Govt to Open 10,000 Tinkering Labs at School Level across India to Promote Innovation - NITI Aayog CEO

• Themed “Indian Startups, Global Footprint”, the 4th edition of the Summit aimed to empower Indian innovators to create value at global scale


• Unicorn founders such as Jaspreet Singh (Druva) and Harsh Jain (Dream11), spoke about their entrepreneurial journeys


• 14 startups supported by TiE Global Angels; USD 4 million raised, announced Nitin Rai


• 15 SaaS companies to become unicorns in the coming years, predicted Rajan Anandan


• 28 billion IoT devices will be connected to the network by 2022, CISCO Systems India predicted


• Dr Santhosh Babu, Principal Secretary to Government – IT Department, Government of Tamil Nadu shed light on major tech-centric policies announced by the state government to boost e-governance

Hosted by TiE Delhi-NCR, the 4th edition of TiE Global Summit witnessed power-packed fireside conversations by eminent ecosystem stakeholders. Over the next two days, the Summit will host 200+ speakers across more than 60 sessions. The inaugural day registered a footfall of 2,000 delegates.

Geetika Dayal, Executive Director – TiE Delhi-NCR, welcomed the guests and opened the fore for TiE leadership. Kick-starting the event, Nitin Rai, Chair – TiE Global Board of Trustees, talked about the theme “Indian Startups, Global Footprint”. He shared insights about the impact of various TiE Global programs focused on youth, angel investing, and women entrepreneurs. Talking about the TiE Global Angels (TGA), he said, “In the past three years, TGA, with the help of 273 Charter Members across 33 chapters, has invested USD 4 million in 14 companies.” 

Welcoming the attendees, Rajan Anandan President – TiE Delhi-NCR, said, “This year, the Indian startup ecosystem welcomed 7 new unicorns from different sectors. This is suggestive of how and how much entrepreneurship in the country has grown in the past few years. In line with the theme of this year’s edition of TiE Global Summit, we aimed to celebrate startups that have successfully penetrated international markets while providing budding innovators with the opportunity to network, learn, and grow.”

The first fireside keynote address was by Jaspreet Singh, founder of Druva, a data security and management solutions company. He talked about his journey towards becoming a unicorn startup. Asha Jadeja Motwani, a Silicon Valley-based angel investor and enabler was the Grand Keynote for the inaugural day.

Speaking about ‘Re-defining e-governance’, Dr Santhosh Babu, Principal Secretary to Government, IT Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, made three landmark announcements by the Tamil Nadu government to boost startups. These include setting up centres of excellence for startups, adoption of API route for accelerating regulatory processes, and an investment of USD 5.5 million for enabling blockchain as a service. Later, highlighting the ever-growing relevance of technology, Krishna Sundaresan, VP Engineering – CISCO Systems India, quoted IDC estimates saying that 93% of organizations will use multiple clouds by 2022.

The event also witnessed the presence of distinguished personalities such as noted Author Shiv Khera; and Dia Mirza, Actor, Producer, UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador. She was the Guest of Honour for the session focused on environment: ‘Making Habitats Livable’. She spoke about the urgent need for recognizing and acting upon the problems posed by air pollution in India. “What we need today is to be responsive, not reactive. The adverse effect of the poor quality of air is evidenced in our lives – in the health of our children and those around us. Sustainable development goals are about acknowledging that we have a problem and then acting upon it. In our personal capacity, we can begin, by bolstering the waste management infrastructure by properly segregating waste. We can, and indeed must, commit ourselves to do more,” she concluded.

Later in the day, Amitabh Kant, CEO – NITI Aayog, Government of India, delivered a keynote. He said, “It is good to see the tremendous amount of energy, vibrancy, and dynamism shown by startups in India. There are many startups that are driving disruptions across sectors. From the government’s side, we are doing and will continue to do all we can to support the growth of Indian entrepreneurship. I would like to congratulate TiE for four glorious editions of the TiE Global Summit and wish them all the best as they continue to foster the global startup ecosystem.”

The event also facilitated several knowledge-sharing sessions including ‘Fostering Entrepreneurship & Innovation’ powered by STPI and featuring industry leaders such as Subroto Bagchi, Chairman of Odisha Skill Development & Co-founder – Mindtree and Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India, among others. The panel discussed the future of entrepreneurship in the country across Indian states.

Another session during the day was ‘Innovations in the interplay of Digital & Physical Worlds’, powered by Microsoft and led by Dr Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer & Strategy Lead – Microsoft India. She shared invaluable insights regarding the need for digital integration in streamlining various business as well as regulatory processes. Further, the session titled ‘Enabling Startup Ecosystem’ powered by Google, featured an expert panel comprising Shalini Girish, Director – Google Customer Solutions India, Abhinav Kishore, India Head SMB – Google Cloud, and Shalini Poddar, Head of Business Development – Google Play India. The point of discussion was the role of Google India in driving innovations to bolster the start-up ecosystem.

