India has the third largest number of unicorns, but it is way behind the US and China. It has the smallest R&D workforce, the smallest scientific manpower among the three countries, and has no tech firms of the size of Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook. But even before Aadhaar and UPI, it had NSE, NSDL, Isro … Infosys non-executive chairman and co-founder Nandan Nilekani points out in a fireside chat with FE managing editor Sunil Jain at the FE CFO Awards 2020. Excerpts:
How far behind the US and China is India when it comes to tech power? After the first two phases where we took steps to modernise our banks and stock market, the third phase—in the last decade— was about putting in the digital infrastructure at the individual level … I joined the government in 2009 and Aadhaar now reaches 1.27 billion people. It is used to de-duplicate passports, driving licences, PAN cards, and now there is a proposal before the Election Commission of India to use it to de-duplicate voter IDs and make it easier for people to vote when they travel.
Today we have more than 700 million unique bank accounts linked to Aadhaar numbers. That, in turn, laid the foundation for the world’s largest direct benefit transfer programme. This also came in handy during the pandemic when the government transferred money into people’s bank accounts … we have demonstrated to the world the quality of our infrastructure.
Read More at https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/the-west-created-monopolies-we-democratised-data-nandan-nilekani-co-founder-infosys/2225178/
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