NITI Aayog has launched the ‘Mentor India Campaign’ a strategic nation building initiative to engage leaders who can guide and mentor students at more than 900 Atal Tinkering Labs, established across the country as a part of the Atal Innovation Mission.
CEO NITI Aayog, Shri Amitabh Kant unveiled the online nationwide initiative in New Delhi.
Mentor India is aimed at maximizing the impact of Atal Tinkering Labs, possibly the biggest disruption in formal education globally. The idea is to engage leaders who will nurture and guide students in the Atal Tinkering Labs. These labs are non-prescriptive by nature, and mentors are expected to be enablers rather than instructors.
NITI Aayog is looking for leaders who can spend anywhere between one to two hours every week in one or more such labs to enable students experience, learn and practice future skills such as design and computational thinking.
Atal Tinkering Labs are dedicated works spaces where students from Class 6th to Class 12th learn innovation skills and develop ideas that will go on to transform India.
The labs are powered to acquaint students with state-of-the-art equipment such as 3D printers, robotics & electronics development tools, Internet of things & sensors etc.
NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission is among one of the flagship programs of the Government of India to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country to set up the Atal Tinkering Labs across the country.
The Mission has / is in the process of setting up 900+ such labs across India and aims to have 2,000 such labs by end of 2017.
Mentor India is as a strategic nation building initiative to engage leaders who can guide and mentor schools students in 900+ Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) established by AIM in schools across India.
Mentor India has already received strong support from Corporate India. More than 30 of India’s top thought leaders have signed up as Brand Ambassadors for the initiative. More than 90 ATLs in schools across India have been adopted and are being supported by various corporations / institutions from multiple sectors.
AIM is actively looking to engage with more corporations / institutions to adopt ATLs and enable their employees to join Mentor India as volunteers. Furthermore, AIM has signed a SoI with AICTE to provide mentorship support of affiliated colleges for 366 ATLs.
Possible areas of contribution from mentors include technical knowhow, innovation and design, inspirational, and business and entrepreneurship.
Mentors are expected to discuss with students the various problems our Indian society is facing across multiple themes, and motivate students to develop solutions to these community problems.
Mentor India program will be further extended to provide support to Atal Incubation Centres and Existing Incubation Centres as well. Proposed recognition for mentors include digital certificate of recognition, honour board for top mentors, meet and greet with prominent dignitaries and invites to Government of India events.