Last week, the 2-day DPG Tech Fusion event, powered by the Sunbird community and orchestrated by Tekdi Technologies concluded with resounding success. Sunbird community is an initiative from EkStep Foundation by Nandan Nilekani, which aims to tackle grand-scale challenges with tech innovations. After successful events in Delhi, Bangalore, and Kerala to create awareness about DPI & DPGs, this was the first-of-its-kind event in Pune which brought together over 500 tech enthusiasts and served as a vibrant platform for collaboration and innovation around Digital Public Goods (DPGs) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

Notably, a recent Nasscom report titled “India’s Digital Public Infrastructure – Accelerating India’s Digital Inclusion” says that the economic value added by DPIs could potentially increase to around 4.2 per cent of GDP by 2030. The key focus of this event was to bring focus on the Opportunity that DPI & DPG can unlock for the Pune ecosystem.

Renowned speakers including Dr. Pramod Varma, former Chief Architect of Aadhaar & India Stack, and Dr. Anand Deshpande, Founder & Managing Director of Persistent Systems, delivered thought-provoking keynote addresses. Dr. Varma shed light on “Creating Resilient Economies: India’s DPI Journey” where he highlighted India’s contribution in the space of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and Digital Public Goods (DPGs) with shining examples of impact created by Aadhaar and UPI. He gave a call to action to the Pune Ecosystem in tech & academia to build capacity by creating incubation & innovation spaces around the DPI DPG Ecosystem.

Dr. Deshpande’s keynote highlighted initiatives from deAsra Foundation in easing out market access, compliances and digital ecosystems for Micro and Nano entrepreneurs. He urged startups to harness the power of open source and AI to overcome digital challenges and address opportunities in this humongous market.

The event featured engaging panel discussions on “The Global DPI Opportunity” and “Design Principles of DPGs,” with esteemed panellists from diverse sectors offering insights into the leveraging existing DPGs and developing new ones. Notable panellists included representations from various domains including investment, consulting, civil society, products, core engineering and much more. 40+ speakers from esteemed organisations like AWS, Google, Deloitte, EY, Infosys joined this event as panel members, lightning talk speakers & hackathon jury and shared their valuable insights.

The DPG Techfusion hackathon which was part of the event saw 22+ teams consisting of 110+ Students and Working Professionals participate to solve various societal problems leveraging DPI & DPGs. The event also featured an experience Zone where participants could see various innovations in this space.

The event provided an opportunity to spark conversation around DPGs, DPI and its limitless potential across different spheres of life.

The DPG Tech Fusion event marks a significant milestone in fostering collaboration and innovation, building an ecosystem which propels organisations to embrace open source, AI, and DPI laying a foundation for a more equitable digital future.