ProductNation/ispirt

09/02/2025

India is building the world’s most sophisticated and inclusive data sharing economy. By using techno-legal regulation using DEPA (Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture) it guarantees privacy without having to throttle innovation.

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚'𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐈 𝐢𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞.

Sharad Sharma of iSPIRT explains: “If we play AI right, it’ll lift many Indians out of poverty.”

India in France (Embassy of India, Paris)

Artificial intelligence: The tools for building a bright future? "Does humanity know what it's doing or are we creating the tools of our own downfall?" asks ...

06/02/2025

Proud moment for India as the SGBC research centre of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras creates DHARANI - the world’s largest and most detailed 3D atlas of the fetal human brain. This open-access resource maps over 5000 brain sections & 500 regions, offering crucial insights into brain development & disorders. Kris Gopalakrishnan ’s contribution as a SUTRADHAR in this effort are seminal.

This breakthrough was achieved using home grown technology and platforms - a testament to India’s scientific ability.

Watching the sections, one can see evolution from reactive to intelligent. IIT Madras joins the US Allen Institute at the table of human brain cartography.

These voyages are how India will rise to her potential as a Product Nation!

"DHARANI is now the largest publicly accessible digital dataset of the human fetal brain, created with less than 1/10 of the initial funds that powered the Allen Brain Atlas, and with a technology platform that was entirely custom-made in India between 2020 and 2022, during the COVID pandemic" - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cne.70005

DHARANI is freely available as an online resource for scientists around the globe at https://iitm.humanbrain.in/index.html

03/02/2025

Celebrating wins for India and persistence of two years paying off!

It is heartening to see our collective efforts and ideas become a Government action point, announced in Budget 2025-26 as "Bharat Trade Net" (BTN).

-with Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade , Reserve Bank of India (RBI Says) , Goods and Services Tax Network

From the iSPIRT platform, we have been advocating for the last 2 years for the setting up of a Digital Port for cross-border trade in the Digital Economy. We have also been advocating that this concept can be extended so that this will be the base layer that can be converted to complete cross-border trade, both physical and digital, with a lot of value-added gains such as managing digital trade after the WTO moratorium ends, managing the BEPS problem and also ability to track and measure Aatm Nirbharta at firm and sector level.

We hope India can lead in this area and becomes an example to the world!

- with contributors to the Product Nation movement Sudhir Singh , Nakul Saxena , Suresh Sambandam , Harsh*t Kacholiya , Tanuvi Thakur , Sanjay Khan Nagra

01/02/2025

iSPIRT's full statement on the Budget 2025 is here:

iSPIRT Foundation, a technology think-and-do tank, believes India’s hard problems can be solved only by leveraging public technology for private innovation. iSPIRT, as a think-and-do-tank, pioneered the concept of Digital … Continue reading "A Budget with Good Intentions but lacks drive to reali...

30/01/2025

The Permanent Mission of India in Geneva & International Telecommunication Union launched the Conference on Citizen-centric Digital Transformation yesterday with iSPIRT as the official partner.

The Conference focuses on sharing the (Digital Public Infrastructure) DPI Sutras or Citizen Stack Guiding Principles :
1.Citizen Privacy
2.Interoperability
3.Techno-Legal Regulation
4.Public Private Partnership, and,
5.Safeguard Against Weaponisation.

India has been a leading advocate for citizen-centric policy prescriptions and yesterday’s discussions focused on how has redefined India’s digital landscape. MOSIP is leading DPI implementation and has partnered with 26 countries to deploy their own Citizen Stack

29/01/2025

As the AI race across the world heats up, a post:

“𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐒" Sharad Sharma says in moneycontrol.com

To succeed at AI we need a whole-of-nation approach involving deep-tech startups, enabling industrial policy and pre-commercial publicly-funded research.

When the Biden Adminstration released its AI Diffusion Executive Order a few weeks back restricting GPUs to countries, it became clear that having strategic autonomy in AI was of paramount importance to India. Just being the use-case capital for AI wasn't the right way to go.

India doesn't wish to be a trade colony of China or the technology colony of the US. What makes AI different is that it needs a whole-of-nation approach.

To win at AI we need deep-tech startups, enabling industrial policy and pre-commercial publicly-funded research. It is only when all three come together that magic can happen.

Our resistance to the whole-of-nation approach is understandable. After all, our IT Services and SaaS industry came up without the whole-of-nation approach. So, many people thought that the same playbook would apply to AI.

China has proved with DeepSeek's R1 and Moonshot AI [another Chinese company's] Kimi k1.5 that a whole-of-nation approach can have big payoffs. In India, this approach has worked for cryogenic engines, 4G/5G telecom equipment and India Stack.

We do remarkable things when we set our mind to it!

Yes, we have lost some time due to the use-case captial camp. But all is not lost. The field is still young and many areas like neurosymbolic AI are very much open.

The Biden AI Diffusion order, and Chinese success has given new vigour to the whole-of-nation camp within government, private sector and civil society.

