In a new initiative to tap India’s young talent in the quest for creativity, the Washington-based Smith sonian Institution’s lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation has announced plans to set up 10 ‘Spark!lab’ science centres across India.
Making the announcement at an event at the Indian Embassy here, officials said the pilot centres will come up over the next two years and will then be expanded to 100 in what is being envisaged as a network of hands-on invention activity spaces, called Spark!labs.
Operating as a public-private partnership (PPP), the lemelson Center says science, education, and museum professionals will be trained in the Spark!lab philosophy and methodology.
leaders will be identified to spearhead the expansion of the network from 10 to 100 labs. Activities will
incorporate relevant topics and themes to the individual communities in India where Spark!labs will be located.
The lemelson Center believes that Spark!lab can encourage inventive creativity in India’s young people and help to create its next generation of innovators.
Started in 2008, the programme seeks to offer children in the 6-12 age group
dynamic activities to discover the process of invention and practice 21st century skills in several disciplines, including history, science, engineering and art.
The inaugural event of the embassy’s Young India Series was also marked by a felicitation for the Indian wonderkid Ritankar Das, the Kolkata-born boy who recently became the youngest graduate topper of the prestigious University of California, Berkley in more than a century.
The 18-year-old Das completed his studies with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology and a minor in creative writing in just three years.