Innovative J&K: NITI Ayog to establish 500 ATLs to nurture talent, promote scientific temper

SRINAGAR, AUGUST 26: NITI Ayog is establishing more than 500 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) under Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) in Jammu and Kashmir.

ATL is the flagship initiative of AIM launched by the Government of India, to nurture an innovative mindset amongst high school students across the length and breadth of India.

Centre is working on a five-year vision document for AIM to create and promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across the length and breadth of the country.

ATL is a workspace where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands-on do-it-yourself mode and learn innovation skills. The objectives of the AIM are to create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country via interventions at school, university, research institutions, MSME, and industry levels.

The programs of AIM cover 34 states and Union Territories to leverage India’s demographic dividend by inspiring greater participation in the innovation ecosystem.

Recently AIM Team led by Mission Director, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav inspected the Atal Tinkering Labs in J&K during which creative students displayed their innovative models and briefed about the challenges they faced while working on these innovations.

On the occasion, the MD said that the Atal team has created over 10k Tinkering Labs all over India and hundreds of these have been also established in J&K schools.

He said the AIM is establishing more than 500 labs in J&K schools in the next few years to promote an innovative and creative mindset among J&K students. “We want to take this creative and innovative movement to all schools and provide these creative minds a platform to perform and showcase their talent”, He added.

He said the aim is to encourage young minds in the field, and challenge students to become producers of products themselves instead of consumers.

The government has directed School Education Department to promote scientific temper among the students in areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence by proactively engaging them in various experiments and scientific activities.

They have also been asked to fix timelines for setting up the laboratories and to emphasize the nomination of trainers or champions to run the labs against suitable incentives.