Mumbai, 18 March, 2020: As part of its global efforts to support innovation enabling human progress, Dell Technologies in partnership with NITI Aayog, Hope and Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the launch of its first ‘Atal Tinkering Lab’ in Mumbai at Rajda Municipal School (BMC), Borivali. Through this partnership, together Dell Technologies’ and NITI Aayog have impacted more than 1,33,000 students to foster innovation and entrepreneurial mindset from a very young age.
The school staff will include consultants and instructors with more than three decades of experience in education & teaching, and will undergo advanced training at the L&T training facility located at Madh, Mumbai. Dell and Raspberry Pi Foundation team will focus on providing training to instructors who will then impart and facilitate their learnings in innovation and programming to more than 7,000 students, spread across 18 locations in Maharashtra. In addition to learning from the Tinkering labs, they will also focus on hydroponics and prototype designing to solve real-time problems faced by our society. To expand the effect of this ATL school, Dell has also partnered with Cyran AI Solutions to provide the students with Buddhi AI Kits developed at IIT Delhi in order to broaden their learning horizon.
Alok Ohrie, President & MD, Dell Technologies, India said, “At Dell, we believe technology should be used as a force for good and human progress. With our continued partnership with NITI Aayog, we aim to make a difference to the world through a technology-led approach balancing social inclusion, innovation and entrepreneurship. It is imperative to put our resources and energies in preparing today’s youth for a digital future. We are excited to launch Atal Tinkering Lab in Mumbai, equipped with Dell’s technology to provide students with resources to develop solutions to solve community issues and foster a culture of innovation at the grass-root level. We look forward to nurturing these young innovators for a better tomorrow.”
“The Atal Tinkering Labs is one of the game changing initiatives of Atal Innovation Mission to foster a problem solving innovative entrepreneurial spirit in our young students across thousands of schools in India that has excited many corporates and multinationals to join this exciting movement. I congratulate Dell Technologies in adding further momentum in bolstering innovation by partnering with AIM in creative ways to grow and sustain Atal Tinkering Labs across the country and expanding its reach to communities that will spur our youth to realize their innovative potential,” said Ramanan Ramanathan, Mission Director - Atal Innovation Mission & Additional Secy, Niti Aayog, Govt. of India.
The event also witnessed the launch of a newly designed project specific curriculum that provides activity based structure, with the ATL guidelines as a framework. In addition to making the curriculum available to all Dell Technologies’ partner NGOs, each ATL that is supported by Dell will serve as a base for other schools in the community including those that do not have access to a lab. The students will be able to display their skills and learn from peers and instructors through events and activities during the entire academic year.
The launch was attended by Shri Mahesh M Palkar, E.O. Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Smt Sujata Khare, Dept E.O. Western Zone, Shri Bhaskar Balasahab, Superintendent Sec .Education, Shri Ashok Mishra, Superintendent Primary Education, Smt Dipika Patil, A.O. School, Archana Sahay, CSR Head, Dell Technologies, Divya Joseph, Program Manager, Raspberry Pi and Ian Correa, Global Council, HOPE Worldwide.
