Amrita ATL Marathon Training and Mentorship Program 2021-22
ATL Marathon is a national level innovation challenge, where school students identify community problems of their choice and develop innovative solutions in the form of working prototypes. The innovative solutions are recognized and presented at several national and international level platforms.
Get an overview of the ATL Marathon at https://www.secondfoundationinitiative.org/atl-marathon
ATL Marathon 2021 edition celebrated the resilience, diversity and achievements of India as we begin the 75th year of Independence. To commemorate this special year, ATL Marathon 2021 drew inspiration from developing a New India with the innovation and creativity of the young minds of our country. The Marathon was based on the ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’ document by NITI Aayog. This national strategy document for New India is a detailed exposition of forty-one crucial areas of national importance for achieving the objectives for a New India by 2022-23. ATL Marathon 2021 adopted four strategy areas or themes mentioned in the document – Healthcare & Nutrition, Education, Energy & Transport, Social Inclusion.
AIM Mentors of Change, IEEE Volunteers and researchers from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus trained children in skills such as app development, robotics, physical computing and IoT over a period of 3.5 months and mentored them to create their own innovation prototypes. Volunteers taught children to research problem statements, ideate solutions for their chosen problem statement, identify the best possible solution and create working prototypes. Children worked with MIT Media Lab's Scratch Programming language, MIT App Inventor, Google's Teachable Machine, Lego Mindstorm kits, BBC Micro:bit kit, and a variety of maker tools to build innovative prototypes for their ideas.
Program highlights:
3.5 month long training and mentorship program
Four teams of 10 students recognized among All India top 350 teams
84 children in 32 student teams trained including 13 all-girls team
300+ hours of live mentoring for students
15 digital and physical computing skills imparted to students through 8 hands-on workshops
32 physical and digital prototypes made by children teams
11 member professional mentor team including 6 women STEM professionals served as mentors
9 educators from 3 schools supported children through the entire journey
ATL Marathon Themes and Problem Statements
Education
Innovate to create solutions to make education and learning inclusive and resilient for all children - Those with no access to devices or internet (Mobiles,Laptops,TVs) those that are in regions with extreme weather conditions, those with no access to a school (physical or virtual)
Innovate to integrate soft skills (personality building, confidence etc.), technical skills (digital and 21st century skills) and a mindset of innovation in the curriculum for schools/colleges to ensure students have the skillsets to become successful entrepreneurs or professionals.
Energy & Transportation
Innovate a system that could improve rider/driver (motorcycles, cars, trucks, and/or any other vehicle)/citizen (people and animals on the road) safety and prevent road accidents
Innovate solutions that reduce the carbon footprint as well as adopt climate-resilient and low-carbon strategies to enable the transition to truly sustainable India
Health & Nutrition
Innovate solutions specifically solving problems faced by patients suffering from the most common diseases of India. You can choose a disease from this list or pick another disease to create a solution - Diabetes, Anaemia, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Typhoid or others
Innovate to build solutions to find novel ways to address health and nutrition challenges such as malnutrition, obesity etc.
Social Inclusion
Innovate to create a sustainable model for financial inclusion which will help India get closer to the goal of no poverty by providing accessible and affordable financial services to all.
Innovate to create solutions to build inclusivity in the society in terms of languages and cultures so that localised access can be made possible for information related to education, financial literacy and government policies/schemes
Training Sessions and Workshops given by Mentors
Exclusive Training Sessions for Teachers
Meet the schools
Meet the ATL teachers
Ms. Deepa M. V.
AV Puthiyakavu
Ms. Rejitha AV Puthiyakavu
Ms. Jincy Sreejith AV Thalassery
Ms. Seema
AV Thalassery
Ms. Manju
AV Kochi
Meet the mentor team
Marco Sangiorgio (Prabodh)
A320 Base Maintenance, Zone Leader @ Dublin Aerospace, AIM Mentor of Change
Girinath Pillai
Coordinator for Drug Discovery Hackathon by MoE, Govt of India,
Chief Scientific officer, Zastra Innovations, Bengaluru,
Research scientist,
Nyro Research India, Kochi, AIM Mentor of Change
Pranav Prabha Researcher at AMMACHI Labs, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, IEEE STEM Ambassador
Lakshmi Gopal
PhD Researcher at Amrita Center for Wireless Networks & Applications (Amrita WNA) , Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham