Atal Innovation Mission

Context:

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 thatISRO has adopted Atal Tinkering Labs across the country in the field of space education and technology

About:

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

Major initiatives taken in first year of establishment:

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

(1) Atal Tinkering Labs:

Background

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. The objective of this scheme is to foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.

Key Features of ATL

ATL is a work space where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills. Young children will get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). ATL would contain educational and learning ‘do it yourself’ kits and equipment on – science, electronics, robotics, open source microcontroller boards, sensors and 3D printers and computers. Other desirable facilities include meeting rooms and video conferencing facility.

In order to foster inventiveness among students, ATL can conduct different activities ranging from regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, workshops on problem solving, designing and fabrication of products, lecture series etc. at periodic intervals.

Financial Support

AIM will provide grant-in-aid of Rs. 20 Lakh to each school that includes a one-time establishment cost of Rs. 10 lakh and operational expenses of Rs. 10 lakh for a maximum period of 5 years to each ATL.

Eligibility

Schools (minimum Grade VI – X) managed by Government, local body or private trusts/society to set up ATL.

(2) Atal Incubation Centre:

Background

AIM intends to support the establishment of new incubation centres called Atal Incubation Centres (AICs) that would nurture innovative start-up businesses in their pursuit to become scalable and sustainable enterprises. The AICs would create world class incubation facilities across various parts of India with suitable physical infrastructure in terms of capital equipment and operating facilities, coupled with the availability of sectoral experts for mentoring the start-ups, business planning support, access to seed capital, industry partners, trainings and other relevant components required for encouraging innovative start-ups. Moreover, AICs would be established in subject specific areas such as manufacturing, transport, energy, health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation etc.

Eligibility

Entities such as such as higher educational institutions, R&D institutes, corporate sector, alternative investment funds registered with SEBI, business accelerators, group of individuals, and individuals are eligible to apply.

Financial Support

AIM will provide a grant-in-aid of upto Rs. 10 crore for a maximum period of 5 years to cover the capital and operational expenditures to establish the AIC.

Requirements

The applicant would have to provide at least 10,000 sq. ft. of ready-to-use, built-up space, for the exclusive use of the AIC.

(3) Atal New India Challenge (ANIC):

One of Atal Innovation Mission’s primary goals is to incentivize innovation in areas critical to India’s growth. The innovative solutions in the areas like health, housing, hygiene, energy and water can impact directly on livelihood of all sections of society. Researchers have long talked of the ‘Valleys of Death’ at the early stage and commercialization stage in taking innovations to market. The Atal New India Challenge aims to address the second Commercialization Valley of Death, in which innovators are unable to access resources for piloting, testing, and market creation. Total of 24 challenges are launched in partnership with five different ministries and departments of central government. (http://aim.gov.in/atal-new-india-challenge.php)

The vision of ANIC is two-fold:

• help create products from existing technologies relevant for national and social causes (productization);
• help new deep-tech products find markets and early customers (commercialization) in the context of India.

The scope of the program extends to developing an institutional mechanism and structure to channel potential innovative ideas for products and technologies from Startups and MSMEs on their own or along with R&D organizations, academic institutions and even individual innovators

(4) Mentor of Change Program

Mentor of Change Program is a strategic nation building initiative to engage leaders who can guide and mentor students in thousands of Atal Tinkering Labs and startups and incubators under the programs of Atal Innovation Mission across India. We are looking for leaders who can spend 1 to 2 hours every week in one or more such labs or with the startups/incubators and enable them to experience, learn and practice future skills such as design and computational thinking and inculcate the spark of innovation and entrepreneurship.
These labs are non-prescriptive by nature, and mentors are expected to be enablers rather than instructors.

Possible areas of contribution could be, but not limited to:

• Technical Knowhow: building prototypes,
• Innovation and Design: inculcating solution-oriented approach,
• Inspirational: leadership and self-motivation, and
• Business and Entrepreneurship: encouraging ideas and team building
• Sounding board / guide, break stereotypes and bias to bring about mind set and behavioural change.

(5) Atal Community Innovation Center:

Atal Innovation Mission has taken this new initiative to support community innovation drive in the country. The program is directed to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution driven design thinking to serve the society. It will focus on undeserved/unserved regions of the country which at present lack a vibrant startup and innovation ecosystem.

Proposed Focus Areas: Underserved/unserved regions of Tier 1 / metro cities, Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities, Smart Cities, Aspirational districts, North-East, J&K and Rural and Tribal regions of India.

Purpose: Offer unique and incentivized solutions which will encourage students, researchers or any individual/group of individuals to ideate and design novel solutions. In order to meet this purpose, the program offers infrastructure for building innovation ecosystem in above mentioned locations. Following are the distinguishing features of the program:

• Offer an opportunity for everyone to innovate, ideate and design impactful solutions, irrespective of their age
• Community oriented approach to innovation by enabling solutions through advanced tinkering
• Nurture researchers and innovators to ideate solutions in areas of societal importance
• Capacity building of emerging innovators in evolving technologies and designing their innovations from ideation to impactful solutions
• Design thinking process to spur creativity
• Partnerships with local industries/institutions in problem solving through innovative offerings in terms products, services and processes
• Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode to ensure support for financial sustainability and encouraging participation of central agencies, PSUs, other legal entities etc. to mobilize resources for running the program

Funding Mechanism:

The centers will be established either in PPP mode or with support of PSUs and other agencies. The maximum grant-in-aid support from AIM will be up to 2.5 crores subject following the compliance to program guidelines and contributing matching from the host institutions and their funding partner(s).

(6) Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-Atal New India Challenge (ANIC)

The Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-Atal New India Challenge (ANIC) program is national initiative to promote research & innovation and increase competitiveness of Indian startups and MSMEs.
The objective of Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-ANIC program is to proactively collaborate with five esteemed Ministries and the associated industries to catalyse research, innovation and facilitate innovative solutions to sectoral problems. The objective is also to provide a steady stream of innovative products & solutions where the Central Government Ministries / Departments will become the potential first buyers.
The Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-ANIC program is in line with the Honourable Prime Minister’s mandate of “Make in India”, “Startup India”, “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” to fast track the growth of the Indian MSME sector.

Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) Adoption by ISRO

In an online event organised on January 11, 2021, Department of Space and Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog announced that ISRO will be adopting 100 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) across the country, out of which 45 ATLs were adopted in phase 1 on January 11, 2021 and remaining 55 ALTS will be adopted soon, to promote education in the field of STEM, Space education and Space technology related innovations for school students.

An Atal Tinkering Lab provides activity based learning in the identified schools across the country where young minds can give shape to their ideas for societal problems. It also fosters entrepreneurship and innovation, enabling over 3 Million+ students between Grade VI to Grade XII to acquire a problem solving, tinkering and innovative mindset.