Digital Public Services

INDIA GOES OFFLINE, DIGITALLY! The Reserve Bank of India has launched the Offline Digital Rupee, a Central Bank Digital Currency that can move from one wallet to another even without internet or mobile network. Imagine paying for a cup of tea in the Himalayas or for groceries in a rural market where connectivity is zero and still completing the transaction in seconds. ✅ Digital trust has reached a new level. Money that works without the internet is not a product of convenience. It is the evolution of trust. When the value can move offline yet remain verified and authentic, we are witnessing the future of financial inclusion, not just technology. ✅ It solves the last-mile problem. For years, digital payments depended on networks, servers, and gateways. Rural India, remote areas, and even disaster zones were often left behind. The Offline Digital Rupee removes that dependency and gives digital money a physical character. This changes how we think of accessibility forever. ✅ It is faster, cheaper, and smarter. No third-party switches. No failed connections. No dependency on payment gateways. The value moves directly from one device to another, just like cash, but secured by blockchain-based architecture and backed by the central bank. The power of digital efficiency now exists without digital dependence. ✅ Programmable money means purposeful money. The RBI’s Programmable Central Bank Digital Currency model means money can be coded for a reason. Subsidies can be released only for their intended use. Corporate payouts can have specific validity. Social benefits can be tracked transparently. It adds responsibility to the currency itself. ✅ It redefines how economies will interact. Offline CBDC is not just a domestic innovation. It opens the door for new models of cross-border settlements, disaster-resilient financial systems, and new layers of fintech innovation. The world will look at this model as a live example of how technology can merge with human need, not just convenience. ✅ It reminds us what innovation truly means. The right innovation is not when a feature gets smarter, but when it becomes more inclusive. When a person in a no-network zone can transact as easily as someone in a metro city, that is when digital transformation turns into social transformation.

Daron Acemoglu has used his language and authority to flag a serious risk: AI could contribute to a breakdown of knowledge transmission and a reduction in the stock of skills. In some societies, something like this has already happened with “physical skills”. He now extends the argument to cognitive skills and knowledge. In early 2025, I warned about this possibility as a consequence of an “inference meets retrieval” reasoning chain: the risk becomes real if we keep treating humans as factors of production, consumers, or “herds” from which knowledge is “farmed” into profits—profits that can be transfer-priced away, hollowing out the commons. There’s an even broader dimension. A marketized financial system, paired with reasoning traces and behavioral bias bundles, makes future human behavior increasingly predictable—and monetizable today. That creates powerful incentives to weaken sophisticated planning, executive control, and higher-order cognition. Platforms have already moved in this direction via FOMO and dopamine/adrenaline-driven attention farming. At the same time, policy still operates through narratives in an attention-scarce world. A “story” is often just one representation of an underlying graph; LLMs show how many equivalent stories can exist. As attention fragments, noise rises, language becomes more extreme, and the internet gives everyone a megaphone. Authority, auditability, and trust therefore matter more than ever—but “trust architecture” is also geopolitical: fully private systems, public registers, or hybrid models imply different power. If we don’t challenge our assumptions about how technology will be used, we risk fracturing the enlightenment consensus—possibly even producing fear of knowledge itself. Hyper-personalisation can engineer majority beliefs in ways only a few will detect. When shared context windows shrink, we fall back on trust and mental models—meaning authority (and hierarchy) becomes a condition of trust. Summary of some writing on this: https://lnkd.in/eQvAaueM

In much of the world, digital financial tools are a daily reality—used to process paychecks, pay for dinner, buy groceries, and more. But 1.4 billion adults in low- and middle-income countries still lack access to these tools.    This isn’t just an inconvenience for them; it's a barrier to economic growth and empowerment. According to a 2023 UN analysis, digital public infrastructure—including digital ID, payments, and data exchange—could accelerate GDP growth in these countries by 20 to 33 percent.    That’s where Mojaloop Foundation comes in: Their open-source software makes it possible for countries to build inclusive digital payment systems that allow anyone with a mobile phone to send and receive money securely, instantly, and affordably. This has the potential to drive economic inclusion—and open the doors to financial freedom—for billions.