The debate is now over: You will see some good developments become visible in the coming months 🚀



https://www-moneycontrol-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.moneycontrol.com/technology/deepseek-s-llm-success-triggers-big-debate-is-india-s-hesitation-a-strategic-mistake-article-12921811.html/amp

27/01/2025

Another big reveal! - https://lnkd.in/gJhTdQym

India has powered global businesses for decades. Now, it’s time to build world-class products and lead global markets.

This Republic Day kicked off VigyanX—a deep-tech catalyst transforming India into a Product Nation.

We're initiating a Sutradhar-in-Residence Program, a 6-month immersive journey to:
✅ Shape a 10-year mission in Strategic Sectors
✅ Build Technology Ecosystems
✅ Redefine India’s Product Future

👉 Learn more: https://vigyanx.one/

Together, let’s unlock India’s next wave of global innovation!

India's first Sutradhar-in-Residence Program

26/01/2025

As we celebrate our 76th Republic Day, we are proud of the global recognition that India’s Digital Public Infrastructure has received. As we work tirelessly towards our goal of a Product Nation, these words from the Honourable President motivates us to contribute further to India’s DPI Story.

Wishing everyone a very happy Republic Day! Jai Hind, Jai Bharat 🇮🇳

PMO India , President of India , Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India , Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India

24/01/2025

iSPIRT's Sharad Sharma explains how OCEN enables cash flow-based lending, reduces loan tenure, and lowers cost, all while adhering to RBI guidelines.

यह MSMEs को सशक्त करेगा और विकसित भारत का निर्माण करेगा।

Watch:

MSMEs को Collateral Free Short Term Loan देने से MSMEs की Credit Gap की चुनौती को खत्म किया जा सकता है। य...

23/01/2025

iSPIRT's Priyashmita Guha and Sharad Sharma explain how OCEN enables cash flow-based lending, reduce loan tenure, and lowers cost, all while adhering to RBI guidelines.

यह MSMEs को सशक्त करेगा और विकसित भारत का निर्माण करेगा।

Watch: https://youtu.be/0AIJ_tTRvwY

MSMEs के लिए क्रेडिट ऐक्सेस एक बड़ी समस्या है। 85% MSMEs को लोन हासिल करने में दिक्कतों का सामना करना पड़ता है। ऐस.....

22/01/2025

"How we can spur Indian R&D and Innovation" A short read that is well worth your time

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/times-techies/how-we-can-spur-indian-rd-and-innovation/articleshow/117441110.cms

21/01/2025

An Important Chapter starts 🙌

𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐀𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚 (𝐏𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐈) was launched yesterday in the presence of Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance

Ish*ta Ganguly (Addl Development Commissioner, MSME Ministry),
Dinesh Khara (ex-Chairman, SBI) and other dignitaries were also present.

Here's what it means:

- iSPIRT with U GRO Capital launched Priority Sector Lenders Association of India (PSLAI), a Section 8 company aimed at addressing credit challenges in priority sectors, especially MSMEs

- IIFL , GetVantage join as additional founding members

- iSPIRT is bringing on board multiple other lending institutions as founding members of PSLAI. We believe India’s digital growth, supported by Indian Digital Public Infra (DPI) opens new avenues for the SME/MSME sector

- With the right product developments and policy push, credit under this sector can double to nearly INR 130 trillion in the next few years and achieve 2x growth in the next 3-5 years. However, this requires deep deliberations across a few pillars:

Pillar 1. Recognising a new category of NBFC lenders which focuses on Priority Sector Loans: NBFC-PSL (similar to NBFC-MFI & NBFC-HFC)

Pillar 2. Enhancing the faith in the creditworthiness of Priority Sector Borrowers through dialogue and deep deliberation

Pillar 3. Increasing the adoption of DPIs like OCEN to increase the flow of cashflow-based financing

Pillar 4. Increasing the liability flow of priority sector lending in India through policy advocacy

- PSLAI will be headed by Priyashmita Guha as CEO and run with help of an accomplished Board of Directors. Before PSLAI, Priyashmita was COO of Digital Lenders Association of India and instrumental in driving network growth of the association

Sharad Sharma of iSPIRT said, “The focus of PSLAI will be on initiating conversation on liberalized risk weightage on PSL portfolios, mitigating perceived risks through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), and establishing fair practices within the industry. It will advocate for policy reforms which will further strengthen the borrower ecosystem, particularly for MSMEs.”

Shachindra Nath, Founder and Managing Director, UGRO Capital said, “If you go and talk to a bank in India today, they will say MSME financing is not an issue. Every shopkeeper can get an Udyam certificate and become a priority sector borrower. The Bank’s 7.5% PSL requirement for MSME gets completely filled up. With a provision of being tagged or licensed as NBFC-PSL, technically any lending from a Bank to such an entity can come at a lower rate and be part of the Bank’s priority sector lending.”

- with Ministry of Finance, Government of India , Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises,Government of India , U GRO Capital , IIFL Finance , GetVantage