Telangana School Innovation Challenge 2021 launched

Hyderabad: The State government, UNICEF and YuWaah announced the launch of Telangana School Innovation Challenge 2021.

The programme was launched on Monday by IT Minister KT Rama Rao, Education Minister P Sabitha Indra Reddy at Pragathi Bhavan.The UNICEF-YuWaah in partnership with Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC), Inqui-lab Foundation initiated the Challenge last year, towards nurturing design thinking, innovation and entrepreneurial mindsets among young people. The TSIC is a one of its kind programmes in the country catapulting the State as the pioneer in promoting 21st century skills and design thinking for teachers and students.

The initiative owes its success to the unique and innovative TSIC challenge management technology platform through which 25,000 government school students (Classes 6-10) and 5,200 teachers were on board and engaged on UNICEF's UPSHIFT social innovation curriculum. On completion of their learning journeys, TSIC received 7,000 youth-led entrepreneurial solutions addressing social problems from in all 33 districts.

Starting October 2021, the programme will include a host of activities from learning modules to activity-based problem solving, conceptualising innovative solutions for the chosen problem statements. The top innovation from each district across the State will be selected, which will culminate with a boot camp for the 33 finalists followed by the grand finale. This year the programme aims to include SW/tribal/residential/budget schools, in addition to government institutions, and consequently impact a larger set of students.