NITI Aayog Launches Student Entrepreneurship Programme To Recognise Top 6 Innovations

Government’s think tank NITI Aayog has taken up the onus to nurture and support student innovation in the country. For this, NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), in partnership with Dell and Learning Links Foundation, has launched “Nayee Dishayen, Naye Nirman” programme to celebrate the top six innovations of the country under Atal Tinkering Lab.

The Student Entrepreneurship Programme has selected the six innovations in key social sectors of agritech, healthcare, clean energy, smart mobility, waste management and water resources. These solutions have come from Hyderabad (Telangana), Pune (Maharashtra), Changlang (Arunachal Pradesh), Goa, Satna (Madhya Pradesh) and Delhi.

These six teams are being awarded a 10-month ATL Student Entrepreneurship Programme with DELL which will help them transform their innovative prototypes into fully functioning products and ready to go to market.

Atal Tinkering Lab is the flagship programme of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog which acts as a catalyst of growth by embedding the value of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship amongst children as young as 12 years old. Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, said, “Over 3500 children from different parts of the country came together to develop over 650 product ideas to solve everyday problems using latest technologies and their out of box thinking.”

The Student Entrepreneurship Programme aims to serve as a catalyst and help accelerate the entrepreneurial journey of the young innovators in creating a new innovative India.

Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog said, “Promoting innovation is key to creating sustainable solutions for a New India. The Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog is transforming curriculum and pedagogy by encouraging the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in young minds. By ensuring children are exposed to cutting edge technologies in Atal Tinkering Labs, a whole generation of creative individuals are being created who are poised to become job creators and not just job seekers.”

NITI Aayog had set a target of 5K Atal tinkering labs by March 2019 and further allowed 3,000 additional schools to set up Atal Tinkering Labs under its Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). NITI Aayog further looks to establish Atal Tinkering Labs in every district of the country in line with its vision of enabling an innovation ecosystem which will facilitate transformational change in technological innovation and pedagogy.

According to the data available on Atal Tinkering Labs website, 5,441 schools in the country have the labs for more than 60 Lakh students. With the Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU) programme in order to foster innovation is the core of Atal Innovation Missions, student innovation continues to be the key growth enabler of the Indian startup ecosystem.