NEW DELHI, July 5: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the government was preparing its Covid vaccination platform — CoWIN — as an open-source and soon it would be available to all countries.
“Indian civilization considers the whole world as one family. This pandemic has made many people realize the fundamental truth of this philosophy. That’s why, our technology platform for Covid vaccination — the platform we call CoWIN — is being prepared to be made open-source,” he said while addressing Global CoWIN Conclave via video conference.
Modi said the CoWIN software was being made available to all countries across the world looking to bolster their digital systems to combat the pandemic.
“India’s technology platform for Covid-19 vaccination, CoWIN, will now be open source,” Modi said. “It will be available to any and all countries. The platform has been used to administer 350 million doses so far.”
Modi said in the fight against the pandemic, everyone needed to come together and share their experiences. “India has been committed to its experiences, expertise and resources with the global community despite constraints,” he said. “Technology is integral to our fight against Covid and software is one area where there have not been many constraints. Our Covid tracking and tracing app (Aarogya Setu) was made open source last year. The best hope for humanity to emerge successfully from the pandemic is to adopt digitisation.”
He added that India’s vaccination strategy was made keeping a digital approach in mind, especially considered the value of each dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. “It is important to ensure each dose is tracked and wastage is minimized,” he said. “No one will need a fragile piece of paper to prove that they have been vaccinated as it all available online.”
The PM also highlighted that CoWIN could be customised according to local needs. RS Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority (NHA), last week said many countries had expressed an interest in the vaccination platform. “#CoWIN has become popular! Over 50 countries from across Central Asia, Latin America & Africa, are interested in this #technology. @PMOIndia has directed us to create an open-source version of #CoWIN free of cost to any interested country,” Sharma tweeted on June 28.
The PM also condoled the loss of lives due to Covid-19 across the world, adding that there has been no parallel to such a pandemic in 100 years. “Experience shows that no nation however powerful it is, can solve a challenge like this in isolation,” the Prime Minister said.
He stated that vaccination was the “best hope for humanity” to emerge successfully from the pandemic and technology plays an integral part in it. “Right from the beginning, we in India decided to adopt a completely digital approach while planning our vaccination strategy,” he said. “Technology is integral to our fight against Covid-19. Luckily, the software is one area in which there are no resource constraints. That’s why we made our Covid tracing and tracking App open source as soon as it was technically feasible.”
Modi also said India had been committed to sharing all its experiences, expertise and resources with the global community in this battle. “Despite all our constraints, we have tried to share as much as possible with the world.”
(Manas Dasgupta)