With the aim to increase the use of free and open source software in government functioning, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with Omidyar Network India organized a virtual roundtable.
Participating in the discussion, MeitY secretary Ajay Sawhney shared the broad overview of government and the steps taken by the ministry like policy for open source software in 2015 to open source collaborative development of Aarogya Setu.
“I am delighted to see the interest in further advancing the adoption of FOSS in government among a wide range of government leaders, academia and innovators. MeitY will continue to play a key role in this journey,” Sawhney said.
He added, “We are also pleased to announce the #FOSS4GOV innovation challenge, which will harness the innovation potential of the FOSS community and start-ups to solve critical issues in govtech. More such efforts will be forthcoming.”
The discussion was moderated by NeGD president Abhishek Singh. The panelist shared their experiences on the successful deployment of FOSS-based platforms like Aadhaar and UPI in India and highlighted best practices and learnings for all participants.
“We see FOSS as a key component of GovTech 3.0, which is about building secure and inclusive open digital ecosystems (ODEs) that harness the potential of social innovators to help solve India’s toughest problems. We are excited to see MeitY advancing the adoption of FOSS in government in a thoughtful and strategic manner and are delighted to partner with them on this journey,” stated Varad Pande, partner, Omidyar Network India.
MeitY also announced a #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge to accelerate the adoption of Free and open source software (FOSS) in government.
The #FOSS4GOV Innovation Challenge is open for all FOSS innovators, technology entrepreneurs and Indian startups to submit implementable open source product innovations in CRM and ERP with possible applications for govtech in health, education, agriculture, urban governance, said the government.
The selected project will get incubation support, prize money, mentorship by domain experts, institutional support from eminent organizations for incubation of ideas and listing of solutions on GeM.
