The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), in Chennai, has signed an agreement with the Human Welfare Association (HWA) to use technology to protect India’s traditional crafts. The institute announced it on 1 October 2026.
The focus is on Geographical Indication products, a label that links an item to the region it comes from. The aim is to build digital authentication, traceability and documentation tools so that artisans and producer groups can show where their products come from and that they are genuine.
The work will be supported by IIT Madras’s Artisan Empowerment Lab and coordinated by Professors M. Manivannan and John Augustine. On the HWA side is Rajni Kant, known in India as the «GI Man», who helped secure many of these labels for traditional crafts. According to Professor Manivannan, artisans are India’s second-largest population group.
The agreement does not yet have a timetable or named pilot projects. The partners will work with artisans, farmers, producer communities, companies and public bodies, and say that if the model is scaled up nationally it could benefit millions of people.
