About CDPG

Experiments in creating digital public infrastructure and digital public goods have generated a wealth of data, knowledge, and experience that can be useful for think tanks, policymakers, practitioners and researchers worldwide. But much of this knowledge is tacit and undocumented. The Global Centre of Excellence on Digital Public Goods (CDPG) at the IIM Bangalore, set up in partnership with the iSPIRT, acts as a repository of knowledge on digital public goods, evaluating the efficacy of these efforts and providing thought leadership for future efforts in India and other parts of the world. The key objectives of the centre are to become the knowledge repository/authority on digital public goods, to undertake rigorous research to evaluate DPG initiatives and to provide thought leadership and advice on deploying DPGs

India’s experiences with DPGs have been unique, and one of its kind. The entire suite of DPGs is based on a robust digital public infrastructure that has spawned innovation and rapid adoption of DPGs in a variety of contexts, including education, finance, healthcare, commerce and many more. India’s DPGs are built around the following principles.

• Providing Digital Public Infrastructure as a public good (open architecture).
• Encouraging private innovation by providing open access to DPI.
• Create a level-playing field through the regulatory framework.
• Empowering people through consent-driven data-sharing framework.

Purpose of CDPG

Even though the experiments have created a wealth of data, experience and insights (mostly tacit) as they are scaled at speed, the knowledge is distributed unevenly across various entities and organizations. Therefore, there is an emergent need to:

• Document (create a repository of knowledge)
• Evaluate (the efficacy of these experiments)
• Provide thought leadership (to aid replication in other contexts)

There is a need for consolidation of:

• Data (for researchers who would like to measure/monitor the efficiency/effectiveness/adoption/impact of the DPI and the specific DPGs)
• Knowledge (for practitioners who want to leverage the DPI and DPGs for building their networks/applications)
• Experience (for think tanks and policymakers who would like to replicate this with local adaptations in a variety of other contexts)

Objectives

Research Agenda

A sample list of research questions addressed by the CDPG include:

• Architecture
  • What can we learn from the architecture of these systems and their ecosystems?

• Governance
  • What are the different governance models for these systems?

• Ecosystem
  • How can an ecosystem be bootstrapped?
  • What is the ecosystem that has come up around these platforms?
  • What are the use cases that have developed around these systems?
  • Have the layers above these platforms developed?

• Impact
  • How have these DPGs impacted productivity (at individual, firm, sectoral and societal level)?
  • How have they impacted the formalization of the economy?

• Globalization
  • How can these systems be replicated in other contexts?
  • What are the core elements of these systems and what is context dependent?