- The Union Cabinet has approved continuation of the Atal Innovation Mission. The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) was set up in Niti Aayog in 2016.
- It aims to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. It seeks to create institutions and programs that enhance innovation in schools, colleges, and entrepreneurs in general.
- The mission has two core functions: a) Entrepreneurship promotion and b) Innovation promotion
- Entrepreneur promotion is done through Self-Employment and Talent Utilization. The Mission supports and mentors innovators to become successful entrepreneurs.
- For promoting innovation, three schemes have been undertaken: a) Atal Tinkering Labs, b) Atal Incubation Centres and c) Scale up support to established incubators.
- Atal Tinkering Labs are established across schools in India. The objective is to a) foster curiosity, creativity and imagination among young children; and b) inculcate skills such as design mind set, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.
- Atal Incubation Centre scheme seeks to establish new incubation centres to support innovative start-up businesses to become scalable and sustainable enterprises.
- Scale up support to established incubators scheme seeks to augment capacity of established incubation centres by providing financial support.