Australia ❤️ is good at digital govt. But in a world of rapid change, good isn’t good enough 🤷♂️ When people think of world-leading digital nations, they point to Singapore, Estonia, and increasingly, the UAE. Yes - they’re small, agile, and highly coordinated. But size is no excuse. 🇺🇦 Ukraine (pop. ~40 million) is racing toward Gov 3.0 maturity via its Diia platform - even during a war. 🇮🇳 India (pop. 1.5 billion 🤯) is delivering digital transformation at national scale. The India Stack, anchored by Aadhaar, is enabling inclusion, innovation, and economic uplift for over a billion people. ✳️ Why does this matter? One word: Productivity As population growth and participation rates flatten, productivity becomes the key to prosperity. Treasurer Jim Chalmers is right ✅ to put it front and centre - he’s convening a national productivity roundtable on 25 August to build consensus for reform. Last year, I co-led a productivity roadshow across Australia and New Zealand, asking: Which govt services would deliver the biggest productivity dividend if digitised at scale? The result? The GX5 : Five digital initiatives with the biggest productivity upside We assessed 24 govt digitalisation opportunities and filtered them through three lenses: 1. Citizen-facing – high visibility and public benefit 2. Deployment-ready – proven globally, good to go 3. High productivity impact – across govt, business, and individuals The top five: 🟦 Digital ID – secure, streamlined identity verification 🟦 Digital Skills Wallet – verified, portable credentials 🟦 Digital Front Door – one-stop access to govt services 🟦 Digital Health Record – accessible, coordinated medical data 🟦 Digital Licences & Permits – instantly verifiable credentials 📊 According to the attached GX5 report, Digital ID alone could unlock $19–32 billion per year in economic benefits - up to 1.2% of GDP - based on results from Singpass (Singapore) and Aadhaar (India) . Importantly, the Federal Govt passed legislation last year 🙏 to enable an opt-in digital ID system - a critical reform that will boost security, privacy, and service delivery across the country. This attached report was a collaboration between Ember Advisors and ServiceGen, with support from Amazon Web Services (AWS). If we want to stay globally competitive, we must build and embrace public digital infrastructure. It’s how we move from good to great 🙏🏼

If a ₹5 biscuit can tell you exactly when and where it was made, why can’t a ₹100 crore road? Every packaged product we buy carries details — manufacturer, batch number, production date, expiry date, and even a helpline. But when it comes to public infrastructure worth crores of taxpayer money, transparency often disappears. Imagine a system where every new road had a simple QR code that revealed: ✅ Who built it ✅ Total project cost ✅ Timeline & warranty details ✅ Names of responsible officials This is not just about technology — it’s about accountability. Taxpayer money deserves the same transparency as any consumer product. When information is accessible, accountability follows. When accountability follows, quality improves. Public infrastructure should be traceable, just like your food packet. #Accountability #Governance #PublicInfrastructure #Transparency #Innovation #TaxpayerMoney

“𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐈 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧, 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞?” 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬. Not because technology is slow. But because trust is missing. The numbers are clear: 👉 37% of people have never used a digital assistant. 👉 74% prefer a human - even for simple questions. 👉 Only 27% trust digital systems when advice or judgment is needed. That is not an adoption problem. It is a confidence problem. A simple example. You ask a system: “𝐈𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞?” It answers instantly. Sounds confident. Uses perfect language. But it cannot explain why. It cannot say where it might be wrong. And 𝐢𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲. That is the moment people pull back. Most digital systems work well for: ✅ status checks ✅ simple questions ✅ saving time But they struggle when: ❌ context changes ❌ emotions matter ❌ consequences are real And this is where leadership matters. For years, automation was built to reduce cost. Users experience it as a risk. 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐟𝐞. Correct answers without empathy feel cold. Decisions without escalation feel dangerous. The next generation of digital systems will not win because they are smarter. They will win because they know: ✔️ when to answer ✔️ when to explain ✔️ and when to bring in a human This is not about replacing people. It is about building systems people can rely on. So here is the real question for leaders: 𝐈𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲? What builds trust faster today: better answers - or clearer ownership? 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴. 𝘌𝘢𝘴𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬. 𝘏𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘦. 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘚𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘳.

