PIB Summary- 31st July, 2021 | PIB (Press Information Bureau) Summary - UPSC PDF Download

‘ATL Tinkerpreneur Bootcamp’

Details

• Designed for high school students across the nation, ‘ATL Tinkerpreneur’ saw a record-breaking 9000+ participants (including 4000+ girl participants) across 32 states and 298 districts.
• The boot camp witnessed participation from 820 ATLs, 50+ live expert speaker sessions were conducted with over 4.5 lakh views and imparted 30+ digital and entrepreneurial skills.
• The boot camp was focused on cultivating a hands-on innovative mindset among students.
• These participants learnt the required digital skills, created and developed a business model around a digital product, generated a marketing plan, developed/established an online store, learnt business finance and culminated it by presenting their pitch deck in front of Industry experts.
• The whole boot camp was designed to instil an innovative mindset as well as to help students go from an idea to a venture in a short time, by trying-failing-and trying again.
• Participants leveraged the knowledge and hands-on involvement of 650+ Mentors (including 180+ women mentors), inculcated and applied their inputs and improved upon their ventures.

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)

Initiatives of AIM

1. Atal Tinkering Lab
2. Atal Incubation Center
3. Mentor India
4. Atal New India Challenge
5. Atal Community Innovation Centre
6. Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE – Atal New India Challenge (ANIC) Program

Pre-identified Focus Areas of AIM

There are 17 pre-identified focus areas for the AIM. They are listed below:

• Waste in public spaces and dissuading public littering
• Mixing blades for composting
• Decentralized composting
• Quality of compost
• Garbage composition devices
• Waste management recycling/reuse
• Affordable desalination/recycling technology
• Instant portable water quality testing
• Safe transport
• Electric mobility
• Smart mobility
• Alternate fuel-based transportation
• Predictive maintenance of rolling stock
• Prevention of rail failure using emerging technologies
• Fog vision system for road and rail
• Climate-smart agriculture

Atal New India Challenge – Details

The National Institution for Transforming India, NITI Aayog has launched the Atal New India Challenge under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) with the aim of bringing in innovations and technologies, relevant to the masses.

The programme will be driven by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and four ministries:

• Ministry of Defence;
• Ministry of Food Processing Industries;
• Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; and
• Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Role of the ISRO in Atal New India Challenge – 

• ISRO is the leading organization to promote innovations and entrepreneurship across the length and breath of our country.
• ISRO has extensively supported MSMEs and has also set up R&D labs across India to promote innovation and research in space science and technology.
• ISRO is planning to adopt 100 Atal Tinkering Labs, 3 each in each state and UTs.
• Three thrust areas identified by ISRO:
  • Propulsion: Green propellants, electric propulsion, and advanced air-breathing.
  • Geo-spatial Information: Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for crop monitoring, weather forecasting and programme evaluation.
  • AI and Robotics: For supporting space exploration and outer space monitoring. 

Atal New India Challenge Objective

• To proactively collaborate with Ministries and the associated industries to catalyze research, innovation and facilitate innovative solutions to sectoral problems.
• To provide a steady stream of innovative products & solutions where the Central Government Ministries/Departments will become the potential first buyers.

Features of ANIC – Atal New India Challenge

• The initiative will help promote technopreneurs who deserve to be supported because of their immense potential of taking India forward.
• A total of 15 sector-specific challenges will be selected where three challenges are kept for each ministry.
• A grant-of-aid of up to Rs. 50 lakh for a period of 9 to 12 months have been earmarked for startups to develop a minimum usable prototype.
• Innovators would also be attracted by using the Mahatma Gandhi Challenge method.

The initiative lays its focus on solving such problems in the core areas, which would directly impact the quality of life of the citizens and also generate employment.

• The applicant displaying the capability and intent to manufacture marketable products under the 17 pre-identified focus areas will be granted an award grant of up to 1 crore rupees.
• The winning grantees would be provided support in terms of technical support, go-to-market strategies by leading experts, accelerators and incubators, technical support, mentoring and others.
• In order to generate wider deployment, mentoring and support would be provided at various levels of commercialization.
• The challenge is open to all the Startups, companies registered under the Companies Act 1956 and the Companies Act 2013, R&D institutions, academicians, academic institutions and individual innovators.

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) – Latest News

1. In order to promote innovation across schools, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog has signed a Statement of Intent (SOI) with IT company CGI India. 
2. As a part of the SOI signed between AIM, NITI Aayog and CGI, over 100 schools from Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai having ATLs will be adopted by CGI to promote and train students. Under this initiative, CGI volunteers will coach and mentor students at the ATLs to boost their technical literacy. Along with this, the students will also be exposed to immersive learning experiences using hands-on experience via STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) tools.

Strategic Campaigns of AIM

Some important strategic campaigns of AIM are listed and discussed below:

AIM-Prime Program

• Aim – To promote science based, deep technology ideas to market through training and guidance over a period of 9 months.
• Target Audience – Technology developers and incubations managers
• PRIME stands for Program for Researchers on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
• AIM has collaborated with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) to launch this nationwide initiative, which will be implemented by Venture Centre – a non-profit technology business incubator.

AIM-iCREST

• iCREST stands for Incubator Capabilities enhancement for a Robust Ecosystem for high performing Startups.
• Aim – To enable the incubation ecosystem and act as a growth hack for AIM’s Atal and Established incubators across the country. 
• The core objective of AIM-iCREST program is:
• To enable the incubators to design and implement world-class entrepreneurship programs, make their institution sustainable, and build credibility.
• Elements of AIM iCRESt are:
  • Incubator Structured Training
  • Startup Training
  • Incubation Success E-Handbook
  • Global Best Practices Study
• This program is aligned with Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan. 
• This program is launched by AIM in collaboration with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wadhwani Foundation. 

Prelims Facts

INS AIRAVAT 

• INS Airavat is the third Shardul-class amphibious warfare vessel of the Indian Navy.
• It is a large landing ship tank type of ship with a primary role to conduct amphibious operations and is capable of carrying multiple tanks, amphibious vehicles and other military cargo.
• It is also deployed for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations.
• It was built in Kolkata and commissioned into service in 2009.

National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET)

• It is a not for profit body established by an Act of Parliament to promote mineral exploration in India.
• It was established in accordance with the provisions of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 as amended in 2015.
• Its vision is to use the funds accrued to it for carrying out regional and detailed exploration for the augmentation of mineral resources of the country.
• Its governing body is chaired by the Union Minister In-charge, Ministry of Mines and has members from the Union Ministries of Coal, Petroleum & Natural Gas and Atomic Energy. There are also ministers in charge of the Department of Mines & Geology from Six State Governments.
• Funds under it are used for:
  • undertaking studies for mineral development;
  • regional and detailed exploration with special emphasis to strategic and critical minerals;
  • aerial geophysical survey of obvious geological potential (OGP) and adjoining areas of India;
  • sustainable mining with the adoption of advanced scientific and technological practices and 
  • mineral extraction metallurgy.