Start-ups have a key role in scaling up digital public infrastructure: expert

Pramod Varma emphasizes the importance of Digital Public Infrastructure for start-ups to impact common people's lives.

Start-ups have to build and fund product innovations around Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to make an impact on the life of common people, Pramod Varma, former Chief Architect, Aadhaar and India Stack, has said.

Mr. Varma was speaking on the scope and opportunities across the DPI ecosystem at the The Dawn of DPI conclave organised by Sunbird.org in association with the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) and Gtech MuLearn here on Thursday.

The DPI includes digital forms of ID and verification, civil registration, payment, data exchange, and information systems.

Noting that India is making a policy shift in building digital infrastructure with a new scale and speed, Mr. Varma said innovators were the driving force of the transformation. He urged innovators and start-ups to adopt market innovation and use Digital Public Goods (DPG) — open-source software with open standards and data, artificial intelligence (AI) models, standards and content — and protocols within their platforms.

According to Mr. Varma, the DPI is not different from physical infrastructure and it should create equity and common playground in digital realm.

“Innovators with tech/product skills can join the community and contribute to make an impact. Countries are really reimagining the possibility of a sustainable economic development and India has shown the world how it can be done,” said Mr. Varma.  

He said language was the biggest barrier in UPI transaction and the next biggest AI initiative in India was going to be voice-based apps, enabling voice-based payments, which was a powerful way to bring millions of people under its ambit.