ShopClues Co-Founder among top CEOs to lend support NITI Aayog in the Mentor India Initiative
New Delhi: Founders and CEOs of top Indian companies volunteer to become ‘Super Mentors’ for NITI Aayog’s recently launched Mentor India initiative. Envisaged to be India’s largest formal mentor network, Mentor India aims to engage professionals from the industry and academic world to voluntarily guide and mentor students in 900+ Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) across India.
The ‘Super Mentors’, who are established entrepreneurs across various fields, will conduct mentor sessions with school children to give direction to ideas of young innovators and to create innovators in the future. The first in a series of these sessions was conducted by Radhika Aggarwal, Co-Founder, ShopClues at the Gyan Mandir School Tinkering Lab, Naraina Vihar. She interacted with students to mentor and guide their activities in the ATLs. ShopClues’ VP, Product Tech, Ambardeep, was also present at the event and participated in the discussion with the students.
ATLs are dedicated work spaces for students to learn problem solving, innovative skills and to develop ideas to transform India by tinkering with latest technologies. One of the primary initiatives of the Atal Innovation Mission, ATLs are a crucial effort by the Government of India to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
Speaking on this occasion, Ms. Radhika Aggarwal, Co-Founder, and CBO, ShopClues, said, “India has always been an educational power house but lags in shaping students’ ideas through a hands-on do-it-yourself mode. Fostering curiosity, creativity, and imagination in young minds goes a long way in creating future leaders and entrepreneurs and I believe that the Atal Tinkering Lab is a great step in fulfilling this objective. These young minds have a lot of potential and we had some constructive exchange of thoughts. I am glad that I got this opportunity to prepare and mentor the next generation of innovators and would like to thank NITI Aayog for the same and look forward to more such sessions.”
Mr. R. Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, added, “Atal Innovation Mission is committed to creating an ecosystem of innovation nationwide. The Atal Tinkering Labs is a significant initiative to foster a problem solving innovative mindset in school students leveraging latest technologies for learning problem solving and thereby create the innovators of tomorrow. We are grateful to all mentors for their support to this noble cause”.
ShopClues is in discussions with Atal Innovation Mission to adopt three Atal Tinkering Labs, and Radhika, along with Senior Leaders from her team will be mentoring the schools under this program. They will be discussing a range of topics under various themes, such as Technical Knowhow: building prototypes, Innovation and Design: inculcating solution oriented approach, Inspirational: leadership and self-motivation, Business and Entrepreneurship: encouraging ideas and team building and being a sounding board/guide.