Mahatma Gandhi’s vision for ideal Indian villages emphasised active participation in community governance and development. He viewed ‘Khadi’ as a symbol of unity, economic freedom, and equality, advocating for decentralised production and distribution of essential goods.
Today, as we approach a technological revolution, it is essential to reflect on the relevance of these ideas. In our technology-driven era, millions of digital villages exist as information networks governed by opensource digital public infrastructure. Can these digital communities become as recognisable, simple, and unifying as Khadi? As these digital (tech) communities create digital products today, their efforts rest on three key pillars: Standards, Discovery, and Governance.
The spirit of Khadi is embodied in the Khadi mark as a standard. Similarly, open standards in technology — publicly available technical specifications, protocols or formats — serve a vital role. A key example of standards in action is the digital vaccine certificate system.
This success stems from DIVOC (Digital Infrastructure for Verifiable Open Credentialing), which is an open source Digital Public Good, built on open-source standards and aligned with Digital Public Good Alliance specifications, guided by the UNSG Roadmap for Digital Cooperation.
This is a collaborative effort among various Indian organizations and international bodies like the WHO; consider these as digital villages coming together for the global good. The same spirit of collaborative creation and adoption of standards by various digital villages is what powers Universal Payment Interface (UPI) for payments.
In healthcare, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM) uses the Unified Health Interface (UHI) standard for seamless information exchange between health providers. In education, the National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) provides a blueprint for implementing technology in education.
Discovery: So how do members and organisations in these digital villages come together to build Digital Public Goods and Infrastructure?
As in a village republic, every member of the community contributes unique skills to enrich the community; digital (tech) communities comprise diverse talents like product managers, developers, and UX researchers. Identifying and sourcing these skills from the right spaces is essential for curating a community that serves the greater good.
A key challenge is enabling the discovery of the right contributors with the right skills and relevant problem statements (or in tech parlance, issues) when weaving digital Khadi.
Digital villages like the Code for GovTech Community get created to solve for this. The community identifies ‘good first issues’ from thousands of GitHub repositories of Digital Public Good builders such as MeitY, National Health Authority, EkStep, eGov and SamagraX among others. This focus on ‘good first issues’ helps new contributors easily start their ‘digital charkha.’ Discovery across assets is facilitated by standard protocols like Beckn.
For instance, ONEST (Open Network for Education and Skilling Transformations) uses Beckn to help users find educational content, teachers, financial support, and job opportunities. ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) enables product discovery among various sellers through Beckn.
Governance: Today’s tech requires governance mechanisms — decision-making frameworks, transparent processes and codes of conduct that promote community goals.
The Foundation for Interoperability in the Digital Economy (FIDE) governs the Beckn protocol, fostering innovation and co-creation among ecosystem participants by building interoperable open protocol specifications for various applications. Each digital village, like FIDE, develops its own charter, contributor base, and funding sources to sustain its operations.
Constructs such as Digital Cooperatives and Data Fiduciaries are yet to evolve in the digital fabric of Bharat, which will also feed into the weaving of the digital Khadi. It’s remarkable to see digital villages form organically, connect through protocols, build on standards, and collaborate via governance principles and common charters.
Preserving the autonomy of these communities while enhancing interoperability and discoverability is crucial. As we embark on this journey, let’s honour the spirit of Khadi harmony- in our digital revolution.
The writer is Chief Technologist at Samagra, a mission-driven governance consulting firm
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