Bharat SainiLast Updated on January 19, 2017 by Bharat Saini
Grand Innovation Challenge, launched by NITI Aayog, to fundamentally and sustainably boost entrepreneurship in India with focus on providing adequate support to early stage ventures, creating an enabling environment for innovation and attaching entrepreneurship to large scale economic and social programmes, is on initiative of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reiterate the importance of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for India’s Development at various forums. NITI Aayog is leading this key goal for India by formulating guidelines for implementing the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). With the launch of AIM, NITI will provide fillip to the swelling Innovation potential in the country. Partnering with the best minds nationally and internationally will bring together experts in academics, technology, industry, entrepreneurship and research. The resource bounty will be made available to innovative minds from across India to tap on.
The idea is to work together with the States and every citizen as Team India to ensure progress, leaving no one behind. The focus is on the social sector, the most vulnerable sections and to involve citizens in crowd sourcing ideas to address challenges facing India’s development.
The idea is to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship and citizen-led solutions to problems, through this Grand Challenge. NITI Aayog will ensure that the best, innovative solutions to pressing challenges receive full backing from the Government of India – from funding, mentoring, technical & academic support to scaling it up across the country and absorbing them in government schemes. These solutions should be specifically designed for India, be made in India, and adopted by Government of India to radically develop India. Citizens are expected to pick one of 14 given, crucial, sectors that need to be addressed on priority to ensure that most vulnerable, and maximum number of citizens, are best impacted. These 14 sectors are Agriculture, Water, Sanitation, Environment, Health, Housing, Urban Poverty Alleviation, Education, Labour & Employment, Renewable Energy, Transport, Rural Development, Skill Development and Women & Child Development.
The big challenge for India is currently facing in the identified sector needs to be precisely addressed to ensure progress in the area, so as to achieve maximum impact in implementing the goal. For instance, the citizen-led solution in the Renewable Energy Sector could be like, developing Low Cost and Improved Solar Cook Stoves. These stoves should be made with minimum cost so that they can be installed in all households using biomass / LPG and they should overcome the limitations of these existing models.
In the Grand Challenge, detailed proposals sought on how the innovative solution / product can be developed, sustained, scaled up and adopted by the Government in its schemes across the country. The best solutions will be nurtured and brought to form by a network of world-class innovation hubs. NITI Aayog will provide academic, technological and economic support to upscale top class solutions by best innovators.
