Page 25 - NIS English November16-30

WHAT IS AIM?
Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is Government's
flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation
Atal New India Challenge and entrepreneurship in the country. Set up by the
(ANIC) NITI Aayog, the objective of AIM is to develop

l One of AIM’s primary goals is new programmes and policies for fostering
to incentivise innovation in ar- innovation in different sectors of the economy,
eas critical to India’s growth provide platform and collaboration opportunities
l The innovative solutions in for different stakeholders, create awareness and
the areas like health, housing,
hygiene, energy and water also create an umbrella structure to oversee the
can impact directly on liveli- innovation ecosystem of the country.
hood of all sections of society IDEA BEHIND AIM:
l A total of 24 challenges are Former Prime Minister late Lal Bahadur Shastri
launched in partnership with
five different ministries and gave us the slogan of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan.
departments of the Central Later, former Prime Minister late Atal Bihari
Government
l Under this, the innovation has
to be launched in the markets 4ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS: The UGC and
in six months AICTE-affiliated universities, colleges;
voluntary and other organisations hav-
Rs sanctioned for research, which ing good experience and exposure in
50 has to be delivered in 1 to 1.5 awareness and promotion of Science

Lakh years and Technology in the country; educa-
tional institutions like ITIs and other
technical diploma colleges.

4FUNDING MECHANISM: The centres
will be established either in PPP mode
or with support of PSUs and other agen-
cies. The maximum grant-in-aid support
from AIM will be Rs 2.5 Crore

Vajpayee added Jai Vigyan to it. Prime Minister
Mentor of Change (World-class Narendra Modi took it a step further by adding Jai
training of talent) Anusandhan to it. This is not merely a slogan but
l The programme is a strategic nation-building initiative the vision of the Government.
to engage leaders who can guide and mentor students
in thousands of Atal Tinkering Labs and startups and AIM has been envisaged as an umbrella
incubators under programmes of AIM innovation organisation that plays an instrumental
l People who can spend 1 to 2 hours every week in one role in alignment of innovation policies between
or more such labs or with startups/incubators and Central, State and Sectoral innovation schemes
enable them to experience, learn and practice future
skills such as design and computational thinking and incentivising the establishment and promotion of
inculcate the spark of innovation and entrepreneur- an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship
ship are made mentors at various levels - higher secondary schools,
l These labs are non-prescriptive in nature, and science, engineering and higher academic
mentors are expected to be enablers rather than
instructors institutions, and SME/MSME industry, corporate

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