Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal on how India can lead open innovation

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola Group, observed that there's a difference between the American and Indian approaches to developing protocols. While the American approach believes in every tech company developing its own protocol, India believes in open standards to take tech to the rural masses.

“The American paradigm of technology is purely capitalistic...whereas, the Indian paradigm is more for societal benefits. So, India has an opportunity to lead in open protocols,” said Aggarwal, during a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory, at TechSparks Bengaluru 2024. 

“India has an opportunity to become the global leader in open innovation. We have taken the lead thanks to visionary people like Nandan (Nilekani) in DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure)... We need open protocols in the technology world,” he added.

The Infosys cofounder played a prominent role in establishing India's DPI, which includes Aadhaar for digital identification, UPI as a payments interface, and Finternet.

Aggarwal, a serial entrepreneur who also founded the AI company Krutrim in 2023, has been vocal in his criticism of the dominance of Western tech giants. In July, Aggarwal launched Ola Maps under Krutrim to take on the dominance of Google Maps in India. 

“Why can’t social media be a DPI-based protocol? It’s not because the innovation of social media was in the West where mercantile interest overtook the open-source movement. India can lead this because AI will give us the opportunity...,” he added.

Aggarwal, who began his entrepreneurial journey over a decade ago with the ride-hailing platform Ola Cabs (ANI Technologies), has emerged as one of India's most influential entrepreneurs. He is among the select few to have founded three billion-dollar valuation companies. In August this year, Ola Electric went public with a valuation exceeding $4 billion.

Aggarwal also called on the ecosystem to give greater recognition to Indian entrepreneurs.

“We celebrate Western entrepreneurs. Why don’t we celebrate Indian entrepreneurs as well? We have so many good things. We need to reconnect,” Aggarwal said.