Opening of online nominations for 2020-21 under INSPIRE Awards MANAK Scheme

Subjeet: Opening of online nominations for 2020-21 under INSPIRE Awards MANAK Scheme.

Sir/Madam,

As you are aware that INSPIRE Award MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and

Knowledge), is a flagship scheme of Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. of India and

implemented by National Innovation Foundation (NIF), Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It aims to instill

creative/innovative thinking among school students in the age group of 10-15 years and studying in class 6-10.

2. The MANAK Scheme envisages to target one million originalinnovative ideas from students studying in more

than five lakh middle and high schools across the country and selecting the best ideas having potential to cater to

societal needs and applications. Thereby motivating and rewarding these students to take the novel ideas forward

for prototype and product development.

3. It may kindly be noted that the registered schools under the INSPIRE Award MANAK Scheme, in each

academic year, can nominate 2-3 best ideas from their schools through online mode, in E-Management of

INSPIRE Award Scheme (E-MIAS) web portal of the Departmet using the link: www.inspireawards-dst,gov.in.

4. The online nominations for 2020-21, have been resumed from l" June, 2020. The schools can now submit

their online nominations at above web portal. I request you to please direct all the concerned State and

District functionaries, to apprise all the schools under their purview about the opening of online scheme

MANAK 2020-2021.

5. I understand that due to Covid-19, students may not be attending schools, however this time can be used by

them for generation of innovative ideas which can be submitted to the online portal when schools reopen.