NITI Aayog organized a two-day National Workshop on “Grassroots Innovation Pathways – From Local Resilience to National Advancements” on 19^th – 20^th May 2026 at Science City, Ahmedabad, Gujarat in collaboration with the Gujarat Council on Science and Technology (GUJCOST) and the National Innovation Foundation – India. The workshop brought together grassroots innovators, researchers, state representatives, incubators, and community-driven innovation actors from across the country to deliberate on strengthening India’s grassroots innovation ecosystem and enabling pathways for scaling local innovations for wider societal impact.

The workshop was graced by Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (I/C), Science & Technology as the Chief Guest. He emphasized the importance of strengthening India’s innovation ecosystem by recognizing and nurturing grassroots ingenuity emerging from communities and regions. He highlighted that grassroots innovation reflects the spirit of self-reliance, local problem-solving, and inclusive development, and noted that India’s journey towards Viksit Bharat@2047 would require stronger integration of community-led innovations within the national development framework.

Shri Arjunbhai Devabhai Modhwadia, Minister, Science & Technology, Govt. of Gujarat attended the workshop as the Guest of Honour and highlighted Gujarat’s longstanding emphasis on entrepreneurship, innovation, and decentralized development. He underscored the importance of creating stronger institutional support mechanisms for innovators working at the grassroots level and stressed the need for collaborative efforts to build inclusive innovation ecosystems.

Dr. V. K. Saraswat, Former Member, NITI Aayog noted that India’s innovation landscape must increasingly recognize and integrate local knowledge systems, community-led experimentation, and region-specific problem-solving approaches within mainstream development planning. Prof. Ashutosh Sharma, Former President, INSA, and Former Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, highlighted the importance of strengthening pathways that connect science, technology, and innovation systems with societal needs, design thinking, and local problem-solving capacities. Prof. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairperson, National Innovation Foundation – India emphasized the need for creating stronger institutional linkages to support grassroots innovators through scientific validation, incubation support, technology development, and market access. Prof. Vivek Kumar Singh, Senior Adviser, NITI Aayog stressed that India’s innovation ecosystem is pluralistic in nature, where industry, public R&D institutions, startups, and grassroots innovators all play important and complementary roles. He said that NITI Aayog seeks to bring together diverse innovation actors and strengthen linkages across ecosystems.

The workshop featured extensive deliberations across multiple thematic and technical sessions focusing on institutional enablers for grassroots innovation, learning from grassroots innovators, community-driven innovation initiatives, regional and state innovation ecosystems, and pathways for accelerating grassroots innovations in the country.

A major highlight of the workshop was the interaction with grassroots innovators from different parts of the country who shared their innovation journeys, challenges, and experiences with participants. The sessions showcased a range of grassroots innovations related to earthen products, banana fibre products, food processing technologies, rural machinery, and other locally developed solutions addressing context-specific challenges. The interactions highlighted the importance of local knowledge systems, frugal innovation approaches, and community-driven problem-solving capacities.

The workshop also included focused discussions on strengthening support systems for grassroots innovators through improved policy frameworks, decentralized innovation facilitation mechanisms, incubation support, financing pathways, innovation diffusion systems, and stronger collaboration between grassroots innovators and formal institutions. The deliberations reaffirmed that strengthening grassroots innovation ecosystems will play an important role in advancing inclusive, participative, and sustainable development as India progresses towards the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047.

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