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“People are realising that if they really want to get to their economic, social and climate goals, if they want to raise growth rates, if they want society to be more inclusive, if they want to go from an informal society to a formal society, if they want to address climate change in a proper way, it has to have underlying digital public infrastructure to make that happen. Therefore, it’s no longer a choice or a luxury, it’s essential to get to where we want,” Nilekani said.
He added that the kind of alliance India managed to forge among government, technologists, economists, lawyers etc. in its DPI journey would also have to be recreated in the countries that are now adopting DPIs.
Speaking at the same event, joint secretary, ministry of electronics and information technology Sushil Pal said that the implementation of digital public infrastructure (DPI) around the world would be driven by private sector players rather than the government.
“In each of these bodies, the government as such does not have a major role in it. Governance is a very important layer, but technology can be implemented by companies,” Pal said.
The government of India will not be driving implementation of DPIs globally – rather, it would be along the lines of what has been done in India. “We have broadly been providing the regulatory red lines and strategic direction,” he said.
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Similarly, T Koshy, MD and CEO of the government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) which connects buyers and sellers across platforms, said at the event that open networks need technical detailing, which cannot be provided by regulators.
He cited the example of consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever, which has promised to onboard around one million kirana stores onto ONDC in 1-2 years.
“It is the power of open networks to explode the level of activities in every segment of society,” he said. “Every product or service becomes discoverable on the network. There is humongous possibility for innovation.”
Koshy said that the digital world was like the ‘8th continent’. Like with the discovery of a new continent, some players which have the resources corner the benefits, he said, akin to the East India Company. A network like ONDC provides the roads and highways of the digital world so that anyone can succeed on their own capabilities rather than due to the resources they command, he added.
DPIs can also be used to advance climate goals, according to Kevin O’Neill, MD, data and technology, Rockefeller Foundation. For instance, cash transfers to avert climate-related suffering can be facilitated, he said, citing the example of cash transfers to SEWA members in the event of extremely hot days, so that they do not lose out on daily wages.
“DPI would allow such transfers to be scaled to SEWA’s 2.5 million members,” O’Neill said, adding it could also help build digital carbon registries. “DPI is an approach that can provide solutions at societal scale and across sectors.”
However, while taking DPIs global, there is also a need to think about data privacy, said Dushni Weerakon speaking at the same panel. She added that when Sri Lanka got India’s help with setting up its own unique ID system similar to Aadhaar, India’s condition was that all suppliers must be Indian. This raised questions about where the data would be stored.
Issues of trust would have to be addressed, she said.