When I was teaching infodemic management at the WHO during the pandemic, we asked the CDC colleagues to discuss five communication failures that consistently derail public health efforts: - Mixed messages from multiple experts - Information released too late - Paternalistic messaging - Failing to counter rumors in real-time - Public-facing power struggles and confusion   In the US, all five are now happening at once.   Public trust in health institutions is unraveling. People are adapting by building decentralized, multi-source, often crowdsourced “trust ecosystems.”   This is what the New York Times comment section revealed after a recent article recommended credible health information sources. The comments were not fringe. They reflected skepticism, discernment, and a shift toward self-curated information strategies.   Readers reported: - Turning to Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Wikipedia, and NHS UK over US government sites. - Avoiding .gov domains due to perceived politicization. - Using AI cautiously, as a first filter, not a final word. - Proposing solutions like health site trust ratings, simplified printouts, and community-led education.   Public health needs to meet this moment. Not by restoring the old systems, but by fostering something new for health information search, access and use: - Transparent, independent curation - Tools for triangulation and critical analysis - Localized, multilingual resource hubs - Responsible AI-supported health navigation - Community-led health literacy models   Each of these comes with ethical, practical, and equity challenges.   We need to think big picture and hyper-local at the same time.   I don’t have all the answers. But I believe we need to build—together—a health information ecosystem for a fragmented, fractal, globalized, and crisis-prone world.

Big players have resources. But speed? That’s a different advantage. A country smaller than New York City just did it again. Not with power. Not with wealth. But with execution. While others hesitate, they act. While complexity slows most down, they simplify. This is Estonia. And it’s moving faster than the rest. Here’s how they built the world’s most advanced e-society: 1️⃣ AI is in schools from age 7. Students learn coding before algebra. No, really. 2️⃣ 99% of public services are online. Marriage and buying a house? The only things done on paper. 3️⃣ Starting a company takes 15 minutes. One form, one click. No lawyers, no waiting. 4️⃣ Filing taxes takes five minutes. No accountants. No paperwork. Just done. 5️⃣ Digital IDs power daily life. Banking, voting, healthcare—all secured, all digital. 6️⃣ E-Residency fuels global business. 50,000+ companies run from Estonia by non-Estonians. 7️⃣ Blockchain secures government records. No lost files, no corruption—just instant verification. 8️⃣ AI slashes bureaucracy. Permits, applications, approvals—processed in minutes. 9️⃣ Internet access is a legal right. Rural, urban, remote—everyone gets connected. 🔟 Voting has been online since 2005. No lines, no delays. Just click and cast. They didn’t just adopt digital tools. They rewired and reprogrammed a nation. The question isn’t if it’s possible—but how fast it will happen. When will your country take the digital leap?

Governance gaps arise when laws, institutions, or oversight fail to keep pace with fast-moving realities. They delay progress, erode accountability, and weaken public trust—especially in health. Today’s health frontiers—AI in diagnostics, mobile health apps, genomic medicine, climate-driven migration, and FemTech—are advancing rapidly, but governance is often outdated, fragmented, or missing entirely. Public-private partnerships lack transparency, cybersecurity in health systems is fragile, and displaced populations face care barriers. We need to map under-governed spaces, build smarter, rights-based governance, ensure inclusive participation, and enable global cooperation. Governance is not a bureaucratic side issue—it’s a public health imperative. Under-governed spaces are not inevitable. They’re governance failures waiting to be fixed. #GovernanceRx | #HealthGovernance | #PublicPolicy | #DigitalHealth | #WomensHealth | #AI | #FutureOfHealth | #Leadership | #UHC

I’ve been reflecting on how we often consider future skills, digital transformation, or STEM careers without addressing a hard truth: socioeconomic disadvantage continues to block millions from accessing opportunity. And in the UK, that disadvantage is often as simple—and as serious—as a lack of internet. Here’s what that looks like: 📉 1.5 million UK homes are without internet access. For many students, this means no online homework, no virtual STEM clubs, and no exposure to the digital skills needed for tomorrow’s jobs. 🧪 STEM education is still uneven. Pupils from the most deprived areas are less likely to access advanced science and maths courses, and much less likely to pursue STEM careers. 🔌 Connectivity is key—and telecoms can help. A brilliant example? The National Databank, supported by Virgin Media O2 and Good Things Foundation. It’s been called a “food bank for data,” offering free mobile data, texts, and calls to people who can’t afford connectivity. Many O2 stores across the UK now serve as data donation hubs—bringing digital access right into local communities. 🧠 The result? Students stay connected. Adults can retrain. Families can access services. And no one is locked out of opportunity because they can’t afford data. Tech and telecoms companies have a real role in levelling the playing field—not just in innovation, but in inclusion. 💬 What other examples have you seen of organisations using infrastructure for impact? Let’s build a future where no potential is wasted because of a postcode. #DigitalInclusion #NationalDatabank #STEMAccess #TechForGood #LevellingUp #UKTech #SocialMobility #Telecommunications #DigitalEquity #FutureOfWork #InclusionMatters