NITI Aayog, AIM partners to upskill EdTech startups in India

New Delhi, March 19: In a major development, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, and Amazon Web Services joined hands together for new initiatives to strengthen the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in India. NITI Aayog and Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL) has signed the Statement of Intent which undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS Cloud services in India.

 

They are going to strengthen the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in India by empowering school students with cloud computing skills and enabling entrepreneurs to build innovative education technology solutions on the cloud.

 

 

Under this, AIM will leverage AWS Educate, Amazon’s global program that provides resources for students and educators to accelerate cloud-related learning. This program will introduce the fundamentals of cloud computing such as cloud storage, virtual compute power, web hosting, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and virtual reality (VR), to students at more than 7000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) in India. In addition to that, AWS will also conduct Faculty Development Programs (FDPs) for the personnel in-charge at the ATLs, and provide resources and tools at each ATL to expedite student learning, and enable them to create and build solutions on the cloud.

 

AIM will also adopt AWS EdStart, a virtual startup accelerator program that enables EdTech startups to develop innovative teaching and learning solutions on AWS.EdTech startup entrepreneurs and founders in more than 80 Atal Incubation Centers (AICs) and Atal Community Innovation Centers (ACICs), will be able to apply for AWS EdStart program benefits, such as AWS Promotional Credits, mentorship, and technical training, to help speed their growth.

 

Mission Director –Atal Innovation Mission, R. Ramanan said the collaboration with AWS will equip the talented youth of the country with digital and web-based tools that can enhance their creative and innovative capabilities, in turn helping the nation to grow manifold in its innovation and entrepreneurship network. “The education and tools will establish a strong foundation in cloud computing for students of ATLs across India, while the support of AWS EdStart for startups from AICs and ACICs will accelerate their productization and potential commercialization,” he said.