Ahmedabad, 14 October 2013

National Innovation Foundation – India (NIF) announces the IGNITE 13 awards. IGNITE is a national competition of original technological ideas and innovations of children upto class the age of 17 years, in or out of school (upto class 12 only).

Overall 20836 submissions of students from 301 districts of 33 states & union territories of the country were received during the IGNITE 13 competition, which ran from September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013. The IGNITE competition is organised by NIF in association with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Society for Research and Initiatives in Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), various State Education Boards and other partners. A number of other State Educational Boards viz. West Bengal Board of Secondary Education, West Bengal, Punjab School Education Board, Punjab, Board of School Education, Haryana, Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Education, Goa, Meghalaya Board of School Education, Meghalaya and Chhattisgarh Madhyamik Siksha Mandal, Chhattisgarh also actively promoted the IGNITE campaign. The awards of IGNITE competition are announced every year on October 15th, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam’s birthday, which is celebrated as the Children’s Creativity and Innovation Day by NIF.

In IGNITE 2013, a total of 38 students from 25 districts of 17 states and union territories will be awarded for their ideas/innovations on Nov 19th at IIM Ahmedabad where Dr Kalam will give away the awards. There would also be an exhibition of all award winning ideas at the venue.

In addition to the main awards, there are two awards in the ‘Kite Flying Idea Awards’ category as well. This was category was introduced by NIF last year to recognise those ideas, which prima facie may not appear to be rational today but may become a reality tomorrow as science advances.

NIF will file patents in all applicable cases in the name of the students and will also engage designers/fabricators to develop prototypes of the students’ ideas.

NIF, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, has been actively engaged in promoting creativity and innovation in our society through volunteers of Honey Bee Network, CBSE network and others. IGNITE is an effort to focus primarily on the creativity of the children and promoting original inclusive and compassionate thinking among them.