India’s DPI model to be taken to 50 countries in next 5 years

India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) model, a global coalition of multilateral organisations including the World Bank and the IMF, led by the Centre and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, will take the nation across 50 countries in the next five years, said Nandan Nilekani, Chairman of Infosys and the Founder Chairman of Aadhaar project.

Nilekani was speaking at the B20 Summit in Delhi. He said the next few years promise the proliferation of digital infrastructural thinking at the population scale, using open architecture. It is going to be increasingly ubiquitous and prevalent around the world, the Chairman added.

The DPIs will also significantly allow climate adaptation and mitigation facilitating the increasing need for cash transfers to fortify vulnerable areas, people and emergency funding after extreme climate events like floods.

He stressed climate adaptation will give anticipatory financing for building more resilient homes, in the situation of higher sea levels and DPI will boost the process.

Additionally, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform will build “reverse logistics” enabling a circular economy for recycling and reducing wastage. Further, with greater electric vehicle adoption, the technology used in the DPIs can be deployed to create an interoperable network for accessing charging stations and batteries.

Nilekani emphasised that DPI has helped us so far and is going to help us in the future as well.

He said DPIs are also a “data empowerment architecture” and underlined that the data generated from these platforms is a form of “digital capital”. An individual can use digital capital to get ahead in life and data can be leveraged to get better loans, good jobs and to develop advanced skills, Nilekani added.

Elucidating further the Chairman said, India has found the balance between regulation and innovation because of a participatory model of coordinated governance where government regulators and technology companies worked together. BW Businessworld