Pradhan launches Atal Community Innovation Centre

Union minister urges for innovative mechanism to harness and support traditional knowledge in the country
Pradhan launches Atal Community Innovation Centre

New Delhi: Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel Dharmendra Pradhan launched Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) in New Delhi on Wednesday, to encourage the spirit of innovation at the community level. The initiative aims to harness and support traditional knowledge in the country and encourage the spirit of innovation through solution-driven design thinking to serve society.

Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said, Atal Innovation Mission has a key role to perform in order to achieve the target of five trillion dollar economy by 2025. He urged the NITI Aayog to open innovation Centres in all Gram Panchayats of the country to promote local innovation. Pradhan said innovation is part of every Indian's daily affairs and there is a need to support and promote them. He said that traditional and conventional knowledge available in the country needs to be supported and brought into the mainstream, through the innovative mechanism.

"ACIC will be established either in PPP mode or with support of PSUs and other agencies. The maximum grant-in-aid support from Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) will be up to 2.5 crores subject following compliance to ACIC guidelines and contributing matching form the host institutions and their funding partner(s)"

Vice-Chairman of the NITI Aayog Rajiv Kumar and CEO of the Aayog Amitabh Kant were also present on the occasion.

What will ACIC do?

ACIC is directed to encourage the spirit of innovation through solution-driven design thinking to serve society. It will focus on underserved/ unserved regions of the country which at present lack a vibrant start-up and innovation ecosystem.  ACIC will be established either in PPP mode or with support of PSUs and other agencies. The maximum grant-in-aid support from Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) will be up to 2.5 crores subject following compliance to ACIC guidelines and contributing matching form the host institutions and their funding partner(s).

Distinguishing features of ACIC

One of the distinguishing features of the program is that it will help in capacity building of communities in evolving technologies and taking their solutions from ideation to prototype. It will promote design thinking process to spur innovation with providing a framework to engage local industries to facilitate the offering of innovative solutions in their products, services and processes.

ACIC will work in Public-private Partnership (PPP) model to ensure financial sustainability and participation of the central agencies, PSUs etc. to mobilize resources for running the program. One of the unique features of this program wherein talented students and youth of ITI  and Diploma will be offered an opportunity to display their and build innovative solutions through ACIC. The program is aimed at offering a big leapfrog jump towards establishing Indian for further scale up the ranking in Global Innovation Index

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