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The Blueprint for Digital Transformation
It's crucial to consider the innovative thinking behind India's Digital Public Infrastructure, the Citizen Stack. Instead of merely expanding enterprise architecture, India took a novel approach by starting from scratch to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. This strategy integrates digital public infrastructure with privately developed apps, enhancing user experience. The platform is reinforced by techno-legal regulations, empowering individuals with their data and ensuring digital sovereignty.
In exploring the essence of Citizen Stack, we draw upon the analogy of Yoga to convey our methodological approach. Much like Yoga embodies "Sutra" as guiding principles and "Asana" as tangible implementations, Citizen Stack embraces similar elements. Here, the digital public infrastructure assumes the role of an "asana," subjected to evaluation against the five "sutras" to ensure alignment with the overarching objective of nurturing a citizen-centric digital nation.
Citizen’s Agency
& Privacy
Uphold citizens' relationship with the market and the state, free from adverse influences. Safeguard citizen empowerment and privacy through a consent-based system of sharing data.
Interoperability
Prevent the lock-in of citizens by competing monopolies by ensuring interoperability.
Techno-Legal
Regulation
Techno-legal regulation combines public technology and law to govern ethical tech use, ensuring innovation, security, and societal rights in the digital age.
Bypassing Corporatization
& Private Monopoly
Public Plus Private innovation versus Private Domination. Future roadmap should not be controlled by corporate or monopoly interests as DPI builds combinatorial amplification for Public Good.
Safeguarding
Against Weaponization
Technology implementation should prevent hooks for weaponization by state or corporate actors.
Crucial Aspects & Attributes of The Five Sutras
India's successful implementation of digital public infrastructure demonstrates alignment with these principles, securing Digital Sovereignty through the Citizen Stack.
The examples demonstrate how it aligns with each "asana" against the five "sutras," yielding significant benefits at scale.
Asana
Benefits At Scale
(Tangible Implementation)
Identity
National identity is deeply personal and must be safeguarded at individual and country levels. The Philippines, Ethiopia, and 15 more nations have adopted a Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) tailored to their needs, securing 100M+identities globally.
MOSIP's identity system, born from India's model, remains distinct. India's system covers 1.3 billion people, facilitating Direct Social Benefit Transfers seamlessly, resulting in direct social benefit transfer of 314 schemes, resulting in US$27 billion in savings from subsidy leakages.
Payments
The Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is built on an open-source code layer, with an operating platform funded by public expenditure and governed by both private and public entities through the National Payments Corporation of India. Private innovation, such as payment layers provided by PhonePe and Google Pay, enables seamless transactions connecting MSMEs, citizens, and banks in real-time at minimal cost.
Inclusivity in semi-urban and rural areas through mobile-accessible technology has led to significant growth in banking penetration, increasing from 17% to 80% in just 7 years.
Open Networks
Open networks provide MSMEs with the ability to access national markets in a country. Such networks, like ONDC, OCEN, and OHN, extensively bridge the gap between suppliers and users for faster and more cost-effective delivery. They also foster innovation through application-driven services on a larger scale. Specific products like e-KYC, DigiLocker, and Account Aggregator simplify and expedite commercial transactions. Seamless interoperability reduces costs and time while enhancing productivity and user experience.
Cost of opening an account from $25 to $0.18, 17 billion e-kyc, 3rd largest startup ecosystem, with 112 unicorns and $141 billion funding raised in 2023, 26,000 merchants collaborated on ONDC with 2.7million products offered.
DPI Safeguards
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, Digital Empowerment, and Protection Architecture training, along with DigiLocker and Account Aggregator, serve as building blocks to achieve data sharing and governance alongside regulated AI.
DigiLocker has issued 6.2 billion documents, and 44 million bank accounts are linked to Account Aggregator, facilitating consent-driven data sharing for 44 million individuals.