In news–NITI Ayog’s Atal Innovation Mission has launched the phase 1 of the 2nd edition of the Atal New India Challenge (ANIC 2.0) recently.
About ANIC 2.0-
Working in collaboration with the different verticals of NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, ISRO and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, the 1st phase of ANIC 2.0 will see 18 challenges being thrown open from 7 sectors.
They are-
- E-mobility-Challenges related to Electric Vehicles and EV charging Infrastructure – Solutions for easier and faster charging of EV batteries.
- Road Transportation (in partnership with Ministry of Road Transport and Highways)- Challenges related to Safe Transport, Smart Mobility, Sustainable Mobility.
- Space Technology and Application (in partnership with Department of Space – Indian Space Research Organization)- Challenge related to GIS Solution, Propulsion, Navigation etc.
- Sanitation Technology (in partnership with Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment)- Challenges related to Preventing Human Intervention, Protecting Humans Engaged in Sewage Cleaning.
- Medical Devices and Equipment- Challenges related to Portable point-of-care (POC) diagnostic or monitoring devices, Low-cost Consumables & Implants. Advanced Surgical and Non-Surgical Equipment, etc
- Waste Management- Challenges related to Municipal Solid Waste Management, E-waste Management.
- Agriculture- Challenge related to Climate Smart Agriculture.
About Atal New India Challenge (ANIC)-
- It is a flagship program of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog.
- It aims to seek, select, support and nurture technology-based innovations that solve sectoral challenges of national importance and societal relevance.
- The vision of the ANIC is two-fold-
- Help create products from existing technologies that solve problems of national importance and societal relevance (productization).
- Help new solutions find markets and early customers (commercialization) in the context of India.
- One of the primary goals of the ANIC program is to support innovations in areas critical to India’s development and growth – Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, Agriculture, Food Processing, Housing, Energy, Mobility, Space Application etc.
- It also aims to address the Commercialization Valley of Death – supporting innovators scale over the risks associated with access to resources for testing, piloting and market creation.
- ANIC was launched in partnership with 5 ministries across 24 challenge areas, they are-
- Ministry of Jal Shakti.
- Ministry of Railways.
- Ministry of Agriculture and FW.
- Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.
- Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
- ANIC 1.0 followed an open innovation challenge format where challenge statements were put out in the public domain and a call for application was done.
- ANIC solicits innovations from start-ups and MSMEs in the prototype stage and after a competitive process of selection supports them through to the commercialization stage over a course of 12 – 18 months with a funding of up to INR 1 crore along with other associated support from the AIM’s innovation ecosystem.
Source: PIB
