Protean partners with Google Cloud To setup Centre of Excellence, accelerating ONDC, Identity & Data Services

● Partnership aimed at offering tech in Digital Public Infrastructure (“DPI”)

● To jointly set up centre of excellence for multi-sectoral innovation across ecommerce, healthcare, agriculture, mobility, financial services, and education.

● To supercharge onboarding of buyers and sellers onto ONDC

● Transform digital onboarding experience with Protean’s Identity & Data services built on Google Cloud

Mumbai, August 23, 2023: Protean eGov Technologies (Protean), a pioneer and market leader in universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions, has announced a partnership with Google Cloud which aims to accelerate DPI(Digital Public Infrastructure) deployment and the adoption of Generative AI (“GenAI”) and cloud in both public and private sectors in multiple ways.

With this partnership, Protean & Google Cloud shall set up a centre of excellence harnessing the potential of recently launched Google’s open commerce solution for ONDC combined with Protean’s ONDC Buyer and  Seller platforms to supercharge adoption of ONDC by participants. This partnership will further aim to strengthen Protean’s identity authentication solutions (eAuthentication, eKYC, eSign) and Data Services with Google’s cloud computing and  AI capability to scale-up its adoption, aiming to solve for end-to-end digital onboarding journeys across sectors. 

 

This centre of excellence aims to spur innovation in delivering digital public goods across diverse sectors of ecommerce, healthcare, agriculture, mobility, education and financial services. Protean intends to leverage the advanced GenAI and VertexAI offered by Google Cloud to solve for a wide array of use cases and deliver eGovernance solutions across these sectors. 

 

Suresh Sethi, MD & CEO, Protean eGov Technologies said, “We are excited about this partnership with Google Cloud as we believe it holds potential to accelerate India’s digital transformation agenda on the back of delivering digital public infrastructure and open digital eco-systems. This partnership will influence ONDC network adoption and the centre of excellence will power multi-sectoral innovations at population-scale. We eagerly look forward to unlocking the potential of this collaboration with Google’s products and people and staying committed to our mission of Building for Billions.”

 

Bikram Bedi, Managing Director, Google Cloud, India said, “Our partnership with Protean will enable them with our best tech and brightest minds to solve some of the toughest challenges in their digitization efforts across various sectors in India. This is a unique opportunity to unlock innovation at scale and create significant social and economic impact.”

This partnership comes at a time, where India is witnessing rapid digitalization across the public and private sector, and aims to contribute to the nation’s digitization agenda by providing AI-driven eGovernance solutions from Protean, powered by Google's cloud-based technology. Both organizations possess sectoral expertise in conceptualization, architecting, and implementation at population-scale. They will also collaborate to provide infrastructure products & processes and people which accelerates paperless and presence-less automations.

About Protean

 

Protean eGov Technologies Limited (previously NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited) is a pioneer and Market leader in universal, citizen centric and population scale e-governance solutions since its inception 28 years ago. 

 

Digital Public Infrastructure - Protean has been instrumental for modernising the direct Tax Infrastructure ushering in online payment and collection of taxes by the government and  incubated and implemented the Tax Information Network (TIN), which brings together 68,000+ facilitation centres (PAN and TIN). Protean conceptualized designed and implemented the infrastructure for Central Record-keeping Agency and functions as the central recordkeeping agency for National Pension System & Atal Pension Yojna. 

Regulatory Tech – Protean’s authentication services (eKYC, Aadhar Authentication, eSign) allows governments, businesses, startups and developers to utilise a unique digital infrastructure for their digital customer journeys. Protean also recently launched its Account Aggregator services through ‘Protean SurakshAA’ – an individual consent led financial data sharing Account Aggregator platform enabling them with credit services. 

Open Networks / ODE’s – Protean is contributing to and supporting open digital building blocks, including Open Network For Digital Commerce (“ONDC”), accelerating commerce for the network participants and payment gateways through its product. It is also credited with building network for corporate scholarship, grants and education loans through Protean Vidyasaarathi & Vidya Lakshmi.  

It recently ventured into India-focussed Protean Cloud Services an AI-powered private cloud offering for business enterprises and Protean InfoSec Services Limited provides services in areas relating to cyber security consulting, advisory, and assessment services in the field of IT security.

Disclaimer

Protean eGov Technologies LImited (previously NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited) is proposing, subject to receipt of requisite approvals, market conditions and other considerations, to make an initial public offer of its equity shares and has filed a draft red herring prospectus (“DRHP”) and addenda dated April 27, 2022 and April 25, 2023 with Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI”). The DRHP and Addenda are available on the website of the SEBI at www.sebi.gov.in as well as on the websites of the book running lead managers, ICICI Securities Limited, Equirus Capital Private Limited, IIFL Securities Limited and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Private Limited, at www.icicisecurities.com, www.enquirus.com, www.iiflcap.com and www.nomuraholdings.com/company/group/ asia/india/index.html Contact person, and the website of the stock exchange at www.bseindia.com. Any potential investor should note that investment in equity shares involves a high degree of risk and for details relating to such risk, see "Risk Factors" of the RHP, when available. Potential investors should not rely on the DRHP for any investment decision. 

The Equity Shares have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended or any other applicable law of the United States and, unless so registered, may not be offered or sold within the United States except pursuant to an exemption from, or in a transaction not subject to, the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. Accordingly, the Equity Shares are being offered and sold (a) in the United States only to persons reasonably believed to be “qualified institutional buyers” (as defined in Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act) pursuant to Section 4(a) of the U.S. Securities Act and (b) outside the United States in offshore transactions as defined in and in compliance with Regulation S and the applicable laws of the jurisdiction where those offers and sales are made.