The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), an initiative of NITI Aayog, along with Dell Technologies, has launched the second edition of the Student Entrepreneurship Programme (SEP 2.0). Aimed at student innovators from the Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), this program is a follow-up to SEP 1.0, which was initiated in January 2019. The purpose of the program is to provide a platform for students to develop their innovative ideas with the help of industry mentors.
SEP 2.0: Fostering Student Innovations
SEP 2.0 intends to enable student innovators to work in collaboration with Dell volunteers. This initiative provides mentorship, support in prototyping and testing, end-user feedback, intellectual property registration, and patenting of ideas, processes, and products. Moreover, it also assists in manufacturing and launching the product in the market.
In its previous season, the ATL Marathon, a nationwide contest for students to identify and solve community challenges, saw as many as 1,500 innovations submitted. Of these, 50 teams were chosen and mentored by Atal Incubation Centres via the Student Innovator Programme 2.0, which offers business and entrepreneurship skills to students. The top eight teams will be able to take their prototypes to the product stage through SEP 2.0.
Looking Back: SEP 1.0
SEP 1.0 was a long-running programme, spread over ten months. The top six teams from the ATL Marathon 2017 used this platform to turn their innovative prototypes into fully functional products, which are now available on the market.
Atal Tinkering Labs: Nurturing Young Innovators
With the vision of cultivating one million children in India as modern innovators, AIM is establishing Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) in schools across the country. This step is taken with the aim to transform the Indian education system, introducing children as young as 12 years old to technological innovation.
Objectives and Eligibility
ATLs are designed to foster curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young minds, instilling skills like design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, and physical computing. Schools from Grade VI to X, managed by the government, local bodies or private trusts/societies, are eligible to establish these labs.
Financial Aid and Features
AIM extends a grant-in-aid of Rs. 20 Lakh to each school, which includes a one-time establishment cost of Rs. 10 lakh and operational expenses of Rs. 10 lakh for up to five years for each ATL. These labs serve as workspaces where young minds can materialize their ideas and learn innovation skills. Here, students have the opportunity to work with tools and equipment to grasp concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths).
CollabCAD and Other Activities
The CollabCAD program was introduced in ATL schools to give students hands-on experience of creating and modifying 3D designs. To encourage inventiveness among students, ATLs conduct various activities such as regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, problem-solving workshops, product designing and fabrication sessions, and lecture series at regular intervals.
