Call it a tech-tonic shift.
In February 2013, a group of IT leaders met for the first time in Bangalore to brainstorm how to catapult India from the “back office of the world” to a “product nation”. From just IT services to entire software systems.
Fast forward a decade later, and Sharad Sharma and his volunteer-run “think and do” tank called Indian Software Products Industry Round Table (iSPIRT) – a spin-off of the 2013 conclave – have been at the helm of this makeover towards a new, nimble economy. Built on digital DNA. Anchored by a tech spine. Owned by India.
Sharad is a former C-suite heavyweight at AT&T and Yahoo, longtime entrepreneur, angel investor, and co-founder of iSPIRT. He is also a vocal campaigner of building Bharat – the India beyond the richest 100 million families. As he shared in a recent podcast interview, what was to be a one-year sabbatical to India turned into a decades-long crusade for a country that produces what it consumes and focuses on “value-based technologies”. (His zeal briefly led to a fractious Twitter spat with those opposed to his views in 2017, for which he subsequently apologised.)
What began with Aadhaar, a nationwide biometric identification system, iSPIRT expanded into what we now call the IndiaStack: A unified, open platform of digital highways promoting presence-less, paper-less, and cash-less delivery. On top of which enterprises can be built and startups run. A literal stacking of businesses. As Sharma explains, “Think of Uber. Would there be an Uber without GPS, which was a system built by the US government?” In short: public infrastructure, private provision.
Take UPI, the runaway real-time payment triumph. ONDC, an open e-commerce platform. OCEN, an open network for credit between borrowers and lenders.
Undertakings – and others like the government-run DigiLocker, a digital repository of certified documents, and the upcoming National Health Stack – that have become representative of Digital India.
Solutions that seek to address problems of scale. Access. Inclusion. Banking. Credit. Markets. Case in point: India went from less than 20% of adults holding a bank account in 2011 to almost 80% in 2018 – a feat that would otherwise have taken 40-odd years without IndiaStack.
Digital public infrastructure that has garnered applause from the world (it has even been acknowledged by the UN as a critical enabler of SDGs). And secured interest from external markets. From Suriname to Sierra Leone to Saudi Arabia, the Global South is inking MoUs to adopt IndiaStack. And UPI has been accepted in France, UAE, and Sri Lanka.
But Sharma believes IndiaStack’s real legacy at home is its MO: building an ecosystem where both the government and the private sector have a role to play. An approach he believes is applicable to other big bets India is making. Whether in telecom or in electronics. “India perhaps needs 30 iSPIRTS,” as Sharma says.
But what of the tensions between public responsibility and private enterprise, governance and profit? Between access and privacy, convenience and security? Digital enablement and digital divides? Sharma stresses that India has found the middle ground, what he deems “the first system in the world for data economy” based on consent.
India has close to 800 million people online, a median age of 29, and 25% of the world’s working population. How it straddles colliding worlds of aspiration and unemployment, digital ambition and digital disenfranchisement, democratised access and intensifying surveillance will have important implications for the world.
Sharad Sharma is currently deploying his tech savvy as part of a 38-member UN advisory board on AI as well. At SYNAPSE, meet the man on a mission to prove India’s mettle as an IT nation. Hear him take stock of Digital India. The Indian approach to innovation and regulation. The untapped potential, the gaps in the system, the needed protections. What comes next as IndiaStack goes global – and the world shifts from digital to AI.
