Annapurna Mamidipudi was trained as an engineer, after which she set up an NGO that supported vulnerable craft livelihoods and worked with artisan production for nearly two decades in Andhra Pradesh, India. She has trained herself in natural dyeing techniques, and actively assisted production processes of artisan groups, and was instrumental in restarting the extinct practice of dyeing using the traditional indigo vats in Ananthapur. She is an awardee of the Global Social Business Incubator program of Santa Clara University of 2009, member Timbaktu Collective’s General Body, which works in the drought prone district of Anantapur towards food security, and on the executive committee of the Craft Education and Research Centre at Kalakshetra, the premier Music and Dance institution, in Chennai. She is the producer of an album of a musical opera, Pallaki Seva Prabandhamu, directed by renowned classical musician R. Vedavalli.
Her writings from the location of development practice, include the study of traditional craft in the contemporary world “Textile Technology: Recent Developments,” in Deccan heritage 2000, INSA and universities Press Hyderabad India pp 221-232, “Transitioning Markets: Transcending Consumption,” 2006, Economic and Political Weekly 15(31) pp 3388-3393, and with her colleague Uzramma, “Weaving a vision: Doria of Chinnur,” in Threads & Voices: Behind the Indian Textile Tradition, 2007; her writings as researcher in Science Technology and Society Studies are A. Mamidipudi et al, 2012, “Mobilising Discourses: Handloom as sustainable socio-technology,” Economic & Political Weekly no. 47 (25), pp. 41-51, and Mamidipudi, A. 2016, "From Vulnerability to Sustainability: Weaving trajectories of hope." Jindal Journal of Public Policy 3 (Issue 1): 172-236 and Mamidipudi, A. 2016, "Towards a theory of innovation for handloom weaving in India," PhD, Department of Technology and Society, Maastricht University. Her research interests include handloom weaving as livelihood, as socio-technology and embodied knowledge; sustainable agriculture, politics of development and the role of markets in sustaining traditional arts and crafts.
She was invited to the University of Chicago’s prestigious Neubauer Collegium, as well as to the Max Planck Society as research fellow. Currently she is employed at the University of Maastricht as a part time post doc to study responsible innovation.