- By Sunderarajan Padmanabhan (Twitter handle: ndpsr)
New Delhi, February 15 (India Science Wire): Sixty school students from different parts of the country were conferred awards under the INSPIRE Awards – MANAK programme at the conclusion of the seventh National Level Exhibition and Project Competition (NLEPC) of the programme on February 15.
The INSPIRE (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) Award’s MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and Knowledge) programme is a flagship scheme of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF).
Aligned with the action plan for the “Start-up India” initiative, the scheme aims to help build a critical human resource pool to for strengthen and expand the science and technology system and increase the research and development base of the country by encouraging students in class sixth to class tenth from all government and private schools throughout the country to come out with innovations and ideas for solving the various societal problems.
This year a total of 2.88 lakh ideas and innovations were scouted in collaboration with States and Union Territories. Out of these, over 50,000 were shortlisted and provided with a financial support of Rs 10,000 each for developing prototypes. After a series of district and state level exhibitions and competitions, 800 of them were selected to participate at the national level exhibition and contest held at Indian Institute of Technology yesterday and today.
The NIF had conducted a series of mentoring workshops for the participating students over a period two months at premier Technological Institutions of the country at 16 different locations in the country.
The INSPIRE Awards – MANAK scheme is designed as a complete incubation programme where top ideas and innovations from the national level competition will be taken up for enterprise creation. Suitable entrepreneurs will be scouted to take these innovations forward, entities will be incorporated and business operating models will be defined and executed. (India Science Wire)
