Atal Innovation Mission

• The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)was set up under NITI.
• In the budget for 2014-15, Rs 150 crore was allotted for the innovation mission, which will replace the National Innovation Council, a significant difference between the two will be the powers to disburse funds.

• AIM will be an Innovation Promotion Platform involving academics, entrepreneurs, and researchers drawing upon national and international experiences to foster a culture of innovation, R&D in India.
• The platform will also promote a network of world-class innovation hubs and grand challenges for India.
• The new scheme will provide funds to a network of institutions to conduct research on innovations that can improve economic growth and job creation.
• The mission will also provide inputs to all central ministries on innovation and suggest a funding mechanism for result-oriented research
• The idea is to create a mechanism for exchange of ideas on which research could be conducted by domestic research institutes with positive results

Comments

• AIM may well be thought of as a Pyramid with
  1. Base –culture and attitude

  Long gestation period with profound impact. Must promote risk taking mind set to use diverse set of skill sets to address pressing needs. Entrepreneurship is a creativity and venture is a thing of beauty .Society tolerant of failure will have to be created.

  2. Middle- Education ,skill and Infrastructure

  Education give faster result. Global Innovative Index of India is74th in143 countries. Pervasive learning with narrow test score concept must give way. Problem solving skill must be taught. Basic science and data literacy is essential otherwise existing trend of approximately 47% graduates finding unemployable in knowledge economy will continue. Hard infrastructure to promote innovation is important

  3. Top –Incentive, Incubation and prizes

  Substantive and symbolic support to entrepreneurs by competition is a way out. Incubator frenzyness to be promoted. Output measures rather than money spent is important to bring efficiency. Incubators with link to Universities and Industry be encouraged.

A committee on entrepreneurship and innovation was constituted

• NITI Aayog had constituted an Expert Committee under the Chairmanship of Prof. Tarun Khanna, to work out the detailed contours of Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Self-Employment & Talent Utilisation (SETU).
• The Terms of Reference of the Expert Committee are as under:
  (i) To review the existing initiatives aimed at promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in India, especially those efforts that result in widespread job growth and the creation of globally competitive enterprises;
  (ii) To make short and medium term recommendations for actionable policy initiatives aimed at creating an innovation and entrepreneur friendly eco-system including such elements as creation of world class innovation hubs and digital SMEs and innovation driven entrepreneurship in such sectors as education and health.
  (iii) To address any other related issues.

Recommendations of the committee

1. Atal Innovation Mission

• The AIM will provide the framework to the government for encouraging and promoting self-employment as a career option for young people for whom India needs to generate 115 million non-farm jobs over the next decade
• The AIM seeks to combine innovators from universities, consultants and private sector enterprises with those in government.
• There’s an urgent need for disruptive change .So the AIM will promote lab culture, bring cross-functional expertise together to brainstorm and agree on a solution, and not solve problems in a sequential and hierarchical way.
• It will also create capacity and measures and indicators for measuring success in implementation as well as accomplishing the objectives

2. Private participation

• A percentage of corporate profit could be directed towards corporate venture capital funds, for the purposes of investment in start-ups and/or incubators /research labs in universities and/or industry-university collaborative research.
• The panel has also recommended improved tax benefits for investments equivalent to a percentage of corporate profits in research labs in universities and startups.

3. ‘Make in Universities’ program

• The panel also suggested a ‘Make in Universities’ program which would involve setting up 500 tinkering labs, where aspiring entrepreneurs can experiment to create products that address local problems, with one 3D printer per institute. For these labs, the panel recommends utilisation of half of the Rs.1,000 crore set aside for the Self Employed and Talent Utilization (SETU) scheme.

4. “Grand Prizes” approach

• The expert committee also recommends “Grand Prizes” approach to finding ultra-low-cost solutions to India’ s most intractable problems, on the lines of what is followed in some developed countries.
• Incentivised innovation has worked around the world in stimulating innovation. In the U.S., XPrize is giving tens of millions of dollars to those who can provide solutions to major technological challenges
• The committee recommends that the AIM budget of Rs.150 crore be used entirely to award up to 12 grand prizes annually.
• Each challenge should carry a prize of between Rs.10 crore and Rs.30 crore
• AIM should also consider setting aside part of the prize money to place orders for the products and services that are generated by winners as this will help in creating a market for winners’ products.

5. Incubators

• The panel also pitched for an increase in investment in business incubators with up to Rs.200 crore public spending per year and roping in the private sector for the purpose.

6. Fund-of-funds

• Another key recommendation of the panel is establishing a ‘fund-of-funds (FOF)’ by the government to seed other early stage venture funds with a corpus of Rs.5,000 crore.

7. Foreign companies

• The panel has also recommended that all contracts with foreign defence companies above $5 billion should include a clause for five per cent of contract value to be directed to establish research-centric universities with strong emphasis on its core product areas in particular and broadly focused on the related areas in general.

8. Structure

•  It includes a board and 4 working groups

Comments

• The plan is part of the proposed overhaul of the innovation ecosystem in the country under the Atal Innovation Mission and follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Google CEO Sundar Pichai in the U.S. last month. The organisation will identify critical path breaking innovations where it would actively pursue implementation in coordination with the NITI Aayog and the Prime Ministers office  The government will formulate guidelines for the Mission on the basis of the report
• In contrast many foreign companies made it big with governmental support. Google’s origins can be traced to research projects that were funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and a large part of Apple’s success can be credited to the U.S. government’s small-business administration program that provides investment assistance to startups.