Microsoft plans Aadhaar-enabled products for Digital India

Microsoft has evinced plans to build Aadhaar-enabled products for the Digital India initiative, and showcase them to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When asked about Aadhaar project, Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said that the company is ready to align with the government in this regard. “We are ready to make our devices Aadhaar-compliant, as they will help citizen service delivery become smoother, going forward,” he said.

“We can think about Aadhaar-embedded Skype, where it can be used to verify citizen identity. Right now, you verify your ID using OTP (one-time password), but it could be verified using your iris,” he added. Pramanik said that the company is focusing on talent, innovation and market in the country to lay thrust on Digital India.

Pramanik said that he received the privilege to be a part of a great Indian journey, from main frame computing, to the mobile-first and cloud-first world. “With our mission of empowering every individual and organistion to achieve more, Microsoft India has done phenomenal work in partnering the Digital India game plan,” he said, pointing out that health, agriculture and education are primary focus areas for the company in the country. “We have already tied up with the Andhra Pradesh government in education. We are soon signing an MoU with the Punjab government as well,” he said.

Microsoft Research India and Microsoft India Research and Development are also conducting research with interdisciplinary approach. “We have been conducting research in natural language processing. Here, we have been doing lots of work in the space of artificial intelligence and machine learning,” he said.