India breaking barriers by innovating at young, the ATL Marathon Way

In an effort to identify India’s best student innovators, Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) of NITI Aayog, organises an annual event, Atal Tinkering Marathon, a six month long nationwide challenge across various thematic areas. The Marathon is open to all ATL schools across the country who aspire to bring about a difference and contribute to their success in becoming an Innovation Hub. The Marathon’s focus is on identifying a problem and developing innovative solutions that align with the National Agenda of creating a New India by 2022. It will help schools leverage their technological resources made available as a part of ATL space and also encourage students to develop problem-solving, collaboration and creative skills.

ATLs are based on the philosophy that incentives and prize awards are a great beginning to create an exponential wave of innovation and entrepreneurship amongst school children. The ATL Student Innovator Program is an effort to institutionalise a mechanism, where high school students can work with university incubators to pursue their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas along with their education. The goal is to drive extensive forward and backward linkages within the stakeholders in India, to create a paradigm shift in the student mindset and prepare them to become young innovators and entrepreneurs.

The theme for 2019 Edition: Research, Ideate, Innovate, Implement Mindful Innovation for the Greater Good

The 2019 edition of marathon provides the opportunity to design your own marathon! All the School students of India will unleash their creativity and innovate for a better school environment and therefore, a happier childhood. The program encourages you to tell about the problems you face within your school, and that might be the theme of this year’s marathon and the entire country will work towards solving it. The marathon has a vision of inculcating the confidence in students by making them believe that no problem is too trivial and every problem has a solution. It provides you space to think hard on what you want to achieve with your solution, reach milestones along the way and work towards creating a big impact in the school environment and the wellbeing of yourself and others facing the same problem.

Categories of Submission: There are two categories of submission; namely Techno Art Solution, and Science and Technology Solution.

The ATL Marathon emphasises on the importance of raising awareness as it greatly aids in addressing societal problems that plague our nation. Art offers a medium to express what words cannot and Technology has been providing artists with new ways to express themselves for a long time. This year, in addition to technological innovations, a new category to incorporate art, TechnoArt has been introduced. 3 D printers, drones, VR headsets, etc. are being used akin to paint and brushes to create art. Artists have found countless ways to integrate Art with Technology, say from kinetic art to interactive installations to conductive paint. So, this year for the ATL Marathon, identify a problem you're passionate to solve and innovate through TechnoArt!

The Marathon encourages participants to create a solution that should be implemented within their schools to solve a real problem that one faces leveraging technologies such as Robotics, IoT & Sensors, Electronics, 3 D Printing, Drone Technology, Computational Thinking, Design Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and any other technology or innovation area.