Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog (AIM) is the flagship program of the Government of India set up with an objective to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
In order to propel the country into the fourth industrial revolution, riding on a wave of the knowledge economy, AIM has been given the mandate to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in the country. AIM has the following broad objectives:
In order to achieve these objectives, AIM has initiated a number of programs through which it is trying to influence the innovation ecosystem in the country.
Guided by the Expert Committee report on innovation and entrepreneurship in India, headed by Prof. Tarun Khanna, AIM is taking a very structured approach towards catalyzing and influencing the innovation lifecycle in the country. The objective is generating interest in innovation by providing a platform to innovate and some basic training to facilitate innovation. Once the interest is generated and ability to innovate is created, incentives should be provided that encourage innovations by the youth of the country. Finally, AIM supports establishment of institutions that shall support and nurture innovations in a sustainable manner. All this is done through various programs of AIM such as the Atal Tinkering Labs, Atal Incubation Centres, Scaling up support to Established Incubation Centres, Atal Vikas Challenges, Atal Grand Challenges.
The Atal Tinkering Labs program inculcates the culture and the attitude of innovation in young impressionable minds of school students. The seeds of innovation are sown to kick-start the process of innovations.
The Atal Grand Challenges program, that incentivizes innovation right at the lab level to solve the socio-economic challenges of the country, can be mapped to the start of the innovation lifecycle.
As the innovation moves out of the lab and converts itself into a prototype that is being pilot tested, The Atal Vikas Challenges program provides for building of prototypes for proven technologies and funds for testing of the innovation in partnership with a potential producer / consumer of the innovated product.
The Atal Incubation Centres and the Scaling up support to Established Incubation Centres programs that fund world class incubation facilities, assist in commercialization of the technology innovations through business planning, testing and marketing support.
Courtesy: Healthy India Chronicle
