iSPIRT works to transform India into a hub for new generation software products, by addressing crucial government policy, creating market catalysts and grow the maturity of product entrepreneurs. Welcome to the Official Insights!
The prevailing political economy of AI development and use is characterised by highly concentrated power and extractive economic models. By making access to valuable data and its responsible use for AI development less dependent on the scale and bargaining power of a handful of dominant market players, India is beginning to reshape who gets to …
Continue reading “DEPA is India’s structural response to AI’s prevailing political economy”
The recent publication of the DEPA for AI Training Handbook has invited a necessary and rigorous public debate. Because the Handbook is explicitly a draft for discussion, this kind of sharp feedback is not just welcome, but essential for co-creation. The debate raises two important questions: whether individual consent alone can adequately protect people in …
Continue reading “Reimagining Data Empowerment for the Age of Intelligence”
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to transform how governments make decisions, deliver public services and address complex policy challenges. But realising this potential requires more than access to powerful AI models. India must ensure that its government departments can harness AI without surrendering control over their data or the hard-won institutional intelligence accumulated over decades. …
Continue reading “India’s AI leadership needs data sovereignty by design”
From Lending Infrastructure to an Ecosystem for MSME Growth India’s Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) need timely working capital to buy inventory, pay suppliers, fulfil orders and sustain daily operations. Yet, many businesses remain underserved – not necessarily because they lack business activity, but because traditional lending models struggle to assess their creditworthiness and serve …
India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) now operates at a scale most of the world has never had to defend. UPI processes well over 15 billion transactions a month. Aadhaar sits underneath identity verification across the banking & the telecom industry. The Account Aggregator framework is now moving sensitive financial data between institutions in real time. …
Continue reading “The CISO of 2030: Securing India’s Digital Future”
There is a strong backlash over the Reserve Bank of India’s new Export Declaration Form (EDF), particularly from freelancers, gig workers and small service exporters, which deserves attention, not simply because of the compliance burden it may create, but because it exposes a larger problem in how the government regulates the economy. The EDF form …
Continue reading “The EDF Backlash Is a Symptom of a Bigger Systemic Silos Problem in Government”
India has built a growing set of Digital Public Infrastructure ecosystems: DigiLocker, GSTN, Bharat Trade Net, Labour Stack, Health Stack, Agri Stack and others. Each serves a distinct domain, with its own institutions, participants and data. As these ecosystems mature, the challenge is shifting. It is no longer enough for systems to connect. An ecosystem …
A connected DPI system is needed as a solution “Digital colonisation” is no longer theoretical. A handful of large US-based technology companies have dominated, but with AI, that colonisation can be completely disastrous. India remains primarily a consumer of foreign digital products and services. The need for “Sovereign AI” recognition alone is recent and very …
Continue reading “Digital Port as a Unified Cross-Border Trade System”
One was a 2 week ransomware siege that forced India’s top public hospital onto pen and paper. The other was a month-long espionage operation, hidden inside trusted software that went undetected across the US government and Fortune 500 companies until a security firm found it by accident. Most major breaches aren’t masterminds at work, they …
Continue reading “AIIMS Delhi and SolarWinds: When Trust in Digital Infrastructure Collapses”
As India advances toward an AI-enabled healthcare ecosystem, robust frameworks for data curation, sharing, and governance are essential to ensure that innovation is ethical, interoperable, privacy-preserving, and trusted. High-quality, discoverable, and reusable health data forms the foundation for responsible AI applications in healthcare, ranging from clinical decision support and population health management to medical research …
Every day, businesses in India spend countless hours navigating multiple government portals, repeatedly submitting the same information and managing fragmented compliance processes—not because regulations require it, but because government systems do not work together. For years, reforms have focused on improving the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) by simplifying regulations and reducing procedural burden. While …
At iSPIRT, our work on digital public infrastructure for data has consistently focused on a core question: how do we unlock value of data while preserving the rights and trust of individuals? With DEPA (Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture), we established a consent-driven framework that empowers individuals to control how their data is shared for …
For a long time, cybersecurity was seen as a defensive measure used to block threats, fulfill compliance requirements and was considered a burdensome cost to be handled by the IT team alone. As technology has evolved, so has our perspective. Today, cybersecurity plays a direct role in driving business growth, ensuring operational continuity and building …
Financial ecosystems are rarely transformed overnight. Instead, they evolve through the steadyalignment of technology, policy, and trust. Over the past year, the Open Credit EnablementNetwork (OCEN) has been moving quietly in this direction, acting as a digital bridge betweencredit-starved MSMEs and a diverse pool of lenders.The Growth Narrative: In Q1-2025, the network facilitated 5,641 loans …
Continue reading “Broadening Credit Access: The Quiet Evolution of OCEN”
We’ve rolled out some exciting updates for DEPA‑Training, making it easier to rapidly prototype and run diverse training scenarios — complete with electronic contracts, confidential cleanrooms, privacy-preservation and configurable training SDKs. ✨ What’s new 👉 GUI for end-to-end execution 👉 Step-by-step guide to create and run your own training scenarios 👉 New scenarios introduced for complex …