Infosys was arguably India's pioneering effort in capitalising on the IT boom, marking the country’s first significant foray into the rapidly expanding sector and eventually making Bangalore the Indian Silicon Valley that it is today. In the late 90s, seven engineers got together to form what has now become one of the country’s biggest IT mammoths.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, after playing a pioneering role in shaping India's IT landscape, transitioned to focus on building India's digital infrastructure. In a recent podcast with Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, Nilekani shared how his book led to him helming India’s efforts to build the “Aadhaar” digital identification programme.

The Infosys veteran shares that in 2008, he spoke about the potential of digital IDs in his book “Imagining India”. At the same time, the Indian government was planning a similar programme and looped Nilekani to head the project. “My Infosys co-founders were very kind and said I could go and do some National service,” Nilekani said.

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In 2009, he joined the government to build the system. Nilekani says he had committed to bringing 60 crore people under the Aadhaar ecosystem before leaving, which he said he successfully delivered upon.

The idea was for Aadhaar to have a citizen’s details with a unique number that could further act as a sufficient know-your-customer (KYC) document to avail services ranging from opening a bank account to getting a mobile connection.

Nilekani recalled that in April 2016, India hit the milestone of 1 billion Aadhar registration. He referred to 2016 as a remarkable year for digital transformation, which was pushed by the landmark achievement followed by the launch of United Payments Interface (UPI). In today’s date, UPI has entirely transformed India’s fintech ecosystem, Nilekani asserted.

He also spoke about India’s shift to what he referred to as “Finternet” — a model he, along with Mexican economist Agustin Carstens, proposed. It marries the concept of the traditional financial system with cryptographic techniques like blockchain.

Nilekani elaborated in the course of the podcast on the potential transformation that the adoption of this concept could bring to various sectors across India.

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