Atal Innovation Mission

In News 

• Recently, the Union Cabinet approved continuation of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), till March 2023. 

About 

• The AIM shall work on its intended target of creating an innovation culture and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. 
  • This will be done by AIM via its various programs.
• The intended targets that will be achieved by AIM are:
  • Establishing 10000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs),
  • Establishing 101 Atal Incubation Centres (AICs),
  • Establishing 50 Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACICs) and
  • Supporting 200 startups via the Atal New India Challenges.

• The total budgeted expenditure of  Rs.2000+ crore shall be incurred in the process of the establishment and supporting the beneficiaries.

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)

• Launched by NITI aayog, AIM is the Government of India’s flagship initiative to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in the country.
• Objectives: 
  • To create and promote an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship across the country via interventions at school, university, research institutions, MSME and industry levels.
  • To provide platform and collaboration opportunities for different stakeholders.
• Few Major Initiatives:
  • Atal Tinkering Labs: Creating a problem-solving mindset across schools in India.
  • Atal Incubation Centres: Fostering world-class startups and adding a new dimension to the incubator model.
  • Atal New India Challenges: Fostering product innovations and aligning them to the needs of various sectors/ministries.
  • Mentor India Campaign: A national mentor network in collaboration with the public sector, corporates and institutions.
  • Atal Community Innovation Centre: To stimulate community-centric innovation and ideas in the unserved /underserved regions including Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
  • Atal Research and Innovation for Small Enterprises (ARISE): To stimulate innovation and research in the MSME industry.
  • Apart from the above initiatives, it has also launched AIM Prime, AIM iCREST, etc to boost industrial exposure of students and innovators.
• Achievements 
  • the AIM has worked on integrating innovation ecosystem both nationally and globally:
    • Bilateral relations
      • The AIM has created bilateral relations with various international agencies for building synergistic collaboration on innovation and entrepreneurship such as the AIM – SIRIUS Student Innovation exchange program with Russia, AIM – ICDK (Innovation Centre Denmark) Water Challenge with Denmark, and IACE (India Australian Circular Economy Hackathon) with Australia.
      • The AIMs played a pivotal role in the success of InSpreneur, an Innovation Startup Summit hosted between India and Singapore.
    • Defence sector
      • The AIM partnered with the Ministry of Defence to set up the Defence Innovation Organisation which is fostering innovation as well as procurement in the defence sector.

• Startups 
  • The AIM supported startups have raised 2000+ Crores from the government and private equity investors and have created several thousand jobs. 

Source:PIB