The Two-day conference, 'Next Generation Service Delivery-Enabled by Aadhaar', organized by NASSCOM in partnership with UIDAI, took off on 22nd June 2011 with a deep-dive technology session.

The morning session, 'Aadhaar Under the Hood' saw Srikanth Nadhamuni, Head of Technology, UIDAI leading the session with Sanjay Jain, Chief Product Manager, UIDAI opening locks on APIs & Standards. Dr. Vivek Raghavan, Volunteer, UIDAI gave insights into Biometrics 101 for Developers. Lending a more layman oriented knowledge distribution, Dr. Pramod Varma, Chief Architect, UIDAI and Jagadish Babu, Volunteer, UIDAI had a ground level dialogue on Authentication of APIs along with a friendly demonstration.

The afternoon session involved the industry and its perspective of building on the applications of Aadhaar. Unlike the morning the session which had the UIDAI technical team approaching together, the afternoon session was more independent in nature, rightly so, because it had industry specific speakers.

Revolving on the theme 'Integrate with and Innovate for Aadhaar', the session began with a presentation on Multiplying Opportunities for Applications by Narendra Bhandari, Director, Intel Software and Services Group. The second speaker was Shashank Jain, Head R&D Unit, Nokia who spoke on Mobile Platform as an Enabler for Aadhaar. Instances of Possible Disruption by Aadhaar, was the topic on which Amitabh Nag, Head India – Central Government, Tata Consultancy Services, gave an insight into. Pari Natrajan, CEO, Zinnov spoke on 'Aadhaar as a Service (Technology Enablement)'.

Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, UIDAI addressed the audience at the end of the session. "aadhaar will open up a lot of opportunities and we are looking at a post-Aadhaar world where every Indian has an Aadhaar number, a mobile number and an account number, since applications will be developed around these elements," he said.

The second session of Day 2 focussed on Next Generation Citizen Service Delivery and was moderated by Tanmoy Chakravarty from Tata Consultancy Services. Shankar Aggarwal, Add’l Secretary, DIT, Government of India presented the vision of National e-Governance Plan while also stressing on electronic service delivery and the role of Aadhaar.

Speaking about the development potential of the country and the challenges faced by it, he said, "India is diverse and has today become the third fastest growing country in the world. With a growth rate of 8-8.5 percent, it surely is envy to the world, but if looked more closely we will see that the growth is neither sufficient nor sustainable. But with the help of ICT, we can not only achieve a growth rate of 11 percent but also achieve all inclusive sustainable growth."

He also shared the growth of IT and ITeS industry in 2010-2011 in which he pointed that the Indian IT and ITeS industry churned revenues to the tune of US$88 billion and a contribution of 7 percent to the GDP. He also touched about Right based Policy frameworks being enacted by the Government of India.

Commenting on covering the entire population under Aadhaar, he said, "I feel that we have to expedite the allocation of UID numbers to the population and involve the National Population Registrar also in the process, which I think will enable coverage of targeted population within 2-3 years."

Ajoy Kumar Singh, Secretary Sports & Commissioner, MGNREGA, Government of Jharkhand spoke next on Aadhaar & MGNREGA in his state and touched upon financial inclusion, cash transfer, banking outlets, and integration of Aadhaar with MGNREGA.

Public Distribution System was the focus of Ajit Kesari’s presentation. Representing the Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection, Government of Madhya Pradesh, he said, "Madhya Pradesh is reforming PDS through various methodologies and Aadhaar platform is one among them. The objective of ePDS is to eliminate duplication, bogus and inaccurate ration cards using Aadhaar based biometric de-duplication, create a database with Aadhaar for use of all departments in the state and empower consumers to take control of their entitlements and its sale using personalized secured food coupons. MPePDS is monitored by a project management software and application software."

Giving an industry perspective Sandeep Raina, Director-Engineering, CISCO shed light on the unique aspects of a network and the importance of the right architectural approach for multiple networks. He opined that Aadhaar would play the role of a converged IP network integrating all services providing a human network for the GSovernment.

Satwant Singh, Executive Director, Indian Oil Corporation spoke about the role of Aadhaar in LPG Distribution. Giving an overview of the LPG distribution in the country and pointing out the challenges faced in the process, he shared the role of Aadhaar in ensuing subsidized LPG to genuine customers. "We are integrating our delivery software, IndSoft with Aadhaar for authentication and enrolment," he said.

