By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, MAY 09, 2018: In a move to identify India’s best student innovators, Atal Tinkering Labs  of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) of NITI Aayog, organized an Atal Tinkering Marathon, a six month long nationwide challenge across six different thematic areas, namely, clean energy, water resources, waste management, healthcare, smart mobility and agri-tech. 

From over 650 innovations received, Top 100 were shortlisted based on novelty and prototype functionality. There 100 teams were then given a month to further refine their prototypes and rework their presentations. Following this, their innovations were judged by an esteemed panel of judges including industry and academia experts to select the Top 30 innovations. These top 30 innovations have been identified from 20 different States and Union territories from across India. 

These Top 30 innovations and their prizes will be announced by Mr Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman, NITI Aayog. 

Atal Tinkering Labs under the Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog, is based on the philosophy that incentives and prize awards are a great beginning to create an exponential wave of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst school children. The ATL Student Innovator Program is an effort to institutionalize a mechanism, where high school students can work with university incubators to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas along with their education. Our goal is to drive extensive forward and backward linkages within the stakeholders in India, to create a paradigm shift in the student mindset and prepare them to become young innovators and entrepreneurs.