Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw unveils digital innovation alliance for G20

Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Communications and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday launched the G20 Digital Innovation Alliance (DIA) and a “stay safe online” campaign, with the aim of digitally transforming the global economy in a secure cyber environment.

As India takes on the G20 presidency to be hosted next year, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeiTY) — the nodal ministry for the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG) — will focus on three priority areas. These are digital public infrastructure (DPI), cyber security, and digital skill development, together with the “stay safe online’ campaign and DIA programme during the G20 summit.

As reported earlier, the open-source architecture of Aadhaar and the unified payment interface (UPI) are expected to be showcased at the summit. As part of global digital public goods, the Union government plans to offer expertise and architecture of India Stack to other countries, according to a top source.

“India believes in the philosophy of inclusion. India’s population scale and open-source public digital platforms such as UPI and Aadhaar have delivered economic and social inclusion and spurred innovation. The two campaigns launched today have the humanitarian way of thinking,” Vaishnaw said.

The G20–DIA summit, which will be held in Bengaluru on the sidelines of the DEWG meeting, will span multiple days. Top nominated start-ups from each of the theme areas from all of the G20 countries and the non-member invited countries will showcase their solutions to the global community of investors, mentors, corporate and other government stakeholders.

The engagement is aimed at speedy acceptance of the platform that India plans to offer G20-DIA.

The discussions will revolve around the needs of “critically important sectors” such as agri-tech, health-tech, edtech, fintech, secured digital infrastructure and circular economy. Products by start-ups enabled through the Digital Public Goods Infrastructure can impact the global population, reduce the digital divide and enable sustainable and inclusive techno-socioeconomic development, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, the “stay safe online” campaign is expected to create awareness among citizens of all age groups and backgrounds about cyber risks and ways to tackle them. The campaign will be carried out via the MyGov website in English, Hindi and local languages to reach a wider audience.

MeitY has represented India in numerous working groups and ministerial sessions during previous presidencies. “The objective of the G20-DIA is to identify, recognise and enable the adoption of innovative and impactful digital technologies developed by start-ups, from G20 nations as well as the invited non-member nations,” the ministry said.

India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said, “Solutions springing from India will not be meant for 1.4 billion people of the world but for the next five billion people who will move from poverty to middle-income category.”