During COVID-19, NITI Aayog’s Atal Tinkering Labs, went online

NEW DELHI: With schools shut across the country for long periods due to the pandemic, a host of virtual initiatives, trainings, and bootcamps were introduced in Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) programme, initiated in 2016 under the NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). Under it, laboratories are set up in schools to foster the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in children by encouraging them to “tinker” on their own and develop skills. As of date, more than 9,500 ATLs have been funded across 722 districts in India. Deepali Upadhyay, programme director, AIM spoke to Careers360 about how they used pandemic to enhance digital and entrepreneurial skills.

Q. How did the pandemic impact the Atal Tinkering Labs?

The physical space and the accessibility of labs were impacted as the schools were shut. However, AIM was in constant touch with the schools through its various initiatives and communication channels. As things got better and schools reopened intermittently, the labs were also accessible to students. I, along with other team members from AIM, visited many schools and have conducted several virtual activities during the last two years.

Overall, as a programme, we continued to strengthen the ATL ecosystem, including establishing new labs, onboarding new Mentors, training ATL In-charges, facilitating the annual ATL Calendar of activities and initiatives, conducting virtual and digital bootcamps, workshops and hackathons.

Q. What new practices were implemented?

Amidst the COVID-19 lockdown crisis in the country, AIM started with the “Tinker from Home” campaign, where students could learn new concepts and technologies and experience the joy of innovation from the safety of their homes. A three-week campaign involved the launch of the exciting resources through AIM’s social media handles each week followed by YouTube tutorials and weekly LIVE sessions to interact with students and resolve their queries. More than 15 learning modules were created during this time to cover 21st-century skills including Artificial Intelligence, Gaming, CollabCad, Design Thinking, Internet of Things (IoT).

In addition to this YT Sessions on World IP Day and Mental Health and wellbeing were conducted.

‘Unbox Tinkering’, teacher training program designed by AIM for the ATL In-charges was converted to a virtual facilitated format, to ensure ongoing capacity building of teachers even during the pandemic. AIM with its industry partners conducted teacher training workshops on several new skills including Cybersecurity, AI and Creative tools.

In 2021, AIM organised the first two-month long, digital skills and entrepreneurship bootcamp - ATL Tinkerpreneur. It witnessed tremendous participation from 9000+ students and 650+ Mentors of Change. AIM with industry experts conducted 50+ live sessions in 7 languages for one to many mentorship (with viewership of 4.5 lakhs). We developed an exclusive digital portal for students for self-paced learning as a repository of digital and entrepreneurial learning resources, do-it-yourself content, simple assignments to enable them to create their own digital product and venture. AIM hosted Mr. Narayana Murthy for the finale live session on ‘Ethics in Innovation’. Students submitted over 650 business ventures at the end of the bootcamp.

Another initiative which was conducted in a virtual manner was the ATL Community Day wherein AIM organized a 3-day virtual conclave with 51,000 participation from students, teachers and mentors. A total of 900+ ATLs conducted virtual Community Day within their regions. Our outreach activities included 7 Live sessions on YouTube, 3 Interactive skill sessions on – Paper prototyping, Animation, Creating toys from recycled materials, 4 Inspirational Talk Series by renowned speakers such as Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2021 winner (ATL Student).

The ATL Marathon is a national level innovation challenge organized by AIM every year, where students identify community problems of their choice and develop innovative solutions in the form of working prototypes. Despite the pandemic, we received the highest ever number of entries – 7200+ innovations from 1500+ students. The top 300 teams from the ATL Marathon got an opportunity to undergo Student Internship Program (SIP) and Student Entrepreneurship Program (SEP) with AIM’s industry partners and Incubation Centers to further hone their skills and take their ideas and prototypes to the next level.

Q. How are you ensuring proper usage of the labs, especially during the pandemic?

Before the pandemic hit, we had envisioned the idea of remotely monitoring the performance and outcomes of ATL. To facilitate smooth functioning and monitoring of ATL schools across the country, AIM has created an online monitoring tool – ATL Dashboard. Through the ATL Dashboard, schools are able to update their activities in real time and submit reports on a monthly basis. Various ATL related elements such as student innovation projects, workshops, events, advisory body meetings are recorded digitally through the ATL Dashboard. The purpose of the scheme is to create a culture of innovation in schools across the country. This is well achieved and AIM has observed a steady increase in participation of schools and students in various tinkering related activities even during the pandemic.

As per ATL Dashboard, we have more than 70 lakh students who are engaged in ATL labs and over 2 lakh innovations projects have been created. There are several success stories coming out of the ATLs every day where students have created innovative solutions to solve community problems. Creating intelligent irrigation solutions for farmers, IoT helmets for road safety, converting noise pollution into electricity, eco-friendly robot to save time, portable hospital to provide medical attention in real time, audio books for blind children, are just some of the examples. Many of these innovations are from students of Govt schools, remote areas and aspirational districts.

Q. What impact will this project have, especially after the pandemic?

How we envision the labs in the future is as a combination of physical space supplemented with virtual and digital means of learning. The physical space will always be there for students to explore more. However, there will be a virtual element attached because the learning mediums have shifted towards digital modes. We see a blended approach towards ATL labs in future, where technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and other digital tools will play a big role in the learning journey of a student innovator. So, design and ideation process may be done in a virtual format. But these makerspaces will be where students convert their ideas to prototypes (bring life to
their ideas!).

As per ATL Dashboard, we have more than 70 lakh students who are engaged in ATL labs and over 2 lakh innovations projects have been created. There are several success stories coming out of the ATLs every day where students have created innovative solutions to solve community problems.