Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions(SRISTI)

SRISTI was set up in 1993 to support and strengthen the Honey Bee Network - a voluntary informal network of creative people, policy makers, scientists, NGOs and other professionals interested in augmenting grassroots innovations.

A framework was sought to be created for creating inventive ethics at grassroots level and forging links between excellence in formal and informal Science through the Honey Bee Network. SRISTI works on the principle of the synthesis of seven 'E's, i.e., Excellence, Equity, Environment, Efficiency, Ethics, Empathy and Education. These provide the right chemistry for societies seeped in mediocrity to get over their inertia and move towards a compassionate, creative, competitive as well as collaborative society. The primary objectives are systematically documenting, disseminating and developing grassroots green innovations, providing intellectual property rights protection to grassroots innovators, working on the in-situ and ex-situ conservation of local biodiversity, and providing venture support to grassroots innovators.

In 2000, National Innovation Foundation (NIF) was set up by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India at Ahmedabad.

Scouting, documentation and dissemination unique grassroots innovations and traditional practices from various parts the country and sharing the learning from such innovations and practices with the wider audience. The focus of initiative around the issue of discovering the abundance of traditional and indigenous knowledge that have made the grassroots knowledge rich.

The main target groups of SRISTI remain farmers, artisans, tribal, craftsmen, and all other social groups. Some of the main achievement of the organization so far has been.

• Developed a multilingual, multimedia database over 10,000 entries and shared with grassroots innovators, academics, scientists, students and other interested stakeholders in India and abroad.
• National Innovation Foundation (NIF) was set up in 2000 by the Department of Science and Technology in recognition of the work done by SRISTI and the Honeybee Network, since then the NIF has built a database of over 36,000 innovations and traditional knowledge practices from over 360 districts of India with the help of the SRISTI network.
• SRISTI has also set up the Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF) of 1 million USD which provides finance for innovation and traditional knowledge based micro ventures with the help of Small Industries Development Board of India (SIDBI).
• Total 25 Shodh Yatra (journey for the search of knowledge, creativity and innovations at grassroots) conducted across the India.
• SRISTI organises every year Satvik Food Festival (Traditional Food Festival) to focus on the organically produced traditional food by farmers and stimulate demand of local crops and their varieties. Recipe contests are also organized during the food festival.