IGNITE is a Nationwide Campaign to harness the creative and innovative spirit of school children by National Innovation Foundation (NIF) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE).
The IGNITE-2011 contest saw participation of students from 25 States and Union Territories of the country. Overall 4104 entries were received, which ranged from sectors like energy, environment, transport, general household utility items etc.
The awards for the competition were given away in an exhibition cum award function by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Former President on November 11, 2011 at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Ms SM Arthi, Ms S Vinotha and Ms. Lailaa Banu of Government Girls High School, Tiruvarur, for an innovative idea of using 'Helmet as an ignition to start two wheelers', Mr.G Bhrahadees of The Velammal International School, Thiruvallur, Tamil Nadu for developing the 'Healthy Air Machine' and Mr. Jyoti Ranjan Sahu of DAV Public School, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa for developing a 'Device to assist low vision people' were awarded along with the other creative and innovative brains from different schools in the country.
With NIF, the Board has planned to initiate IGNITE 2012 in the academic session 2011-12 with an aim to promote creativity among children.
The schedule for the IGNITE 2012 is as per details given below:
- Date of announcement of the competition: July, 2012.
- The last date for submission of entries directly to NIF at the following address or through email at ignite12@nifindia.org with a copy to anjali.cbse11@gmail.com is August 31, 2012
- The call for entries from students is as per the following categories:
i) Technological ideas to solve any problem in day to day life
ii) Real life technological projects demonstrating innovative ways of solving problems or reducing drudgery or generating efficiency or conserving resources (projects demonstrating application of known scientific concepts or theories will not be accepted).
iii) Traditional knowledge practices documented from elders in and around one's family.
iv) Information about some other innovators in the neighbourhood
- Each entry should be accompanied with a certificate from parents and teachers saying that the idea / innovation has been developed and documented by the student concerned entirely on his/her own without any guidance or support from them.
- The awards will be announced on October 15, 2012, birthday of Hon'ble former President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam celebrated as Children's Creativity and Innovation Day. The awards will be given away by Dr. Kalam at his convenience at IIM, Ahmedabad soon after.
- NIF will provide support for patenting and incubating innovative projects into products in all deserving cases. For the last two years, NIF has been able to filed patents for first award winner of IGNITE competitions apart from facilitating prototype development in all cases. Two award winners of the earlier IGNITE competition also won awards in NIF's National Competition, where Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, Hon'ble President gave away the awards. Many student winners have participated in the innovation exhibitions organised by NIF at the Rashtrapati Bhavan during March and inaugurated by Hon'ble President. Many have been interviewed by leading national print and electronic media.
We request you to give wide publicity to this competition amidst students, teachers and parents so as to activate the creative instinct in children to find solutions to the day-to-day problems.
We would love to hear your opinion and views on this in the comments below.
