1500 more schools get Atal Tinkering Labs under Niti's AIM

Niti Aayog brainchild Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) has selected additional 1,500 schools across the country to establish Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) programme that encourages innovation thinking among young students.
The addition of these schools will give a major boost to realise the vision of the mission to cultivate one million children in India as the innovators of tomorrow, Niti Aayog said in a statement.
With these, 2,441 schools have become part of the mission since its inception over a year ago.
The schools were selected from over 25,000 applications.
ATLs are play workspaces fitted with state-of-the-art technologies like 3D printers, robotics, sensor technology kits, Internet of things (IoT), miniaturised electronics to stimulate innovation among students of class 6-12th.

The lab helps students find solutions by exploring and experiencing design thinking and innovation, a do-it-yourself approach etc. AIM will enhance the coverage of ATLs to over 98 per cent smart cities and 93 per cent districts.

At present, there are at least one or more ATLs in 34 states and union territories.
Niti Aayog said students who have already got exposure to creative technology platforms to nurture their curiosity, creativity and imagination from ATLs have already started designing prototype solutions and creative projects such as better irrigation management, waste management, and sensor based solutions using IoT devices and robotics.

"ATLs will help our country to transform young students to young innovators. The active participation by schools and their students in ATL will power the transformations of New India through their creativity and innovation," it said.
The labs are designed to spur the spark of creativity, and go beyond regular curriculum and text book learning.
These labs will also enable students explore skills of future like design and computational thinking, adaptive learning and artificial intelligence, it said further.
"As part of our mission to 'transform India into an innovative country' the active engagement of ATLs is extremely important and far reaching in its implications," said ATL Mission Director R Ramanan.