(January 2023- ongoing)
The IndiaBioscience Outreach Grants supports innovative outreach initiatives across India that take science outside labs to promote scientific curiosity and critical thinking among students. With funding support and mentoring by the IndiaBioscience Outreach Grant ( https://indiabioscience.org), these initiatives are poised to create engaging scientific content including virtual labs.The global impact of science awareness has shown that active collaboration between science professionals, students, and the local communities is the key to sustaining scientific temper and generate sustainable solutions to community problems.

Over the past year, supported by the 2nd IndiaBioscience Outreach Grant, the science outreach programs conducted by Dr. Neha Jain in collaboration with I Love Jaisalmer reached out to 320 students at 8 different locations (Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Kuchaman) across Rajasthan. The initiative sensitized students towards understanding the concept of antimicrobials, their judicious use, and factors that lead to antimicrobial resistance among the rural population of Rajasthan.

Recently, India Bioscience introduced the Extension grants to sustain exemplary IOG projects that have previously received First-time grants. The 3rd IndiaBioscience Outreach Grant, partially supported by TNQ Technologies and the Department of Biotechnology, tapped into this collaborative potential to award initiatives that promote scientific aptitude and informed decision-making in the community. The 3rd IndiaBioscience Outreach Extension Grant was awarded to Dr. Neha Jain, Assistant Professor, Department of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur (https://iitj.ac.in/department/index.php?id=biology) , Harshita Agarwal, IIT Jodhpur and I Love Jaisalmer as a collaborative science outreach initiative.

The outreach initiative, supported by the 3rd IOG, ‘Engaging Youth to Fight Against Antimicrobial Resistance,’ has so far, reached out to over 65 students at two schools in Jaisalmer and plans to expand outreach to more students in the region.