The third session of the day was on 'Making Financial Inclusion a Reality'. Moderated by Satya Sankar Mishra, Head of Business Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services, the session involved presentations from bankers, both national and private, focusing on ways of financial inclusion utilizing the Aadhaar platform.

L P Rai, DG, Rural Business, SBI gave a financial inclusion landscape of the country and few reasons for exclusion. According to him, three mission critical ingredients have to be looked at for making the inclusion a reality; technology, economic viability and business correspondent network. He also outlined benefits of Aadhaar enabled financial inclusion.

S K Gupta, Chief Project Officer, NPCI gave a national perspective of financial inclusion based on Aadhaar and also touched upon the use of Rupay cards, while T V Seshadri, General Manager, MasterCard Worldwide gave a presentation on the advantages of Aadhaar as an enabler in financial inclusion at marginal costs. Avijit Saha, GM, Rural & Inclusive Business, ICICI Bank presented an inclusive banking solution and how it is showing the way forward towards growth.

The final presentation was by Satya Sankar Mishra, who gave a presentation on TCS in financial inclusion.

Major speakers in the NASSCOM conference on the role of UID in the areas of Education and Health impressed upon the benefits of Aadhaar and hoped UID to be a major boost to education and Health.

Prof. V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU stressed that just like financial inclusion and several other inclusions, inclusion of growth can only happen with inclusion of education.He also stressed the necessity of giving access and providing opportunities to that size of population which has been deprived of all facilities for education.

Krishna Giri, Managing Director of Accenture for Health and Public Service in Asia Pacific ridiculed the claim in some quarters of India becoming a super power. "Our fundamentals have to be fixed much before we start talking about becoming a super power and Aadhaar would be the right tool in fixing up the fundamentals," he said.

He further stated that as per a UN survey, 50 percent of teachers don’t exist in the schools but salary is promptly collected. "Aadhaar would become a backbone for all our ills including those of education and health," Giri said.

Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder, NIIT & Chairman, NASSCOM presided over the session and felt no one system can be a remedy for all problems, but an attempt can definitely be made to address the problems.

The Telecom track was moderated by Dr. Jai Menon, Director Global Innovation & IT, Bharti Airtel.

The first speaker, A.K.Mittal, DDG, Department of Telecommunication gave a government perspective on the use of UID in telecom sector. He focussed on UID’s role in negating fake POA and POI submitted for phone or mobile connections.

Dr Menon then spoke on the opportunities that the Telecom industry can leverage through the Aadhaar platform, which according to him is an important aspect of identity required for mobility. He touched upon the price, reach and ease of use & relevance of mobile devices to convey the innovation that can be built upon using the UID platform.

The next was an extremely enthusiastic presentation by Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India). He gave the mobile operators perspective on the significance of UID and the benefits of Aadhaar based verification for operators.

The last speaker, Sriram Ratnam from Ernst &Young gave an independent perspective on Aadhaar and telecom touching on accessibility offered by mobiles helping higher banking penetration with Aadhaar as an enabler, He also noted that Aadhaar has the potential to create a billion dollar opportunity for telecom operators.

Prof. Arun Sundarajan, Associate Professor and NEC Faculty Fellow Leonard N.Stern School of Business, New York University called up on all players involved in UID project to strengthen the ecosystem to make Aadhaar a big success story during the fifth and final session of the two-day conference which was discussing the topic - Developer and Innovation Ecosystem of Aadhaar. Sharad Sharma, Chair Product Forum NASSCOM moderated the session.

"A sound social technical system seeding the ecosystem and sustaining the same are the vital requirements for the successful application of the UID feature," he said.

Reflecting on pre-electronification days of the Indian Railways, Uttam Nayak, Group Country Manager - India & South Asia, Visa then highlighted the benefits of online reservation and advantages the citizens and railways are now able to enjoy.

Dr. P.R.Subramanya, Vice President, Technology (GeoAmida), Geodesic Limited argued on having certain facilitation to convert the Aadhaar numbers for enabling big business. He also stressed for an ecosystem to be developed in coherence.

Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman & Co-Founder, NIIT & Chairman, NASSCOM gave his concluding remarks and Rama Vedashree, Vice-President, NASSCOM proposed a vote of thanks.