India, Trinidad and Tobago sign MoU on sharing of India Stack

Living up to the promise of helping other countries catch up on digitalization, India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Trinidad and Tobago on sharing of India Stack, which is a collection of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to facilitate identity, data, and payment services on a large scale.

Announcing the development on Thursday (August 17, 2023), the Ministry of Electronics and IT said that both sides agreed to cooperate in the areas of digital transformation by means of capacity building, training programmes, exchange of best practices, exchange of public officials and experts, development of pilot or demo solutions, etc.

This collaboration comes a week after Minister of State (MoS) for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar met with Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Digital Transformation Hassel Bacchus.

During their meeting, the two ministers discussed mutual cooperation in the fields of IT, emerging technologies, and the India Stack.

MoS Chandrasekhar was quoted as saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who believes in the principle of Vasudhaiva Kutumbhakam (the world is one family), has always encouraged the offering of India Stack to countries across the globe, especially to those that have been left behind in their digitalisation efforts. "With the help of India Stack, these countries can climb up the digitalisation ladder rapidly and transform their economies and governance," he said.

The collaboration shall create a robust ecosystem of startups, developers & system integrators working around it on Next-Gen innovation, he added.

The MoU was signed in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Electronics and IT, National E-Governance Division, MeitY and the Ministry of External Affairs.

Since June 2023, India has already signed MoUs with countries namely Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, and Antigua & Barbuda to share India Stack while many countries like Mauritius, Saudi Arabia have shown interest and are at an advanced stage of finalizing cooperation on IndiaStack.

A similar MoU was signed with Papua New Guinea also last month, showcasing the growing interest and acceptance of the initiative on a global scale. The United Payments Interface or UPI, which is also a part of India Stack, has been accepted in France, UAE, Singapore and Sri Lanka.