NITI Aayog celebrates ATL Community Day
Community Drive Initiative aimed at extending innovation to over 200 children not enrolled in the formal education system
Atal Innovation Mission under the aegis of NITI Aayog, celebrated the Community Drive Initiative as part of ATL Community Day today. As a part of the unique initiative, 25 young mentors interacted with over 200 children not enrolled in the formal education system through brief sessions conducted at four locations in New Delhi. The idea is to extend innovation to children in the community so they can become problem solvers.
The Mission Director of the Atal Innovation Mission, R. Ramanan said that through the ATL Community Day Initiative, Atal Innovation Mission Mentors will inspire in these students the spirit of innovation and problem solving through tinkering with emerging technologies and provide opportunities to realize their creative abilities.
Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, in collaboration with multiple partners has completed 1 year of Atal Tinkering Labs in India. During the year, 900+ ATLs have been announced, covering 388 districts across India, 79 smart cities, with more than 40% of these labs in government-funded public schools.
AIM targets to have at least one Atal Tinkering Lab in every district and proposed Smart City of India.
According to NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant the Young mentors are disrupting education system in India with ATLs. New thoughts, new ideas and new solutions will emerge to bring India to a global platform in terms of innovation.
Earlier this July, 600 students from more than 50 schools across the Delhi National Capital Region took part in a two-day Tinkering Fest, which was a 48-hour ideathon for school students to introduce and expose them to the world of Tinkering and Innovation.
In order to ensure that the Atal Tinkering Labs In-Charge understand the philosophy of the labs, and are suitably technically equipped to guide the students, AIM organized training workshops across India. Called Unbox Tinkering, supported by two large technology firms, these workshops lasted over 100 days and were conducted at 10 locations. 500+ teachers have been trained and hundreds of prototypes created by teachers from different streams of science, mathematics, history etc.
Several other initiatives, including ‘ATL School of the Month Challenge’, are conducted frequently to engage the ATLs. Additionally, a two-month long ‘Atal Tinkering Marathon’ was conducted across 6 focus areas that align with the national mission – Clean energy, health, smart mobility, smart agriculture, waste management and water resources. It is a platform to identify and showcase best performing ATLs. An estimated 30000+ students participated, 650+ innovation entries submitted. Mentors will work closely with top 100 to refine their solutions.
With all this activity and engagement, some of the top performing ATLs participated at multiple external events including World Robotic Olympiad, and Maker Faire.