Frugal tech innovations from rural India have proved themselves: IIM Prof Anil Gupta

Anil Gupta spoke to indianexpress.com on his journeys in rural India in search of frugal tech and ideas which went on to become successful products.

Prof Anil K Gupta founded the Honey Bee Network, a movement to identify and document innovations developed by farmers, artisans, and common citizens. (Express photo)

13 min readOct 24, 2026 07:30 AM IST First published on: Oct 24, 2026 at 07:30 AM IST

Anil K Gupta is a pioneer in promoting grassroots frugal innovations across India. A former professor and now a visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad, he teaches innovation and entrepreneurship, with a focus on frugal design and public policy for inclusive innovation.

Gupta founded the Honey Bee Network, a movement to identify and document innovations developed by farmers, artisans, and common citizens, and the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), established in 2000, to strengthen grassroots tech innovations and traditional knowledge.

He is also the key driver of SRISTI (Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions), a non-profit established in 1993 to support grassroots innovations and traditional knowledge, and GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), established in Gujarat in 1997 to help transform grassroots innovations into commercially viable products and solutions.

Anil Gupta spoke to indianexpress.com on his journeys in rural India in search of frugal tech and ideas which went on to become successful products.