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That whoosh you hear is of India’s 1.3 billion people speeding along into the decidedly digital age of the future. And it shows in the 3 billion transactions about to be logged by IndiaStack, the open source initiative to help businesses develop a unified software platform, on the back of the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and last year’s demonetisation drive.
IndiaStack is a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), or computer codes, that allow businesses, start-ups, software developers and governments to use digital infrastructure to address issues ranging from financial inclusion to agriculture.
Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (IIM-A), told BusinessLine that with Aadhaar enrolments crossing a billion and the government’s GST push, the adoption of technology to facilitate business requirements is accelerating.
Jain and his team are working with former UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani to democratise technology availability for a service provider in such a way that he can use software tools to build products or services of benefit to the public.
In line with this, global strategy advisory firm Dalberg and software products industry thinktank iSPIRT, in collaboration with Bharat Innovations Fund, Omidyar Network and Unitus Seed Fund, have called on early-stage start-ups, building on top of IndiaStack, to develop technology that can aid a cross-section of people.
The aim is to unlock new business models, reach out to new customers, drive larger number of transactions across sectors such as financial services, education and healthcare.
According to Varad Pande, Partner and Head of Financial Inclusion at Dalberg Advisors, urban India cannot sit in AC rooms and solve the problems of rural India.
There is, however, no need to reinvent the wheel, say others. “If these API building blocks did not exist, we cannot innovate or leapfrog ahead of others,” said Rahul Chari, co-founder PhonePe, a digital payments company and a part of Flipkart.
The digital push has been driven by government efforts and greater penetration of 4G services, all of which is creating a perfect storm.
The storm, however, raises concerns over the system’s exposure to unethical hackers as happened with Aadhaar. The recent Supreme Court judgement declaring privacy a fundamental right also frames the discourse. “API owners need to be vigilant as cyber breaches are becoming common,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder, Greyhound Research.
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