New Delhi: Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog stated that India has huge potential to create 1 Trillion economic value from digital economy by 2025 up from 200 billion currently. He was speaking at the 15th India Digital Summit, organized by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Addressing the delegates, Shri Kant said, “COVID has shown us that every crisis is an opportunity. The post-COVID era is going to change the global scenario and only those countries will grow which can create economic value from the digital economy. The supply chain will get re-structured and it will move from one country to many countries led by the power of technology.”

Shri Kant stressed that digital transformation will drive India’s manufacturing sector forward with the help of technologies like AI, Cloud computing, IoT, Blockchains, and robotics. “In order to take its rightful place in the global supply chains, India is leveraging these technologies and applying them across the manufacturing value chains to gain competitiveness. Data will be critical to meet these goals,” he said.

In another session on ‘The roadmap for the telecom infrastructure for the National Digital Communication Policy’ Shri PD Vaghela, Chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India said that stressed on the fact that Government-Industry-Academia collaboration is the need of the hour and much needed step towards strengthening of digital economy”.

TRAI chairman stressed upon the fact that supporting policies need to be evolved to position India as global destination for technology products. He further said 5G would usher seamless coverage, ultra-high speeds, and highly reliable communications for mission-critical applications. 5G promises a new range of services to consumers and enterprises, beyond traditional voice and data, by enabling technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), AI, robotics, augmented reality, and virtual reality, and a host of new emerging applications, he said. Taking about the roll out of 5G, he mentioned that street furniture is going to be important. “In 5G, street furniture is going to be important.” He said that the operators and the government have started planning to ensure a faster and smoother rollout of 5G service. 

In another session on ‘Re-imagining India’s health data ecosystem’, Shri J. Satyanarayana, Chairman of the National Digital Health Blueprint (NDHB) committee in his keynote address outlining the conceptual underpinnings of NDHB said that the committee was driven by the goal of elevating standards of care across the healthcare sector, by defining guidelines for technology-driven capacity building. The chairman defined the goals of the blueprint as ‘Universal health coverage, quality, and continuum of care.’

Shri Satyanarayana acknowledged the privacy risks associated with the digitization of medical infrastructure in India. The chairman addressed these concerns by expressing the NDHB committee’s commitment to privacy by design, minimalistic collection, purpose limitation and informed consent. The chairman also clarified that the ‘Digital ID’ provided by the scheme would not mandatorily have to be linked to Aadhar, and that data would not be centralized under the vision of the NDHB.

Shri Satyanarayana concluded the address by mentioning that a pilot of the blueprint is being conducted in 6 union territories. The challenges of digitizing rural healthcare providers have become clear through the pilot, and specific technological solutions are being designed under the guidance of the committee to solve these problems. He stressed that Think Big, Start Small and Scale Fast is the NDHM philosophy right now.

IDS 2021 will have speakers who are leaders in their own fields and from industries such as Logistics, FinTech, AdTech, Digital Health and beyond.  The event will comprise of six tracks: Building National Digital Infrastructure; Marketing for the Masses; Innovative digital services beyond the first 100 million paid customers; Digitally Recharging Small and Medium Business; Digital Policies from Global Perspective but Indian Reality; Nurturing Indian Startups.