Digital Public Infrastructure

Digital

…but doesn’t require smartphones or connectivity to scale

Public

…minded but crafted to exponentially drive private innovation

Infrastructure

as a minimalist approach to create national scale - not just an app, platform, or solution

Digital Public Infrastructure is about enabling a technology-led model for growth that is collaborative, equitable, and democratises opportunity at population scale. The Centre for DPI can help countries move faster in this journey.

-Nandan Nilekani

Just as we built roads, highways, and airports in the 20th century, we must now build a digital infrastructure that is open, accessible, and empowers everyone

-Bill Gates

Countries that built DPI have fast-tracked progress via minimalist interventions

India

achieved in one decade the level of financial inclusion that should have taken 5 decades

Brazil

from zero to 180 M real time mobile payments per day in less than 2 years

Thailand

23 M vulnerable individuals received COVID Relief cash transfers worth $5.8 B, largely using PromptPay

BUILD YOUR OWN DPI

What is Digital Public Infrastructure

Digital Public Infrastructure is an approach to solving socio-economic problems at scale, by combining minimalist technology interventions, public-private governance, and vibrant market innovation.

Common examples include the Internet, mobile networks, GPS, verifiable identity systems, interoperable payments networks, consented data sharing, open loop discovery and fulfilment networks, digital signatures, and beyond.

DPI Architecture Principles make digitisation inclusive & scalable

Interoperability driven by open specifications

Minimalist, Reusable building blocks rather than end-to-end solutions

Diverse, inclusive innovation by the ecosystem via open & multi-modal access

Federated & Decentralized with a preference for letting data stay where it’s been collected

Security & Privacy by design

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Digital Public Infrastructure

boils down to these core building blocks that drive market innovation across sectors

Identifiers & Registries

Can you verify if I (individual or entity) am who I say I am? Can I share a few profile fields?

Data Sharing, Credentials & Models

Can I share further details of my attributes or transactions across institutions?

Signatures & Consent

Do you know that this data or agreement came from me & hasn’t been tampered with?

Discovery & Fulfilment

Can I discover and avail goods and services with ease?

Payments

Can I pay for goods and services with ease?

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CDPI is a pro bono tech architecture advisory team housed at an academic institute - the International Institute of Information Technology, Bengaluru.

We are a global team spread across South America, Asia, Africa and Europe.

To date, CDPI has collaborated with 40+ countries, with 12 of them actively co-creating pilot projects.

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Our Mission

Catalyse countries’ digitisation journeys with high impact DPI to drive inclusive, innovative, and competitive national growth.

Our Focus

Most of you won’t need our help - you know how to design DPI for your country best. But if you want to brainstorm ideas, we can help you design the technology architecture as well as connect you to a network of partners for policy support, project implementation, and funding.