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Gates said he expects vaccines to end in 2022, though he cautioned against complacency.
Photographer: Jason Alden / Bloomberg
Photographer: Jason Alden / Bloomberg
Tech pioneer Bill Gates praised India’s policies for financial innovation and inclusion and said his philanthropic foundation is working with other countries to implement open source technologies based on the country’s implementation.
India has built ambitious platforms for universal identification and digital payments, including the world’s largest biometric database and a system for sending rupees between any bank or smartphone app. Gates said those policies have dramatically reduced the cost and friction of distributing aid to the poor, especially during the pandemic.
“If people are going to study a country right now, other than China, I would say they should look at India,” Gates said at the Singapore Fintech Festival on Tuesday. “Things are really exploding there and the innovation around that system is phenomenal.”
Indian digital payments took off after the government pushed for demonetization in 2016, invalidating the majority of the country’s high-value banknotes in a move to curb corruption and drive Indians away from cash. The Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, has benefited from the growing use of smartphones and wireless data rates that are among the lowest in the world.
India requires companies to use its UPI platform so that payments can be easily sent between all services, including those of Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Walmart Inc., Paytm and any new upstarts. Zero user fees are also required.
Read more: To avoid tech antitrust problems, India tries a 30% cap
“India is a great example,” said the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said during the virtual conference. His organization is now helping some countries that have not set standards to implement similar systems based on open source technologies, he added.
India’s biometric system, called Aadhaar or “foundation” in Hindi, has raised concerns about privacy because it can also be used for government surveillance of citizens. Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposed the system before coming to power, but has since embraced it. Countries like Russia, Morocco and Bangladesh have expressed interest in the approach.
Gates, in general, was optimistic about how quickly vaccines were being developed to address the Covid-19 pandemic. He expects about six treatments to be available in the first quarter of next year, which he called a significant achievement.
“Digital things in general – remote learning, telemedicine, digital finance – were very advanced,” he said. “So while the pandemic has been terrible, it has driven some of these innovations, including the speed with which we manufacture vaccines.”
But Gates cautioned that tackling the virus must be done fairly: Rich countries shouldn’t decide who has access to vaccines. That is why his foundation is working with global manufacturers, including the Serum Institute in India, to ensure that there are sufficient quantities of doses at reasonable prices.
He said he hopes vaccines will end the coronavirus in 2022, though he cautioned against complacency.
“We cannot forget that another pandemic will come, so we must invest and be prepared,” he said.
(Updates with privacy issues in the seventh paragraph)
