Organization:SRISTI

Overview

SRISTI is a developmental voluntary organization aiming to  strengthen the creativity of/at/for grassroots communities ,including individual innovators. It supports eco-friendly solutions to local problems being scouted, spawned and spread by the Honey Bee Network for over 26 years. It also nurtures ecopreneurs engaged in conserving biodiversity, common property resources, cultural diversity and educational innovators.

Purpose

Inclusive growth through a distributed, collaborative, co-operative and compassionate knowledge system.

• Systematic documentation, dissemination of, and value addition in grassroots green innovations
• Providing them intellectual property rights protection and risk capital support
• Help in in situ and ex situ conservation of local biodiversity and associated knowledge system.
• Empower the knowledge rich but economically poor people by adding value to their innovations,traditional knowledge and associated biological diversity including microbial diversity.
• Linkformal and informal science to enrich both the knowledge systems
• To provide early stage venture support to grassroots innovators, students and other mavericks to scale up products and services based on grassroots and youthful innovations through commercial or non-commercial channels.
• To embed the insights learnt from grassroots innovations in the formal educational, policy and institutional systems in order to expand the conceptual and cognitive space available to these innovations.

Distinct Differences From Other Offerings

Technological and institutional innovations developed by individuals and communities under SRISTI has provided a new way of thinking about conservation of diversity, generation of sustainable alternatives for natural and other resource management through self supporting viable economic and non-economic self reliant livelihood strategies.

SRISTI has been advocating for protecting knowledge right of creative communities and individuals. There have been several consultative sessions with the private sector, scientists, activists and development workers for discussing various issues related to the access to bio-diversity and associated knowledge rights.

 

Impact Achieved For Students and Campus

SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions), which means creation in Sanskrit, was born in 1993 as a result of the felt need for an institutional support to the activities of the Honey Bee Network.

SRISTI was set up to provide organizational, intellectual and logistics support to the Honey Bee Network. The primary objectives while setting up the organization were: 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. SRISTI manages the Honey Bee database of innovations, and supports the publication of the Network's newsletter in three languages, English, Hindi and Gujarati. 

Lately SRISTI has being focusing on more concerted ways of hitherto neglected domains like women's knowledge systems, value addition through a natural product laboratory, using ICT to establish knowledge network, connecting innovators, traditional knowledge holders with the centres of formal excellence, entrepreneurs etc and innovations in education.

Notes About How This Resource is Deployed

SRISTI has been able to upgrade its standing and legitimacy among the policy makers, intellectuals and grassroots innovators alike and at the root of such wide acceptance lies in the activities of the organization. Following are the major activities of the organization.

·       Scouting, Documentation & Dissemination: The activity focuses upon scouting and documenting unique grassroots innovations and traditional practices from various parts the country and sharing the learning from such innovations and practices with the wider audience. 

·       Validation and Value Addition: The activities aim at developing the herbal formulations derived from the grassroots practices into viable, user-friendly and marketable products through proper research and development.

·       Policy Analysis & Advocacy: The activities aim at bringing about policy level changes and incorporating more favourable policy regimes for the promotion of grassroots innovations and practices.

·       Campaigning and Awareness Building: The activities focus upon generating awareness and building public opinion about grassroots innovations and traditional practices, organic farming etc. 

·       AASTIIK: It aims at creating a virtual and real knowledge community of professionals and experts in the field of invention, innovation and traditional knowledge.

·       The Educational Initiatives: The activities aim at scouting, documenting, encouraging and supporting innovative means of teaching children about the subjects and building awareness about the rich bio-diversity around them.

·       ICT initiatives: The activities focus upon integrating the services of information and communication technology with the concern of building the knowledge network to connect grassroots innovators and traditional practitioners across the boundary of region, language and culture. 

·       Natural Resource Management: The activities focus upon validating and initiating innovative means of conservation of nature and bio-diversity.

·       Grassroot Innovations for Inclusive Development (GRIID PROJECT) :
- Understanding factors for the emergence, existence and successful functioning of GRIs within the NIS Study 
- Institutional environment for promoting GRI
- Capacity building of individual and institutional actors for upscaling and promoting GRI

Steps Required To Bring Resource to Campus

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