He Quit His Job To Build Aadhaar for India!

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Published 2024-05-18
ABOUT PRAMOD VARMA:

Dr. Pramod Varma is the Chief Architect of Aadhaar, India's digital identity program that has successfully covered more than 1.3 billion people.

He is also the chief architect for various India Stack layers such as eSign, Digital Locker, and Unified Payment Interface (UPI), and Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA), and all of which are now working at population scale in India.

He also played integral role in architecting India’s digital health infrastructure (ABDM), vaccination & immunization infrastructure (Co-WIN and DIVOC), and Unified Health Interface (UHI).

ABOUT SHRADHA SHARMA:

Shradha Sharma is the Founder & CEO of YourStory. She started YourStory in 2008 to tell stories of entrepreneurs - something that mainstream media was not ready to do in 2008. Since then, Shradha has scaled YourStory to become one of India’s leading digital media platforms covering every aspect of India’s new economy.

She was featured on Fortune’s list of the best 40 under 40 entrepreneurs in India for three years in a row. In 2018, she won the Forbes Power Trailblazers award and was twice featured on LinkedIn’s list of powerful influencers, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actor Priyanka Chopra.

Follow Shradha on LinkedIn here: www.linkedin.com/in/sharmashradha/


ABOUT YOURSTORY:

YourStory is India’s biggest and definitive platform for startups and entrepreneurs related stories, resources, research reports, and analyses of the startup eco-system, mobile app developers, and more dedicated to promoting the startup ecosystem

Also, don't forget to watch some of our most loved interviews:

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All Comments (21)
  • @robmendes979
    Brilliant, brilliant, brialliant. We in Australia are absolutely astounded by India's leapfrogging of digitisation and now a leader in the digital world!!!
  • God bless this man with many many more innovations for the sake of India. We are so proud of you Sir.
  • @cool_dd5972
    Huge respect for brilliant minds helping India growth.......these innovators deserve recognition like Bharat ratna
  • @yugalkatoch3097
    You are amazing. Bharat maa ka laal. Thank you Pramod. Nishreyash bhava.
  • वो नीति जिसके होने से पब्लिक प्लेटफार्म और निजी व्यवसायी जनसाधारण के अच्छे के लिए काम कर सकें होना आवश्यक है। ये भी भारत मे ही हुआ है, इसीलिए भारत को अपनी क्षमताओं पर गर्व है।
  • @korathmathew
    Pramod's contribution to architecting Aadhaar and India stack is remarkable.
  • @niraj2020
    I have given many suggestion to PMO on change of address continue to store even 10 plus times. Thisnis to track back system especially criminals. Next include family tree each other..Another suggestion is to integrate with street CCTV of traffic, road, rail, public transportation etc. Criminal Tracking system thru Aadhaar Biometric..I am also suggesting persons height, body shape, length and other measures of body parts front, back etc. complete details integrate with Aadhaar. Also need to include DNA, blood and health profiling linking with Healthcare and ensure 100% insurance. Intel collection and cyber security is much important. Hope in future many features included. I also given suggestion to integrate with Election Card and other IDs.
  • @cool_dd5972
    Hope India develops its own operating system for PC and mobile for long term security......
  • Biometric, mail id ,contact number and lock of Biometric is really pivotal. Thank you...!!!!!!!!
  • @indian9632
    Law and order could use the database to catch criminals in days tracing biometric.
  • @mkrao100
    It was some time during October, 2008. In the midst of the global financial meltdown and its implications on on IT industry there were layoffs right, left and centre. Being a professional wrote to the then prime minister Manmohan Singh to leverage Indian IT competency to develop a unique identification system which can used to identify the areas that need attention like in improving educational infrastructure, employment, PDS even in logistics in case of war. Of course I don’t take credit for Aadhaar but just sharing as a retrospect.
  • @ElectrifiedStud
    37:18 absolutely disagree. Education isn't the problem. It is the affordability that is the problem. Enrich people through abundance so that they can afford it.
  • @niraj2020
    Look how a small idea going to make big change. There was a bomb blast at Delhi. Identity of person not tracked. His hand severed. That time I think if his thumb, palm should have record, the person trace should have done easily. I am not aware Iris scan and other thing. Wrote this idea to collect all citizens details linking their palm scan etc. May be later this kind of idea turned Aadhaar. Every small idea can change into big and beneficial to all.
  • @sklux6147
    Pramod is the first among the persons who created the Aadhar based DPI. Proud of him. Importantly he is the also first person to say it boldly in a public address that it was the PMO initiative during Manmohan tenure and not Modi ji. Modi ji failed to achieve the goal set for Demon but took all credit for cashless transaction. Present govt has talked about digital money but no success yet. Perhaps Electoral Bonds scheme did not allow it due to protection of confidentiality. Unfortunately SBI, the only operator and custodian of the scheme, broke the rule by linking the invisible number to the donor and beneficiary. If SBI had not violated the secrecy procedure it would have been impossible to produce the Electoral Bonds details, as demanded by the SC, for ever. Not just 3 months lead period which they wanted to use for evading the disclosure. Fortunately the mistake/ bluff on the part of SBI was revealed by some of the exSBI employees who actually recorded the transactions (along with the invisible Sr No.) revealed the same to the media. SBI had no recourse but to collate and submit all details within 2-3 days. That is how India came to know how corrupt the BJP govt was and how deep and widespread the Match Fixing ecosystem was established by the govt to blackmail and extort funds by forcing EB on the business. Moral of the story: Blackmail is OK. Black money is NOT OK. SBI lost out on double bluff. Electoral Bonds goof up example is citied here just to highlight how things about confidentiality can go wrong in India in the hands of the controllers and custodians both by knowingly and otherwise. The room for violation/ breach as well as their consequences are never predictable. So there may well be some threat to confidentiality in UDI also. Hope not. Satyamev Jayate ✌️ Jai Hind 🫡