India at UNGA side event highlights its digital platforms, calls for technological cooperation between member states
Sep 30, 2021
New Delhi [India], September 30 : While participating virtually in a gathering at the high-level UN General Assembly-76 event titled "From Open Software to Open Society," India highlighted its public digital platforms and called for strengthened technological cooperation between member states.
Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary Ministry of Electronics and Information, participated in the event virtually on Wednesday.
Highlighting India's public digital platforms he said transformative digital public goods are impacting the life of over 1.3 billion citizens.
The Ministry of Electronics and IT said in a tweet on Wednesday, "Addressing the gathering virtually at High-level UN General Assembly 76 event "From Open Software to Open Society", @GoI_MeitY Secy Ajay Sawhney highlighted that India's public digital platforms are transformative digital public goods impacting life of over 1.3 billion citizens."
Calling for strengthened technological cooperation between member states Sawhney stressed that cooperation through transfer of technology and capacity building is key to deliver on the promises of sustainable development.
"We look forward to working with our partners to share our experience in harnessing technology and innovation for the prosperity of humanity," he added.
Emphasising India's Aadhaar programme Sawhney called it "the world's largest biometric digital database covering over 1.25 billion residents including 99% of the adults".
Terming India's Unified Payment Interface a unique payment system he said that it has enabled an exponential increase in digital payment transactions in the country and brought in transparency, convenience and speed into a wide spectrum of digital transactions.
Further, he mentioned the Co-WIN platform saying it "helped us integrate the entire gamut of services related to COVID-19 vaccination drive under a single window, which is readily accessible to the public".
"In short, I will like to emphasize that our Digital Public Goods are leveraging public data for open innovation models fostering economic and social inclusion. They enable a low entry barrier eco-system that fosters continuous and frugal innovation through a public-private partnership," he added.
