Panel | Gateway to India and The World | Can the India template go global?

Abhijit has over twenty-five years of international experience building products and scaling businesses. Abhijit was the first top-level executive to be hired by WhatsApp for India. Formerly the CEO and Co-Founder of Ezetap Mobile Solutions, Abhijit has also had senior leadership roles with Siebel Systems, Intuit, and NGPay, one of India’s first mobile commerce companies. Abhijit holds a B.S. in Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Liv spearheaded the creation of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), an initiative endorsed by the UN Secretary-General that facilitates the discovery and implementation of digital public goods. The DPGA is co-hosted by UNICEF, UNDP, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). In her role, she leverages her 15 years of experience with NORAD, where she has worked on country capacity building and led several digital innovation projects involving open-source technologies. Liv studied political science at the University of Oslo and holds an Executive Master in Energy Management from the BI Norwegian Business School.

Siddharth is a Fellow at the iSPIRT Foundation, a nonprofit technology think-tank based in Bangalore that has contributed to many of India’s digital platforms including eKYC, eSign, and UPI, DigiLocker, FASTag, Bharat Bill Payments System, and RBI Account Aggregator, which is used by 1.3 billion Indians. At iSPIRT, Siddharth designs and drives the adoption of India’s Data Empowerment & Protection Architecture (DEPA), a techno-legal framework that gives every Indian control of their data. He’s also been involved in designing Digital Sky, India’s effort to integrate drones into civilian airspace, and RBI’s Public Credit Registry for enabling real-time credit reporting. In addition, Siddharth is a member of the Volunteer Fellows Council at iSPIRT and a Board Member at the Digital Public Goods Alliance.

Henri was previously the Director for Digital Information and Communications Systems of France; and Director of Etalab, the French agency for public open data. In addition, Henri is an entrepreneur who is the Co-Founder and CEO of MFG Labs, an internet-based startup involved in social data mining, and Board Chairman of Cap Digital, the French-European Cluster for Digital Content and Services. He co-authored, with Nicolas Colin, the book, L'Age de la Multitude, Entreprendre et Gouverner Aprèsla Révolution Numérique (The Age of Multitude, Entrepreneurship, and Governance After the Digital Revolution). Mr. Verdier is a graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure.