India is making its digital platform for the Covid19 vaccination campaign, CoWIN, available as open source for all countries to adapt and use. This may be the first time a country has opened a software platform developed by its public sector to the world.
In a speech at the CoWin Global Conclave on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “CoWIN will soon be available for all countries.†The software can be adapted to each country according to local requirements.
India has administered over 350 million vaccine doses through this platform to date.
Modi highlighted the importance of technology in fighting the pandemic, saying India will have made its covid tracking and tracing app Aarogya Setu open source as soon as it was technically feasible. He pointed out that the Aarogya Setu app, with nearly 200 million users, is an easily available package for developers and has been speed tested in the real world. “This pandemic made many people aware of the fundamental truth of this philosophy…. Therefore, CoWin is being prepared to become open source. ”
Representatives from 142 countries attended the conclave, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Guyana, Antigua & Barbuda, St. Kitts & Nevis and Zambia. These countries are keen to introduce CoWin for the digitization of their Covid19 vaccination campaign.
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Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said: “In my humble opinion, Co-WIN is the crown jewel of our Digital India Initiative. This platform is intended to go down in history as it facilitates the vaccination of a large part of the world’s population with ease, while at the same time ensuring complete transparency. “
According to RS Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority, CoWIN is one of the fastest growing technology platforms in the world. Sharma was named head of CoWIN earlier this year.
CoWin is an extension of the eVIN electronic vaccination network, which is used to collect real-time data on vaccination programs. CoWIN is a cloud-based IT solution for planning, implementing, monitoring and also evaluating the Covid19 vaccination in India. This platform not only tracks vaccinations in real time, but also doses waste.
“Given the value of each dose of vaccine, governments are also concerned that each dose is tracked and waste is minimized. None of this is possible without an end-to-end digital approach, â€added Modi. People don’t have to carry around fragile pieces of paper to prove anything, the prime minister said.
Sharma said CoWIN had over 200 million registrations in four months and 300 million registrations in just five months.
“The journey began with Aadhaar providing a digitally verifiable identity for all Indians,” said Sharma, who was formerly mission director of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).
As part of the Digital India initiative, the country has focused on expanding the reach of the technology. One of these initiatives is the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) launched in 2016. The interoperable payment system has registered more than 2.7 billion digital transactions worth over $ 67 billion a month. On a monthly basis, more transactions are made than debit and credit cards at POS terminals combined. Aadhaar architect and non-executive chairman of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, told a RedSeer event earlier this year that NPCI is introducing a fully open source UPI for international markets.
According to experts, India is in a position that is unique in the world by providing the Co-WIN platform worldwide. Pramod Varma, chief architect of Aadhaar and India Stack, said: “With CoWIN, India has created a unique model that addresses diversity, is interoperable and therefore a friendly ecosystem that enables innovation.”
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