About Handmade.World

Why Handmade.World

Handmade.World is a digital platform built to strengthen India's handmade ecosystem by making artisans, their skills and techniques, and allied stakeholders visible, discoverable and connected. We exist to support the people behind handmade—artisans, collectives, social enterprises, designers, buyers, service providers and enablers—by creating a shared space where knowledge, opportunity and collaboration can flow freely.

India's handmade sector is rich in skill, heritage, and creativity, yet fragmented across geographies, languages, and markets. Many artisans and enterprises remain disconnected from buyers, designers, resources and institutional support. Handmade.World was created to bridge these gaps as an ecosystem platform that enables discovery, trust and long-term relationships. It hopes to visibilise strength and transparency within the diversity.

At its core, Handmade.World is a database of stakeholder profiles in the handmade sector, mapped against location, language, techniques, materials, and products. It is designed to help artisans, buyers, designers and partners find each other with ease. Alongside this, the platform hosts information on events, exhibitions, service providers, opportunities and learning resources relevant to the handmade sector. For an artisan/artisan-led enterprise, it means putting your work out for buyers and other stakeholders to find you and for you to find them, discover events and exhibitions, connect with Govt schemes and get resources and opportunities that may enhance your enterprise. For other stakeholders, it would be a valuable, credible directory of artisans, enterprises, designers, etc. and a place to connect and put out information about yourself.

We believe that technology should serve the handmade creative sector with sensitivity and respect. Our platform is multilingual, inclusive and built with safeguards around data use and ethical engagement. We aim to empower artisans to present their work in their own voice, while helping buyers and collaborators engage more thoughtfully and responsibly.

Handmade.World is hosted by Creative Dignity and developed in collaboration with partners who share a commitment to equitable growth, cultural continuity and sustainable livelihoods. As the platform evolves, we remain focused on one goal: enabling handmade communities to thrive—economically, creatively and with dignity.

With Gratitude

The spirit of Handmade.World is trust, connection, voluntarism and collaboration. It has been shaped in this ethos by many members of Creative Dignity who have cherished this idea and hope for the handmade sector for over 5 years.

Among the many individuals who have nurtured this initiative, CD would like to acknowledge the meticulous work of the early members, Nisha Subramaniam and Gauri Sanghi, the perseverance and steadfastness of the Handmade.World Working Group, Nitin Pamnani, Rashmi Ranade, Nandita George, Sujay Suresh and Deepali Kholkar. This website would not have been possible without their faith and efforts. Neelam Chibber planted seed for this plant to grow with her special watering.

We extend our sincere thanks to Wipro, whose support enabled the development of Handmade.World. Their belief in the vision of a connected, inclusive handmade ecosystem laid the foundation for this platform. We would especially like to acknowledge Kanchan Ganorkar of Wipro whose expertise and diligence became the guiding lights.

A special thanks to our website design partners KLOC Technologies for their patience and understanding of the complex requirements and to Wysbryx, who built the platform with care, understanding, technical rigour and a strong understanding of the sector's needs.

We thank Vutts & Associates LLP for providing critical legal guidance in ensuring privacy and data protection on an open source platform.

We thank Indus Tree Crafts Foundation, the Secretariat of Creative Dignity, for providing essential administrative, operational and accounts support throughout the development of Handmade.World.

A special thank you to all the CD Collective and Steering Committee members whose contributions and inputs helped in the shaping of the platform and the evolution of future possibilities.

And finally, a big shout out to the CD Operations team that has been working behind the scenes - often not knowing what will emerge.