Digital Public Infra, Cyber Security, Skilling Are Key To Developing Digital Economies, Says Vaishnaw

Vaishnaw stated that these three priority areas reflected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to democratise technology. 

The Union Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stressed the three priorities for the G20 Digital Economy Ministers’ Meeting on Saturday. The minister stated that digital public infrastructure (DPI), cyber security, and skilling were the major priorities of the meeting under India’s G20 presidency. 

Talking about global interconnectedness, the minister highlighted that increasing security risks mandated a collaboration for digital security. Vaishnaw stated that these three priority areas reflected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to democratise technology. 

The minister stated that the G20 group was successful in reaching ‘a consensus on adopting the digital public infrastructure as a very important element for digitalising global societies,’ tweeted ANI. He further added that these priorities promoted the idea of a digital economy that is secure, inclusive, and equitable at the global level. 

Vaishnaw elaborated on the role of DPI in democratising technology and noted that technology should benefit the people without any discrimination based on geography or class or any other factor, reported PTI. 

The union minister further stated that UPI was one such example that connected people all across the country irrespective of their financial status. He added, “India's digital payments platform UPI is a vibrant example of the public-private partnership approach. The platform was created using public funds, then the private participants joined the platform. Over 70 banks, more than 50 million businesses, and more than 335 million users joined this platform. The result is that there were USD 10 billion instant transactions in the month of July 2023. On an annualised basis, the value of these transactions now exceeds USD 2 trillion.”

Vaishnaw further added that similar solutions have come up in other sectors like healthcare, education, and many more. The next sector to focus on in terms of creating a DPI will be digital credit, the minister added. He said the focus will be to ensure ‘the people at the bottom of the pyramid can get the same level of financial services that the rich and prosperous people get,’ reported PTI.

In terms of cyber security, Vaishnaw stated that it is imperative to establish trust in technology to encourage people to adopt it. The union minister stressed that awareness-building measures and education should be used to promote security in the digital economy. Additionally, the creation of a workforce skilled in technology is important for the economy, he said.