3. Government needs to involve app developers and content providers via a Challenge portal.
This was another idea from the Gov 2.0 Summit – that of a Challenge.gov-like portal. “Every government department has some key challenges. They should put them out on a common Challenge.gov.in portal. This will help capture the imagination of Indians. For the first time, we will have a government actually doing something more than random “open houses” to get citizens and experts involved in thinking together about the problems we face, and then coming up with innovative solutions.”
This can be a part of the public-private partnership. Citizens and companies can take up both the data and the challenges, and participate in creating mashups and solutions. India has a large pool of software developers who would relish creating spending time beyond their working hours thinking about some fo the challenges we face. It also helps bridge the “India-Bharat” divide – as one of the panelists termed it.
An additional angle here is to ensure that software developers and content providers can get paid for what they create. Here, we need to learn from Docomo’s i-mode service and get telcos in India to offer billing as a service. In fact, the UID project could have an Aadhar App Store, with the UID linked with a person’s identity and supporting micropayments.
Continued tomorrow.
