Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog on Tuesday, December 1st 2022 announced the launch of applications for Community Innovator Fellowship (CIF), an initiative of Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog in collaboration with UNDP India to facilitate knowledge building and provide infrastructure support to aspiring community innovators essential for their entrepreneurship journey. Currently there are 22 Community Innovator fellows being incubated at the Atal Community Innovation Centre (ACIC) program of AIM.
A Community Innovator Fellow is an individual with an entrepreneurial mind-set, with an idea to solve a community challenge through her/his enterprise. The journey of the fellow has been structured into 5 phases and applicants can visit the link – https://aim.gov.in/acic-fellowship.php
Speaking at the launch Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, AIM mentioned “At the micro level, the start-up revolution has reached the tier 2, and tier 3 cities of India and amped up the Startup ecosystem in these regions. Solving local problems at scale ranging across issues like healthcare, education, agriculture, financial services is the key driving force for Atal Innovation Mission to empower the innovators solving local community problems at the grassroots. With the strategic locations Atal Community Innovation Centres are witnessing the grassroots innovators undergoing the transformation journey of pursuing the entrepreneurship as their full-fledged career options. With this launch of applications for fellowship we call upon the applicants to experience the journey of creating a change in the community”.
This is a one-year-long intensive fellowship program wherein an aspiring community innovator can apply irrespective of their socio-economic background is aimed at creating a conducive environment where knowledge, mentorship, community immersion and inclusion can prosper through adequate infrastructure and funding. During the course of this fellowship, each fellow would be hosted at an Atal Community Innovation Centre and would acquire SDG awareness, entrepreneurial skills and life skills while working on her/his idea.
AIM has been setting up Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACIC) across the country. Currently there are 14 such centres, spread across 9 states and 36 more are coming up in the near future to take the collective number to 50 ACICs.
Link to Apply to Fellowship:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8v1_D8DntoHPr9rSL1rBSeBCF2cUKgt4k-h4AiOVGV6BFBA/viewform
About CIF: https://aim.gov.in/acic-fellowship-program-structure.php