Hyderabad: Government schoolchildren wow with creativity, innovations

Hyderabad: Minister for Information Technology KT Rama Rao said innovation and creativity is not the lone asset of only those studying in corporate or elite schools.

He was inaugurating the Innovation School Challenge (SIC) organised by the Telangana Innovation Society and Unicef here on Monday. He was all praise for teachers and schoolchildren for their confidence and coming up with solutions from real-life situations and problems they have seen and faced. He said that SIC is a practical example of the early identification of students' creativity. From the number of schools to teachers to students, the decentralised efforts led to organic growth of the challenge.

The School Innovation Challenge is a unique initiative of the state to empower and nurture young minds studying in government schools across Telangana, to identify challenges in their communities and create entrepreneurial solutions to address them.

After several rounds of evaluation, 25 ideas were shortlisted for the grand finale held on Monday in Hyderabad. The Challenge winners selected by the jury were awarded cash prizes and mentorship support to implement the ideas.

Rao felt that such events should be organised in every district and urged the education department and Telangana State Innovation Cell to look at sector-specific innovation events that can lead to creation of appropriate ecosystems to nurture young minds and foster innovation.

Minister of Education Sabitha Indra Reddy, said, "School Innovation Challenge is a creative approach in itself to do so. It's important to decentralise the efforts of innovation to the government schools at the grassroots. All the problems have been experientially solved which shows the observational skills of the students being nurtured."

Special Chief Secretary, Education, Chitra Ramachandran said they achieved stellar feats in bridging the learning gap with no students left behind. This School Innovation Challenge is a testimony to that vision. Principal Secretary of Information Technology, Jayesh Ranjan said the government was committed to scaling the best ideas of the 25 innovators selected from 7,093 students.

Appreciating the response from the students, Salathiel Nalli, WASH Specialist, UNICEF, Hyderabad, said, they were amazed to see a remarkable response and idea submission from all over the State. The online platform used by students was inclusive of learning modules and assessments to nurture, educate students and help them reflect their thinking abilities at every stage. It is wonderful to see the excellent participation and we wish to take the winning ideas globally.

The Interim Chief Innovation Officer to Government of Telangana, Ravi Narayan, said, "Telangana has been at the forefront through TSIC in driving innovation in the state from an early age and turning government schools into catalysts to inculcate Design Thinking among the students. We learned that the most pressing issues in the remotest villages could be addressed by students' creativity."