TiE’s 4th Global Summit was backed by several domain-leading institutions including Google, Motwani Jadeja Foundation, Startup India, Indian Angel Network Fund, Flipkart, Deloitte, BIRAC, CISCO Systems India, Microsoft, and MG Motor, among others.

Dell Launches ‘Community Tinkering Labs’ in India

As part of its global efforts to support innovation around the world to enable human progress, Dell Technologies in partnership with Learning Links Foundation today announced the launch of Community Tinkering Lab across three locations (Bangalore, Pune and New Delhi) in India. The Community Tinkering Hubs (CTH) have been inspired by the Atal Tinkering Laboratories set up in schools by Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and Government of India.

As part of its global efforts to support innovation around the world to enable human progress, Dell Technologies in partnership with Learning Links Foundation today announced the launch of Community Tinkering Lab across three locations (Bangalore, Pune and New Delhi) in India.

The Community Tinkering Hubs (CTH) have been inspired by the Atal Tinkering Laboratories set up in schools by Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and Government of India. The Community Hubs will cultivate a collaborative, learning-centred environment where members belonging to different parts of the community can work with each other leveraging their shared knowledge and creativity with the resources provided.

The objective of establishing Community Tinkering Hubs is to promote and strengthen the joy of informal, experiential learning through technology and bridge the digital divide among communities. These Hubs aim to inspire and encourage community participation, promote the horizontal exchange of knowledge and provide community members with easy access to resources to learn.

To ensure maximum accessibility, the location of the CTH has been chosen in consultation with local wards and authorities. As mobilization is key to make the initiative meet its objective of collaboration among different members of the community, awareness campaigns and drives are to be launched soon. The CTH will be open to those who aim to leverage on their passion to develop solutions to community issues and engage in self-learning activities that focus on problem solving and innovation.

Alok Ohrie, President & MD, India Commercial, Dell Technologies said, “Dell believes access to innovation isn't a luxury, but a need. We have always thought of innovation as the driver for human progress. At Dell, we are passionate about making a difference to the world through a technology-led approach balancing social inclusion, innovation and entrepreneurship. We have to put our energies and resources in today’s youth to prepare them for a better-computerized future. We are excited to launch the labs, equipped with Dell’s technology to provide everyone to develop solutions to solve community issues and foster a culture of innovation at a grass root level. We look forward to a journey creating more innovators and entrepreneurs powering the New India.”

Ms. Nuriya Ansari, Managing Partner, Learning Links Foundation said, “LLF believes that there is an innovator in all of us and the world needs more dreamers, doers and Innovators. We are on a mission to provide platforms that bring schools and communities together to create new aspirations and new ideas. Community Tinkering Hubs is one such initiative."

Dell Technologies is a unique family of businesses that provides the essential infrastructure for organisations to build their digital future transform IT and protect their most important asset, information. The company services customers of all sizes across 180 countries – ranging from 98 per cent of the Fortune 500 to individual consumers – with the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative portfolio from the edge to the core to the cloud.

~ Published unedited via Business Wire India feed.

NITI Aayog, Intel India To Set up 10 Innovation Labs (ATL) For Students

In a effort to encourage the youth of the nation to adopt the innovation road, National Institution for Transforming India, or NITI Aayog as it is popularly known, has locked in a statement of intent with Intel India to set up as well manage 10 Atal Tinkering Laboratories (ATL) in schools.

Signed for a total period of two years, the effort is a part of NITI Aayog's Atal Innovation Mission (AIM). For the unaware, NITI Aayog is a Government of India policy think-tank established by the Modi government, which replaced the old Planning Commission.

The Atal Tinkering Laboratories have been conceived with the sole aim of encouraging the young generation to make their ideas into a reality and keep coming up with innovative, out-of-the box ideas/experiments on their own.

Under the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog has launched three main programmes- creating Atal Incubation Centres, Atal Tinkering Laboratories and increasing the support provided to incubation centres built in the month of February this year.

The policy think-tank had invited applications for these three programmes from a number of companies, school, individuals, higher educational institutes, technology parks and groups of individuals, and has received an overwhelming response for two of the programmes.

According to data revealed by NITI Aayog at a press conference, they had received a total of 11,000 applications from schools for 500 tinkering labs and around 2,000 applications from others for the 100 incubation centres.

Applications for the three programmes were accepted till 20 July 2016.

NITI Aayog plans to built a total of 500 Atal Tinkering Laboratories in schools all over the country. It's plan is to set up at least 25% of these ATLs in government managed schools.

Intel India has been designated with the task of setting up the first 10 of these 500 laboratories, and the labs established by Intel will serve as model laboratories for the remaining 490 ATLs. In addition to setting up the laboratories, Intel India will also be facilitating design thinking, prototyping and mentorship workshops in these labs through experts from within the industry.

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