DPIs could be part of India’s soft power projection: ex-CEO of NHA
NEW DELHI : The global proliferation of digital public infrastructures (DPIs) can be part of India’s soft power projection, in turn helping “increase our influence" around the world, said Ram Sewak Sharma, former chief executive of the Centre’s National Health Authority (NHA). In an interview on the sidelines of the first Digital Public Dialogues, a government-backed discussion forum in Delhi on Monday, Sharma underlined the importance of DPIs, which were a part of India’s agenda during its G20 presidency that concluded on 10 September. “China has a huge amount of money, which can be used to influence global stakeholders.
What we have is knowledge, through which we have created our DPIs. This is our soft power—in a way, we try and help the world solve their problems across different countries. By doing this, we increase our influence—it’s not always in terms of gaining in a limited monetary sense.
One should look at gains from a thought leadership point of view, that’s more important," said Sharma. During his keynote speech at the forum, Sharma highlighted the need to showcase DPIs to other nations. “I have showcased the effectiveness of our centralized, connected attendance system in Morocco—it’s only when we showed it in action that stakeholders in Morocco were excited about adopting it.
It’s very important to showcase our technologies in action," he added. Sharma, who led the development of India’s health stack, added that proliferation and adoption of India’s central health technologies is progressing at a steady pace. “There is always a gap between the development of technology, and its adoption.
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