Yahoo!, Cisco eye role in unique ID project

Along with a bouquet of flowers, the global CEO of Yahoo! Inc, Ms Carol Bartz, offered the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, whom she met on this morning, help with the Unique Identification (UID) programme being put in place in the country when she met him on Wednesday morning.
“The UID project involves a huge database. We, at Yahoo, have expertise in handling such huge amount of data. We met the Prime Minister today and discussed, among other things, how Yahoo can help the Government in the project,” Ms Bartz said here at an editorial round table with the media.
However, Yahoo also said that it was not looking at the UID project for any commercial interest but to pay back to the nation where it has had a presence for so many years.
On her first visit to India as Yahoo chief — a post she took over in the beginning of the year and one that brings with it industry expectations of a turnaround for the company — Ms Bartz also met Mr Nandan Nilekani, who heads the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), today.
The UID project, which will provide a Unique Identification Number to the country’s over one billion citizens, is being looked at with great interest by several other multinational IT and Internet players as well. On Wednesday, networking solutions company Cisco Systems was another player to evince interest in the project. The company said it was in discussions for a possible role in the project.
“We are in talks with Mr Nilekani on how to help and the kind of role Cisco can play,” Ms Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology Officer, Cisco Systems Inc, said on the sidelines of the BangaloreIT.biz conference. When contacted, the UIDAI Chairperson, Mr Nilekani, told Business Line that the discussions with Yahoo revolved around the general Internet economy and the project.
“Yahoo and other Internet companies such as Amazon and Google have built massive Internet applications that have millions of users…That experience is relevant to us. When one looks at a project the scale of UID, it is good to share such experiences.”preliminary stage
But Mr Nilekani pointed out such meetings are still at a preliminary stage. “We need everyone… every technology company… and need to look at their offerings. UID project is large and complex, and we have to have an open mind so that we can choose the best possible solutions,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Microsoft Co-founder, Mr Bill Gates, had stated that his company is interested to partner India in the project. He had also met Mr Nilekani during his visit to the country in July.
Indian IT companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro too are hoping that the project would galvanise the domestic software market, which has historically trailed IT exports. This is because the project will require a full technology backbone, massive computing power, database, storage, and biometrics.
Meanwhile, the UIDAI has started working on a draft legislation which will arm it with statutory powers to hand-out a unique identification number to every Indian resident. It has also started dialogues with various state governments on the project strategy. Mr Nilekani has met Government representatives in nearly 10 States and expects to cover all the States by January 2010.
The UIDAI will start issuing the identification numbers in 12-18 months, and expects to cover at least 600 million residents within five and half years. The Authority has made it clear that the identification number will be a proof of identity linked to demographic and biometric information but not confer citizenship.