Drishtee was conceived in Bhopal, capital of Madya Pradesh and a city which was not much into innovative group of firms working in the Information Technology domain, after its success in the IT project by the name "Gyandoot," which was outsourced to Cyber Edge by DRDA Dhar, Madhya Pradesh.

The start-up company Cyber Edge
Cyber Edge, a small software development outfit, played a critical role in the first round of software development for Gyandoot. In those days, it comprised of a young team of software developers led by a management graduate from the 1995-97 batch of the Delhi School of Economics. Having burnt his fingers, in the stock market crash of 1995, and honed his enterprise management skills during the 2-year stay at the Delhi School of Economics, Satyan Mishra was running a budding IT enterprise in one of India's poorest states. Cyber Edge had attained the position of a leader within the first 9 months of its operation. It had become the leading Internet and Computer training center in the city of Bhopal. While the reasons for its success were many, primary among them was "access to the net." Cyber Edge provided Internet courses bundled with computer fundamentals and web designing. This happened even before the city of Bhopal had the VSNL server. This IT outfit diversified into website development even before completing 1 year of it operation. It developed 8 portals within a span of 4 months and the bottom-line looked prettier than ever.

Offer of the Project "Gyandoot"
Their achievements and growth was marked by the District Additional Collector of Dhar and the District Administration, and it offered them a village IT project they have conceived by the name "Gyandoot." The administration wanted to outsource the function of website development and management to a private agency. DRDA Dhar had hired the services of another software company, based at Indore, for the Intranet software and they expected Cyber Edge to make a website that could explain Gyandoot to the outside world. "Cyber Edge did that within 14 days!" Amidst unprecedented fanfare, then Chief Minister of MP, Mr. Digvijay Singh launched Gyandoot on 13th January, 2000.

Impressed by the project management skills of Cyber Edge, the district administration of Dhar offered the young company the task of taking up the entire project on a maintenance contract from the DRDA Dhar. This was a new game, which had different rules. The leadership at Cyber Edge was apprehensive for variety of reasons, the least of which was the commercial viability of the model. Cyber Edge did accept the contract but on the assurance that more services and centers could be added to increase revenue flow.

The Transformation from Cyber Edge to Drishtee
The entry of Cyber Edge into this world was marked by its transformation into Drishtee, an organization that shed the start-up mentality and started looking at markets beyond Bhopal. The Drishtee Team targeted to attain "viability" within 1 year. This meant identifying more services and entrepreneurs. The golden opportunity to play the state's role, during the implementation stage, gave Drishtee an insight into the lives of the poor. It added to the rich experience its founders already had- none of them had been brought up in a metro. This opportunity defined the DNA of Drishtee - it adopted the concerns of the state, with an eye on profits.

The travels to the interiors of Dhar revealed the market potential for a sustainable, rural ICT concept. After signing the contract on 26th of February, 2000, Drishtee was able to build in 12 more services including certain private offerings like Gram Daak (village mailing system), Gram Haat (Online auction place), Vaivahiki ( Matrimonials) etc. An additional 10 kiosks (all private) came at different locations.

The first worldwide recognition: Stockholm Challenge Award
It was in between all these that Drishtee submitted the profile of the project at the Stockholm Challenge award together with the DRDA, Dhar. It went on to win the first prize in the "Public Services and Democracy" category.

See-off to Dhar and entrance in Sirsa
Along with this prize came the reason to move out of Dhar. Many did not take the limelight on a private agency, for what was a government achievement, positively. The reason for its involvement in the project was questioned. Sensing a change of attitude, among the top brass of the state, Drishtee knew that the time to move had finally come. By that time it had a dedicated team to service the unique requirements of "Gyandoot." The team members were trained to develop IT applications and also to promote their usage in a rural setting. Looking for fresh markets, this team decided to move to Sirsa, a rural district in one of India's most prosperous states, Haryana.

In the first week of December 2000, Drishtee handed over the responsibility to the local NIC team for software maintenance. The crash course in implementing a sustainable rural ICT business model was finally over. The Drishtee Team had passed out with flying colors and had landed a job for itself at Sirsa. With the success of Drishtee it emerged as a truly Indian brand. An Indian firm specializing in the task of combining ICT and local resources for creating empowered commercial networks, in low-income markets.

The Emergence of Drishtee as an Entity
The success and emergence of brands like Drishtee would be directly linked to India's development in the global neighborhood. If history hints at the future, one would have to struggle to discover traces of similarity between Cyber Edge, a small "cyber café" in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and Drishtee, winner of the DM 2003 at Washington, USA.

A commercial initiative to replicate, on a large scale, what the District Administration of Dhar, a tribal district in Madhya Pradesh, had conceived, Drishtee has traveled a long distance as a "concept" and as an "organization". It's journey as a "concept" has had a major implications on its evolution as an "organization".

It is because of having started on a "clean sheet" of paper that Drishtee has arrived at a cost and organizational structure suited for commercial replication of a bottom-up business concept.