In news– The award ceremony of the 8th NLEPC (National Level Exhibition and Project Competition) of the INSPIRE Awards – MANAK was held in a virtual mode on 8th September 2021.
About The INSPIRE Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge)-
- The INSPIRE Awards – MANAK is executed by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) with National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF), an autonomous body of DST.
- The objective of the scheme INSPIRE Awards – MANAK is to target one million original ideas/innovations rooted in science and societal applications to foster a culture of creativity and innovative thinking among school children.
- Individual students (not groups) of class 6 to 10 (Aged 10-15 years) from all recognized schools, government or private, aided or unaided, from any National or State Education Board, may submit their original and innovative ideas in any one of the 22 languages from the 8th schedule of Constitution to their school.
- Under this scheme, schools can nominate 5 best original ideas/innovations of students.
- It is aligned with the Start-up India initiative launched by the Government of India and is one of the five components of the INSPIRE scheme.
- DST has been implementing the INSPIRE scheme since 2010.
- The INSPIRE scheme covers students in the age group of 10-32 years and has five components — INSPIRE Awards MANAK, INSPIRE Internship, INSPIRE Scholarship, INSPIRE Fellowship and INSPIRE Faculty.
- The basic objective of INSPIRE MANAK is:
- To motivate students at an early age.
- To attract talent, have them exposed to science at an early age and foster a culture of creative and innovative thinking among school children to address the societal need through S&T. Technology.
- To help towards building a critical human resource pool for strengthening and expanding the science and technology system and increase the research and development base.
National Innovation Foundation-
- The NIF–India was set up in March 2000 as an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
- It is India’s national initiative to strengthen the grassroots technological innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge with a mission to help India become a creative and knowledge-based society by expanding policy and institutional space for grassroots technological innovators.
- Its mission is to help India become a creative and knowledge-based society by expanding policy and institutional space for grassroots technological innovators.
Source: PIB
