Atal Mission to help set up more tinkering, innovation labs

The Atal Innovation Mission under the Niti Aayog is in the process of setting up over 2,000 tinkering labs and 50-plus innovation labs in the country by the end of this fiscal.

The project, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to during his speech at the GES inaugural session, is seen as an initiative that will create the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The Mission is seen playing a critical role in encouraging innovation at the grassroots level among children and in colleges.

R Ramanan, Director, Atal Innovation Mission, told BusinessLine that the Niti Aayog was instrumental in setting up of about 941 labs in schools across the country and the focus now is on setting up 2,000 such labs by March next.

These labs would expose students to learning of a different kind — where they get to innovate.

The larger objective is to have labs in each and every district of the county where students can converge and get to work on projects they would like to innovate. “While these tinkering labs would be in schools, we are doing something similar with innovation centres in colleges and institutions of higher learning.

“Thus far, 19 innovation centres have been set up in leading universities and colleges and our immediate goal is to set up 50 such labs by March next year,” he said.

Both these tinkering labs and innovation centres would be funded by the government and supported by local industries, which will mentor the people and help take ideas to the next level.

“We already have applications from more than 2,500 schools seeking to set up tinkering labs and also from colleges for innovation centres.

“However, such schools need to have some basic infrastructure to be selected and funded to set up such centres,” he said.

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