Union Minister of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, visited National Innovation Foundation-India (NIF), Ahmedabad. He interacted with the staff members and witnessed an exhibition on grassroots innovation.
While addressing the press, Dr. Harsh Vardhan underlined the extraordinary commitment the present government has made to ensure that no worthy innovative idea remains unsupported. National Innovation Foundation is taking this determination of the government forward by providing hand holding support to grassroots innovators and tens of thousands of school children.
The Minister particularly appreciated the extremely affordable solutions being developed by the NIF based on the ideas of knowledge-rich, economically-poor people. He personally tested the adjustable-leg walker on stairs designed to help elderly and others needing assistance based on the idea of a school girl.
Dr. Harsh Vardhan noted the fact that NIF has mobilized, with the help of volunteers of honey bee network, more than 200,000 ideas from 585 districts of the country. He envisioned that these be categorized, prioritized and then taken up for fast track value addition.
Appreciating the platform like Techpedia, which can be used to link a lot of unmet social needs and grassroots ideas with technology students, the Minister said that he is convinced that the present mood of the country to give push to the start-up movement in India will get a further boost through the Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF), community workshops and fablab set up by NIF. He exhorted the youth as well as those in the informal sector to come forward to avail the friendly and flexible support provided by NIF to ITI students, school children and creative people of the informal sector.