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How India Stack Came About
The journey of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) started with Rajni, a real-life street vendor in Bangalore, back in 2013 when India conceived of a financial inclusion system that would bring her into a formal lending model where she could get ₹400 - ₹500 (USD 5) as a loan for a day. She would take the loan in the morning, buy something from that money, make something, sell it by the evening and return the loan by the end of the day. For this loan she had to pay 1% every day to her moneylender. So, our goal was that if we brought her into the formal system, instead of paying 365% a year she would have to pay less than 1/10th of that.
This is a partnership between DPIs in the outer circle and what innovators are able to do with them in the inner circle. Innovators could be private companies that have now become unicorns or in many cases, the government agencies. This is what enables innovators to use the public building blocks provided to solve for the needs of the citizens. This is the essence of India Stack, Citizen Stack, and Digital Public Infrastructure.
Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSPIRT and co-host of the conference stated, "this is not an Indian idea. This model of innovation has existed before but it has never been brought into this form into the digital world. This is the contribution of India. All this happened for Rajni. One layer has to do with flow to people, another with the flow of money, and the final one with the flow of information. By creating DPI to mediate these 3 flows you are able to reimagine citizen and market services in a way that is not possible in any other innovation model.”
India has the 2nd largest startup ecosystem in the world. Today, 40% of these Indian startup unicorns are relying on India Stack. Digital Public Infrastructure has Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) benefits, innovation benefits, and economic benefits. India’s ability to invest in health, education, and physical infrastructure, has improved dramatically by bringing citizens like Rajni into the formal system, leading them to pay taxes which earlier they were unable to do properly. This has also led to a phenomenal increase in India’s tax to GDP ration.
DPI Principles/Sutras
There are 5 DPI Principles/Sutras that will help create a healthy DPI ecosystem in the future. These guiding principles are crucial because moving forward there might be subtle changes that force adopters to dilute the essence of DPIs.
Citizen’s Agency and 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.
DPI Adopters
As of today, Modular Open-Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) has been adopted by 18 countries where every country could choose a Citizen Stack that is appropriate for them. India in no way has suggested and neither is it going to suggest a one-size fits all approach. Instead, India’s focus is on sharing India’s learnings, building blocks and design thinking that India followed while creating and building their own DPI.
Dawit Mulugeta Dame, Head of Strategy, National ID Program, Ethiopia, during the conference stated “We had few engineers working on the digital ID system and so we found MOSIP easy to consume. It offered the best solution in terms of flexibility, adaptability, and interoperability.”
The Citizen Stack conference at the United Nations Headquarters, New York not only emphasized the collaborative efforts needed to enhance inclusive global growth, welfare and sustainable development but also positioned India, as a trusted global partner, to lead this through Digital Public Infrastructure. India invites and encourages all of you to empower the Rajni in your country, accelerate SDG rollout, reignite economic activity, and spur innovation. Join the DPI revolution- the time is now!
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