After a successful completion and a record-breaking participation from young innovators across the country, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog declared the results of its flagship national annual innovation challenge ‘ATL Marathon 2020’ today 

The Marathon witnessed over 1000 Atal Tinkering Labs participating from across the country from which 300 top innovators were selected and top 10 teams from each state that participated in the Marathon of ATL Marathon 2020 were also announced today. This year, AIM has received almost 5 times as many submissions as compared to the previous years. ATL Marathon 2020 witnessed over 7200 innovations from 32 states and 324 districts. This Marathon also had a heartening participation of over 57% from girl students.

ATL Marathon is a flagship competition for AIM where Atal Innovation Mission brings in a new theme every year for innovators under which students with the help of their ATL in-charges and mentors carefully research, ideate, innovate and implement their innovations over a period of 6 months. The top students then get a chance to undergo the Student Internship Program (SIP) with AIM’s corporate partners and incubation centres to further enhance and hone their skills and prototypes.

With an ambitious resolve to “Research, Ideate, Innovate, implement – Mindful Innovation for the greater good”, this year’s Marathon theme was aligned with Atmanirbhar Bharat.

While announcing the winners virtually, Mission Director AIM, Dr. Chintan Vaishnav congratulated the winners and said that the most promising of these students will go on to attend the Student Entrepreneurship program (SEP) which is a 11-month long bootcamp to take their innovations to the market. We have had students going on to create start-ups and even making their products available on popular e-commerce sites.

“Through this journey I want to highlight an important fact – The young generation of our country is coming together to solve problems of their community. These are steps in the right direction to truly create an Atmanirbhar Bharat,” he added.

He said, “Marathon was unique for its idea of Atmanirbhar Bharat, for its execution and most importantly because the COVID-19 pandemic forced us all to adapt and be flexible in our innovations. Though the circumstances were unfortunate I believe it taught all of us an important lesson – One must be agile and learn to adapt to ever changing circumstances without losing your vision along the way.”

Innovation challenge spotlights top student innovators, linking them to internships, incubation and pathways to entrepreneurship. Atal Innovation Mission's ATL Marathon 2020 shortlisted the top 300 student teams from participating Atal Tinkering Labs under a theme aligned with Atmanirbhar Bharat, emphasising substantial girl student participation and wide geographic representation. Top innovators gain access to the Student Internship Program with corporate partners and incubation centres and may advance to the Student Entrepreneurship Program, a longer bootcamp designed to help translate prototypes into marketable ventures; AIM highlighted mentorship, incubation linkages and adaptive innovation developed during the COVID 19 pandemic as central mechanisms for advancing student work.