India Stack: A Developer’s Approach

India Stack:

A Developer’s Approach

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Introduction

Today in India we have available development platform and growing market for the successful practice of india oriented software and app development. This development platform is characterized as India Stack- IndiaStack is a complete set of API, made available under the Open API Policy, which enables development of payment-enabled Apps. It includes Aadhaar for Authentication (Aadhaar already covers over 1.2 billion people and will quickly cover the population of the entire nation providing the world’s largest authentication system), e-KYC documents (safe deposit locker for issue, storage and use of documents), e-Sign (digital signature acceptable under the laws), unified payment interface (for financial transactions) and privacy-protected data sharing within the stack of API.

Together, the India Stack enables Apps that could open up many opportunities in financial services, healthcare and education sectors of the Indian economy. What this essentially means is that developers and tech startups can now build software and create businesses around the readily available infrastructure offered through India Stack, thus opening a huge potential to tap into the booming smartphone market in the country. Since the consumer market in India is very large, such startups could also hope for institutional funding and gain from the early mover advantage.

IndiaStack Impact

IndiaStack has the potential to revolutionize the way government services of the future are delivered in a large country like India. The nation is looking for “a transition from technology-poor to innovation-rich society” and entrepreneurs have a good role to play. The problems (read opportunities) in financial services, healthcare and education are all so large that only the right technology and entrepreneurial brainpower can cost-effectively solve them. Solving these scale problems should mean great business sense too.

Recently, on his visit to India, Bill Gates commented on India Stack saying, “India is on the cusp of leapfrogging!” And it truly is; considering it is the only country in the world offering such an open and secure API, India is determined to take the Digital India campaign to a whole new level.

IndiaStack as Enabler

The rapid adoption of Aadhar, Jan Dhan Yojna, and smartphones (JAM) have created a fundamental layer of customer identification and access, on which multiple other digital transactions can be built. The combined initiative of UIDAI, CCA, DeitY, and NPCI has created a unified, integrated layer of digital tools and services (or information system highway) that is called as India Stack. Similar to the creation of the Internet (based on TCP/IP stack), where browsers and applications form the front end for access, here too the private sector players can focus on building customer facing solutions that ride on India Stack. A good analogy of the kind of innovation possible is Uber which uses the building blocks of GPS, Google Maps, electronic payment and smartphone - none of which Uber built nor owns - to create a customer friendly transportation solution.

World over systems that provide information like India Stack are controlled by private companies where fear of monopolistic practices looms large e.g. Apply Pay is based on one click two factor authentication, Facebook Connect provides ID for a billion people, M-pesa provides digital payments on mobile to most of Kenya. In India, the entire stack is an open API stack built as a ‘public good’ which can be leveraged by the smallest startup. The focus has been to create this open plumbing and let innovation happen on the customer end of any solution. The explosion of innovation possible on this freely accessible digital foundation is extraordinary. This sets the stage for the hundreds of experiments or what Nobel Prize winning economist Edmund S. Phelps calls as ‘mass flourishing’ on the basis of widespread, indigenous innovation.

Millions of people could not access current financial systems due to various friction points around paper based identity proof, access and interaction with physical bank, availability of hard cash. India Stack - starting from the basic foundation of JAM and building on the other layers - has completely eliminated these friction points and made these services universally accessible; thereby solving the demand side. More importantly, by becoming a free infrastructure service available to the smallest entrepreneur it has opened up the number of suppliers ready to innovate and fulfill demand from this demographic. It gives marginalized consumers more power to choose his/her provider.

In our view, India Stack is the key enabler for lowering barriers to entry for experimentation by the small entrepreneur. For the first time in the country (and in the world) there is an opportunity to combine the sweeping tide of multiple technological forces into a unifying digital platform of change. For the first time, more than 1B Indian customer have access to the trinity of tools viz. mobile phone, Aadhaar number, and bank account. For the first time, innovators and entrepreneurs have access to a free, at scale, backend information system like India Stack, for launching digital products and services. For the first time, there will be a systemic injection of financing and regulatory support for the small guy to experiment.

We are at an inflection point in India’s history; we stand at the edge of unprecedented digital innovation across customers needs and demographics. These innovations will leapfrog any existing solution worldwide, as they are backed by freely available cutting edge digital infrastructure, India Stack, and large scale demand - a fortuitous convergence that is unique to India.

References:

https://soundcloud.com/hackerearth/developers-and-the-india-stack ( audio)

https://www.drupal.org/project/indiastack ( announcement)

http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-commentary/india-stack-to-bridge-the-digital-divide-in-our-country/ ( printed)

http://www.livemint.com/Money/q26oVR4uwAJaY97SccrZkN/IndiaStack-will-provide-a-unified-platform-for-electronic-id.html (printed)

http://pn.ispirt.in/tag/india-stack/ (printed)

http://pn.ispirt.in/india-stack-tahttps://proteans.wordpress.com/2016/02/13/india-stack-powering-thousands-of-experiments/kes-the-digital-india-campaign-to-a-whole-new-level/ (printed)

https://yourstory.com/2016/07/india-stack/ (printed)

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2016-03-30/news/71926500_1_software-aadhaar-bill-digital-locker

https://proteans.wordpress.com/2016/02/13/india-stack-powering-thousands-of-experiments/

https://ppkya.wordpress.com/2016/08/05/india-stack/

https://www.quora.com/What-is-India-Stack-How-is-it-going-to-impact-India-in-the-next-few-years