NITI Aayog partners with French tech giant Dassault Systemes to foster innovation, entrepreneurship

With the aim to foster innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem across the country, the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), the flagship initiative of NITI Aayog signed a Statement of Intent (SoI) with French tech giant Dassault Systemes on Thursday.

The SoI was signed in a virtual event to support various current and future initiatives of AIM programs and AIM beneficiaries in India.

According to NITI Aayog, this program will promote innovation and entrepreneurship amongst aspiring entrepreneurs and act as a catalyst for an open innovation collaboration to accelerate disruptive innovation in the community.

Speaking at the occasion, Mission Director AIM, Dr Chintan Vaishnav said that the partnership with Dassault is a win-win partnership and earmarks the expanding ecosystem of AIM in the country across all the beneficiaries.

"This initiative will open a new window for select Indian startups as they get access to the Dassault Systemes global start up ecosystem- their accelerator program and a chance to connect with peers, industry experts, engineers, designers and be a part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, which I must say I am very excited about because of its ability to accelerate startups, and with community worldwide," Vaishnav added.

Under this SoI, Dassault Systemes will support and promote AIM beneficiaries including Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs), AIM incubators (AICs and EICs), Atal Community Innovation Centres (ACIC), grantees under Atal New India Challenge (C), and Atal Research and Innovation for Small Enterprise (ARISE).

Deepak NG, Managing Director, India, Dassault Systemes said that the engagement with AIM is the beginning of a long-term relationship that reinforces Dassault's commitment to nurture an ecosystem of makers, innovators in the country.

"Our engagement with AIM will further strengthen on our common objectives on how startups can leverage technology, industry best practices and policies driven by the government. Our 3DEXPERIENCE lab will give access to technology and community for emerging startups in new domains like electric vehicles, batteries and charging infrastructure, medical devices, energy & materials sector and even to frugal innovators providing sustainable solutions for the industry of the future," he asserted.

The SoI features six aspects of engagement between Dassault and AIM. These include access to Dassault Systemes' 3DEXPERIENCE Lab start-up acceleration program to selected AIM start-ups; mentorship to selected AIM start-ups for capability building of their products; 3DEXPERIENCE Lab related global community access to selected AIM start-ups; industry connect for selected AIM start-ups with Dassault Systemes' worldwide customers, partners and technology collaborators as and when applicable; participation of selected AIM start-ups in Dassault Systemes national and global events; and orgzation and participation in joint events, hackathons, challenges with AIM and NITI Aayog.

( With inputs from ANI )