Ability Foundation is a national cross disability organisation established in 1995 as a public charitable trust for the empowerment and mainstreaming of persons with disabilities (PwD). Ability Foundation and NIFT Chennai have together worked on “Inclusive Fashion” - a project that aims to take forward sensitive and empathetic fashions suited to the physical limitations of persons with disabilities since the year 2013. The project comprises of a student competition which aims at creating designs customized to this niche clientele, which would lead them to independent living. Several sensitization sessions and interactions are organized with persons with disabilities identified by Ability Foundation and the NIFT students, especially belonging to Semester V of all design streams. It starts with students getting a grip on the wish list of the special clients’ special needs with their preferred colours and styles. The award includes a cash prize of Rs. 10,000/- for the best design solution which would be adjudged by a distinguished Jury and a citation from the foundation. The expenditure incurred by the students in the product development was sponsored by Ability Foundation. Several student teams worked voluntarily with passion and dedication and created a line of clothing and accessories for several special clients so far.

National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai has taken up e-content / MOOC development of fashion & technology subjects under the ‘National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology’ (NMEICT), MHRD, Govt. of India. MOOCs are online courses which are developed as per defined pedagogy under ‘Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds’ (SWAYAM), an integrated platform and portal for online courses using ICT, by MHRD.17 courses of 40 hours duration were completed during Phase I and uploaded in the MHRD website. Another set of 17 ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOC) are being under development at NIFT Chennai in Phase II. The subject matter experts (SMEs) are mostly faculty members of NIFT with their rich expertise in the respective courses in addition to industry and other experts.

A client from Coimbatore who wanted to start his own e-commerce business in Fashion Jewelry Segment in India during the year 2015 approached faculty of NIFT Chennai to develop a new brand and collection for targeted consumers. The process was carried out from the market analysis, consumer research, trend & forecast study, concept developments, design development, spec sheets & 3D virtual modeling. The study was followed by consultancy on brand development and marketing strategies. The brand “ALLOKI” was recommended and it has been registered with Trade mark.

A Project for Development of Dying & Printing, Design Development, Capacity Building, Production of Value Added Khadi Apparel and Branding of Bihar Khadi has been sanctioned by the Bihar Khadi Board, Govt. of Bihar. The duration of the Project is 03 years from March 2016 to March, 2019. The project aims to develop strategy to contemporize Bihar Khadi to meet Global Standards. The deliverables envisaged for the Project broadly covers three categories

Design Development, Dyeing and Printing and Branding. The deliverables include 200 prototypes of different designs, 60 designs of textile swatches, different promotional activities to promote Khadi, workshops for capacity building of Khadi Samiti's artisans. 100 new prototypes and 30 swatches of textile design have been developed. The products during the initial stage were showcased in the Bihar Pavilion during IITF at New Delhi. New Khadi collections were showcased during Charkha Diwas celebrated by Govt. of Bihar and NIFT annual event Fashionova 2016 and 2017. Two artisan training programmes for the capacity building of Khadi Samitis were conducted in the month of January and June 2017. The project is on-going.

Bhagalpur Mega Handloom Cluster Project is sanctioned by DC (Handlooms), Ministry of Textiles. The duration of the Project is 05 years. The Project is to prepare roadmap for the integrated and holistic development of Bhagalpur Mega Handloom Cluster through providing infrastructural and skill development support to cluster stake holders for improving the product quality and design of handloom products and for increase in trade. NIFT Patna has been engaged as Cluster Management and Technical Agency (CMTA) to assist in identification and execution of the project. The deliverables for the Project are conducting diagnostic survey, providing guidelines to prepare RFP for CFC, Dye House, Design Studio and Product Development Centre, Design Research and Market Linkage, and monitoring of Project implementation. The project is on-going.

A Project was sanctioned by the Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India, under the Research and Development Scheme to develop Indian size charts based on body measurements of Indian population for better fitting of ready to wear garments. The project 'INDIAsize' plans to measure 25000 (Twenty Five Thousand) persons aged from 18 to 65 years in six different regions of India using 3D body scanners. It is expected that the retail garment industry will be hugely benefitted from the outcome of the project.

Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute (ETIDI) Project is an International Project for capacity building and benchmarking of Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute (ETIDI), Ethiopia, to transform it to a Centre of Excellence through a Twinning Arrangement with NIFT via conduct of various training programmes at Ethiopia and higher education and MDP Programmes in India to ETIDI officers/experts. The duration of the first phase of the Project was 4yrs 10 months which commenced from July 2013 and ended on 27thApril, 2018.The domains chosen in the first phase was to strengthen the capabilities of ETIDI in Training, Consulting, Research and Marketing Support Services for the Ethiopian Apparel Industry under this programme were Apparel Marketing / Merchandising & Garment Technology. Based on the assessment of Phase I of the ETIDI-NIFT twinning arrangement and in order to bridge the gap between the sector’s performance when compared to international levels, the MoU for the second phase of NIFT – ETIDI Twinning Arrangement has been signed on 13th April, 2018. The duration of the 2nd phase of the project would be 3 (three) years. The second phase of the project would commence soon and would focus more on factory interventionsin Apparel Export Merchandising/ Marketing and Garment Technology domains.