mentors.

Tinkering is to explore, experiment and step beyond your textbooks. Tinkering is to identify problems and create solutions. Tinkering is to try, and try again. Tinkering is all about learning and sometimes, failing too. Students are free to explore ideas across sectors like aerospace, medical diagnostics, clean energy, clean water, biotechnology and many more in ATLs. Young student teams from ATLs in Puducherry and Kolhapur, Maharashtra have been innovating new ways to generate electricity from sewage water. This is one innovative idea. There are more such innovations, ideas, patents waiting to be realised in young minds. ATLs will create many more such young student innovators across every Indian district, and initiatives like ATL Community Day not only amplify the impact, but have the potential to effect transformational change at the societal level.

27-Mar-2018: NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission Signs SOI with SAP Global To foster innovation across 100 Atal Tinkering Labs across India

NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) announced the signing of a Statement of Intent (SOI) with SAP to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. As part of the SOI, SAP in 2018 will adopt 100 Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATL) for five years to nurture the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) learning among secondary school children across India.

India’s growth for the next few decades will depend on the innovations coming out of these tinkering labs. Tomorrow’s ideas come from students, who will disrupt industries and creative sectors with new technologies and processes which will thrust India into the leadership position for technological creativity and innovation. This is possible only through effective public-private partnership and we are delighted to have SAP partner with us on AIM to nurture the future talent of our country. The program aims to enable students to learn advanced technology topics relevant to digital transformation and the Internet of Things, e.g. Design Thinking methodology, introduction to programming languages and experiential science learning.

This partnership shall help support and boost innovations from the ATLs. The support to Atal Incubators will catalyze adoption of the innovations to commercial scales, ensuring deployment of the innovations to the domestic and international markets quickly and efficiently.

SAP employee volunteers will coach and mentor students in advanced technology topics and the design lab of SAP Labs India, will provide trainings and allow students to gain hands-on experience with technology gadgets.

NITI Aayog’s AIM envisions the creation of a collaborative ecosystem, where students, teachers, mentors and industry partners work to facilitate innovation, foster scientific temper and an entrepreneurial spirit in the children of today, who will go on to become successful contributors to nation-building tomorrow.

The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country. AIM is mandated to create an umbrella structure to oversee innovation ecosystem of the country and revolutionizing the innovation eco-system - touching upon the entire innovation life cycle through various programs. Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATLs) create innovators, Atal Incubation Centre and support to Established Incubation Centre will take the innovations to the market and a network of Incubators shall help create enterprises around these innovations.

Till date, AIM has already announced selection of 2441 schools across India to establish ATLs, covering 93% of the total districts in India and 98% of the upcoming smart cities representing all states and 5 out of 7 UTs. In the last one year, more than 50,000+ school students have been engaged in ATLs.

The goal remains to expand the reach of ATLs to every district of our country and establish over 30,000 ATLs covering the length and breadth of India over next three years. AIM also ensures training of teachers and mentors and organized a pan-India training workshop “Unbox Tinkering” which lasted over 100 days and at 10 locations. 500+ teachers were trained and 100+ prototypes created by teachers from different streams of science, mathematics, history etc. Several other initiatives, including ‘ATL School of the Month Challenge’, Community Day are conducted frequently to engage the ATLs. The next edition of the Community Day on April 14, , on which children, parents and teachers of all schools near an ATL will be invited to come experience innovation first-hand.