Curious Tourist

A Journey Towards Change! Atal Tinkering Fest at School   I have been mentoring students of Ryan International School, Mayur Vihar since 6 months. It has been an overwhelming yet enriching experience for me to see the budding innovators tweaking, failing, learning and finally succeeding at their prototypes. I have realized that my primary role in this journey is to inculcate in them the values and life skills required to become a successful entrepreneur. I facilitate the sessions in Q&A dialogue form so that they think independently and come up with solutions themselves. I have been able to nurture in them many useful traits such as compassion, perseverance, courage, critical thinking etc. My students have surprised me with their talent, curiosity and never-give-up attitude. They have in fact made me a better human being. We are using Design Thinking(DT) approach (5 stages of design thinking- Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test) . DT was adapted for busi

A revolutionary innovation event called 'Tinkering Fest' is happening in many schools all across India. It is a brainchild of Atal Innovation Mission(AIM), NITI Aayog,  Government of India. Atal Tinkering Labs have been set up under AIM in more than 2000 schools that aim to foster creativity and technological innovation among students using design thinking(DT) approach.  DT was adapted for business purposes by David M Kelley, a professor at Stanford University, who also founded the design consultancy IDEO   in 1991. IDEO further popularized the DT concept for solving specific business problems. A design mindset is not problem-focused, it is solution focused and action oriented towards creating a preferred future.  Students actively involved in the Atal Tinkering Lab(ATL) at Ryan International School(RIS), Delhi were given a summer assignment in which they had to think about and reflect upon the general problems in society that bother them. Many students used to vi

I was never sure about what I really wanted from life and what my true purpose was, so I started to explore myself and the world around me. One thing that I was sure of was my innate curiosity to learn just about anything new that came my way. Another thing that I knew I had was the ability to work hard and get my hands dirty. So it was hardly surprisingly that I was good or rather excellent in whatever I did. This made the search for my purpose even harder as I lost myself in the inebriation of curiosity, trying one thing after another and then another. My ravenous mind was never at peace with one thing and it always wanted exciting adventures to embark on, new paths to trek on and a new summit to climb on. I threw myself in all kinds of jobs, internships, fellowships and what not! Before graduating as an engineer, I had already worked as a researcher, a writer, a marketing intern as well as an analyst. My stints in all these roles definitely piqued my interest but the problem was