Pune : 13 June 2023

The Global DPI Summit, as the side event of third meeting of G20 Digital Economy Working Group, was successfully organised over the last two days.  Inaugurated by Union Minister of State in Ministry of Electronics and IT and MSDE, Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the summit was attended by 150 foreign delegates from around 50 countries and over 250 delegates in-person and more than 2000 persons attended the summit live. During the summit, India signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with four countries namely Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname and Antigua and Barbuda on sharing INDIA STACK i.e. successful digital solutions implemented at population scale.

Ten Panel Discussions on sector agnostic and sectoral DPIs were held. Around 60 Global Experts on DPIs held the insightful, thought provoking, and outcome-oriented discussions. On the first day i.e. 12 June 2023, four sessions on DPI namely ‘Overview of Digital Public Infrastructure’, ‘Digital Identities for empowering people’, ‘Digital Payments and Financial Inclusion’, ‘DPI for Judicial Systems and Regulations’.

The brief on six DPI sessions held today are as follows:

Session: Digital Document Exchange for efficient service delivery

It was chaired by Mr. Gevorg Mantashyan, Honb’le First Deputy Minister of Armenia and was moderated by Mr. C V Madhukar from Co-Develop and the panellists included Mr. Abhishek Singh, NeGD, Ms. Alka Misra, NIC; Mr. Anir Chowdhury, Bangladesh and Mr. B G Mahesh, DigiSahamati. Lessons of global best practices and country’s experience of Bangladesh, India and Armenia were covered. These included Nothi - Decision Support System, myLocker, DigiLocker, API Setu, Open Government Data platform, Account Aggregator, DigiYatra. The discussions covered the crucial role of DPI in data exchange, design of data exchange and improving the relationship between Government and Citizens for proactive and integrated services. The integration among government applications and databases were also covered.

Session: Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for DPI

It was chaired by Mr. Moses Kunkuyu Kalongashawa, Hon’ble Minister of Malawi and was moderated by Mr. Vijayakumar Manjunatha, Asia PKI Consortium and panellists included Mr. Arvind Kumar, CCA-India; Prof. Satoru Tezuka, Japan; Ms. Anne Waweru, Kenya, and Mr. Nick Pope, Europe. Experience of Asia PKI Forum and country’s experience of Japan, Kenya, and India were covered. Panel discussed at length and covered aspects such as PKI as a Cryptographic Identity Provider, multi-purpose usages, legal validity, Data Free Flow with Trust, African cross border digital initiatives, Kenya TradeNet System, etc. The session ends on the positive note with the declaration and release of ‘Draft PKI Mutual Recognition Framework’.

Session: Digital Education and Skilling

It was chaired by Ms. Parvashi D Maharahaje, Asst. Permanent Secretary, Mauritius and was moderated by Mr. Shankar Maruwada from EkStep Foundation and included speakers such as Ms. Eunsong Kim, UNESCO; Dr. Buddha Chandrashekhar, AICTE; Ms. L. S. Changsan, Dept. of School Education & Literacy, India. Panel discussed the national and multi-lateral organization perspectives on education policies, digital innovations that works at population scale, in diverse & complex environment, initiatives such as PM eVIDYA-DIKSHA – a learning platform, several engagement models (such as Do It Yourself, Advisory and Partner led), a Global Framework of Reference on Digital Literacy Skills for SDG Indicator 4.4.2, the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Skilling for Building a Global Future Ready Workforce, National Internship Portal, Language services, Voice based filling the application forms, etc.

Session: DPI for Digital Health and Climate Action

It was co-chaired by Mr. Rahaingonjatovo Nirina and, CDO, Madagascar and Mr. Kanaka Dasaratha Herath, State Minister Of Technology, Sri Lanka and was moderated by Mr. Purushottam Kaushik, World Economic Forum, and included speakers namely, Mr. Suhel Bidani, BMGF, Mr. Vikalp Sahni, Eka care, and Ms. Martine Bottheim, Acting Ambassador, Norway to India. India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and Norway shared their country’s experience and international organizations (such as World Economic Forum, Eka care, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) shared the best practices on DPI for health and climate change, related policies, and initiatives. Discussion covered details on diverse aspects such as alliance on health & climate change, investment, health records, design for people with or without phone, data protection issue, wearable devices, easy participation of health facilities to participate in digital healthcare ecosystem, etc were covered in detail.

Session: Digital Agriculture Ecosystem

The session was chaired by Ms. Damchen Zangmo, GovTech Agency, Bhutan and moderated by Mr. Rajeev Chawla, Chief Knowledge Officer, MoAFW-India, and included speakers namely Mr. Chengal Navin Twarakavi, ADB-Philippines; Dr ML Jat, ICRISAT, India; Ms. Chen Hattav, GrowingIL, Israel; Dr. Anil Rai, ICAR. The session dealt on the AgriStack, important registries (viz. Farmer, Land Parcel, Crop), Data Sharing, Standard, Drip and Precision Agriculture.  

Session: Building the Global DPI Ecosystem’

It was chaired by Mr. Walter Eduardo Morales Vega, Board Advisor, Central Bank of Uruguay and was moderated by Mr Abhishek Singh P&CEO, NeGD and the speakers included Mr. T Koshy, ONDC; Dr. Srivatsa Krishna, IAS, Govt. of Karnataka; Mr. Robert Opp, CDO, UNDP; Ms. Vyjayanti T Desai, PM, World Bank. The session discussed fundamental aspects of DPI, its differentiation from earlier digital initiatives across the globe and its future roadmap (in terms of inclusion, interoperability, open standards, open partnerships, open APIs, etc). The aspects of funding DPIs with the assistance of multi-lateral banks, process reengineering, collaborative design & implementation, touching person last in line with or without digital means etc were also covered in detail.

Global DPI exhibition will continue till 14 June 2023.

The entire event over last two days was streamed live and can be seen at

https://www.indiastack.global/global-dpi-summit/

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