Indian Software Products Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), is a think tank for the Indian software products industry.

History

iSPIRT was officially launched on 4 February 2013 though preparatory work has been done over the preceding year. It was founded as an offshoot of

NASSCOM The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) is an Indian non-governmental trade association and advocacy group, focused mainly on the technology industry of India. Established in 1988, NASSCOM is a non-profit organis ...

. Around June 2017, some key members quit iSPIRT after co-founder Sharad Sharma, who was associated with an emphasis on

Aadhaar Aadhaar ( hi, आधार, ādhār, lit=base, foundation, bn, আধার) is a 12-digit unique identity number that can be obtained voluntarily by the citizens of India and resident foreign nationals who have spent over 182 days in twelve ...

and

India Stack India Stack refers to the ambitious project of creating a unified software platform to bring India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh- ...

, admitted to online trolling of anti-Aadhaar advocates, leading to dissent and resignations among those concerned with the organisation governance and direction.

Activities

The think tank claims its aim is to help software product companies with policies, playbooks and market catalysts, describing its three pillars as: # Policy - converting ideas into policy proposals to take to government stakeholders # Playbooks - converting conversations into

playbook Playbook may refer to: * BlackBerry PlayBook, a tablet computer by BlackBerry *A book that contains a script or story for a theatrical play. This written version of the composition is used in preparing for a performance **Fleury Playbook, a medieva ...

s for product entrepreneurs # Market Catalysts - converting actions of self-help communities into market catalysts for the Software Product Industry.

India Stack

iSPIRT has been involved in promoting

applications and has been acknowledged by the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 b ...

for initiating the project.

OCEN

Open Credit Enablement Network
or OCEN is a lending ecosystem where any company dealing with consumers and small or medium sized industries can become a loan service provider. Government eMarketplace (GeM) and private load providers who are part of OCEN can use account aggregator system for data-sharing of financial data.

Concerns and controversies

There have been concerns with the arguably close links between India Stack, Aadhaar, India's personal digital identity system, and the Government; with legal researcher Usha Ramaanthan explaining "The same people who worked within the government to set the framework for Aadhaar went on to create products in the private sector to harness its commercial potential – a clear case of conflict of interest.". Furthermore in 2017, iSPIRT's Sharad Sharma admitted to anonymous trolling of Aadhaar critics. Rohin Dharmakumar, writing for

The Ken The Ken is an Indian business news website based out of Bangalore, India. It was launched in 2016 as a premium subscriber-only platform that publishes one article per day. Its founders include Rohin Dharmakumar, Seema Singh, Sumanth Raghavendra ...

, claimed of iSPIRT - "In two short years, they built a world-class example of a volunteer-driven industry think tank with hundreds of passionate volunteers" only for "Today, India Stack is the dominant gene in iSPIRT. And iSPIRT’s original mission seems a relic".

References

External links

* Think tanks based in India Software industry in India Information technology organisations based in India {{software-stub