IT Correspondent
New Delhi, April 15:
With an objective to bridge the gap between schools and higher educational institutions, the ATAL Innovation Mission(AIM) has joined hands with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to mentor school student innovators across the country through AICTE’s Institution Innovation councils (IICs).
The strategic collaboration between AIM and AICTE was announced on the occasion of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Jayanti on Wednesday, to empower the students of ATAL Tinkering Lab(ATLs) with world class innovation skills across the country.
Partnership
The partnership between AIM and AICTE seeks to connect over 7200 “ATAL Tinkering Labs” (ATLs) in schools, with nearly 2500 IICs functioning in higher educational institutions across the country. ATLs are equipped with facilities to provide tinkering opportunities to school students to work on innovative projects and improve their innovation abilities.
Whereas AICTE’s IICs in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) seek to engage students and faculties in innovation and entrepreneurship activities. This partnership will see actions like online mentoring, lecture sessions, group projects, visits of key stakeholders etc. from both sides.
Both ATL and IIC models have proved effective to tap the creative potential of youth and engage them in entrepreneurial manifestations. To make these models stronger and impactful, adoption of ATLs by IICs, will be very helpful. Moreover, this move is also aligned with the New Education Policy-2020 objective of bridging gap between schools and higher educational institutions. Also the collaboration will offer a unique opportunity for students to participate in innovation contests and they will have an access to university ecosystem support etc.
Speaking during the virtual event to announce the partnership with AICTE, ATAL Mission Innovation Director R Ramanan said “AICTE and AIM have developed a strategic partnership over the last couple of years. The adoption of ATLs and their students by AICTE’s IICs, will greatly enhance the spurring of relevant knowledge and innovative thinking among the ATL school students.
AICTE Chairman Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe stressed upon training students as well as inculcating Indian Knowledge Systems and values associated with it. “I am really happy about this collaboration through which we will be able to not just mentor innovative students, but will also be able to embed the Indian knowledge sharing value systems among them. I believe giving back to society is much more crucial value to be imbibed in itself. Therefore, while we aim to embed Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, machine learning, deep learning, 3D, block chain, augmented reality, virtual reality etc and train students, we must also focus on how it also endorses along with value systems,” he asserted.
In his address, Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at Union Ministry of Education, Dr. Abhay Jere said “If we really wish to emerge as a truly innovative nation then we have to ensure that we have a huge pipeline of great ideas. In this context, I believe that this partnership between ATAL Innovation Mission and IICs will contribute immensely, enabling a seamless flow of ideas and human resources thereby creating a generation with entrepreneurial mindset.”
