It was set up in February 2000 at Ahmedabad, Gujarat and is India's national initiative to strengthen the grassroots technological innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge.
Its mission is to help India become a creative and knowledge-based society by expanding policy and institutional space for grassroots technological innovators.
NIF has pooled a database of over 345,000 technological ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge practices (not all unique, not all distinct) from over 625 districts of the country.
Micro Venture Innovation Fund (MVIF) at NIF, with support from the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), has provided risk capital to 238 innovation-based enterprise projects, some of which are at different stages of incubation.
Those who see the poor only as the consumers of cheap goods, miss the richness of knowledge at the grassroots level and their potential as providers of ideas and innovations.