Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy (fide.org)

This not-for-profit organisation is the genesis author and angel donor to an open-source initiative called the Beckn Protocol (becknprotocol.io). Beckn enables the creation of decentralised digital economy ecosystems. Co-founded along with Nandan Nilekani and Dr Pramod Varma, FIDE has been helping Beckn Protocol evolve as an independent and large-scale open-source community effort focusing on its adoption and sustenance as a digital public good.

India’s digital commerce penetration is less than 10% leaving a large population excluded from harnessing digital to do business. With only a few large technology companies offering digital commerce, the choices to users, and free competition is curtailed, stifling market-led innovation and value creation. It creates a lopsided power-play with only a few platform companies usurping power from the users it claims to empower. A taxi driver, a food delivery person, or a small hotel or a restaurant are dependent on large players aggregating them and consumers onto their centralised marketplaces. Predatory commissions, loss of power in pricing, and exploitation of merchant data concerns resonating across sectors and markets worldwide.

Founder’s Vision

As a not-for-profit entrepreneur, Sujith’s vision transcends the growth of FIDE and looks at creating a population-scale systemic shift in the digital economy.

FIDE brings intellectual capital to think of this problem deeply, with an intention to a) not solve the problem by self and instead distribute the ability to solve b) not think of ‘scaling what works’ but to instead see ‘what works at scale’. Beckn Protocol is a manifestation of this strategy.

Sujith’s strategy is also to constraint-by-design the size of the organisation, maintain a low footprint with seven members as of today and yet pursue non-linear outcomes. Sujith’s bold vision thus entails building an open community of volunteers, of believers in his idea of Beckn that in turn drive its adoption as an open-source protocol.

Sujith’s strong advocacy skills offer him the ability to convene dialogues with governments, market players – big and small, and societal organisations to take a bold bet of making this transition to open, inclusive decentralised digital commerce as ‘Open Networks with Beckn Protocol’. Emulating the model of adoption of the internet in the early years.

Today, “Beckn Open Collective” is 3000-volunteer strong worldwide and with multiple implementations of beckn happening in India and across the world, Beckn is evolution is supported by hundreds of companies and institutions across many industries.

Sujith has co-founded three large open network ecosystems with Beckn Protocol with over 200+ companies participating and another 200+ soon to join.  These ecosystems are:

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC.org)

A 40+ Mn $ funded national not-for-profit utility, set up by market players and government. Sujith was part of the co-founding think tank since April 2020 and co-authored the ONDC Strategy.  200+ companies have joined ONDC and the network of ONDC is operational as a pilot with early transactions across 200+ cities in India.

Media on ONDC:

• ‘India could single-handedly shape the future of e-commerce’ – Fortune, March 2023
• ‘Indian government’s e-commerce network ONDC expands into 236 cities -CEO’ – Reuters, May 2023
• Namma Yatri, peer-to-peer mobility (nammayatri.in/open): A decentralised mobility network launched by driver union and their tech partner that has clocked 3 Mn+ rides since November 2022, with exponential growth.

Media on Namma Yatri:

• ‘Without middlemen, Namma Yatri autorickshaw drivers earn Rs 5.6 crore in just four months’ – Indian Express, March 2023
• ‘ONDC onboards Namma Yatri; set to compete with ola, uber in hyperlocal mobility’, Your Story,  March 2023
• Kochi Open Mobility Network (KOMN) (openkochi.net) of 3000+ taxi drivers with Kochi Metro and Water Transport soon scheduled to join.

Media on KOMN

• ‘Kochi Open Mobility Network expands statewide into Kerala Open Mobility Network’ – The Financial Express,  November 2022
• ‘KOMN has successfully combined several taxi associations and Kochi metro booking systems into an integrated solution on one network, using the open-source Beckn Protocols, which is also an underlying protocol of ONDC’  –Business World, June 2023

Geographical adoption of Beckn Protocol

Beckn Protocol is breaking new ground by gaining traction on a global scale (first time for an Indian Protocol). It is transcending geographical boundaries to create market consistency and address the constraints of existing competition frameworks. Remarkably, it has garnered substantial adoption and interest from diverse regions, including Europe (France, Amsterdam, Croatia, etc.), Africa (Gambia), Latin America (Brazil), and the United States of America.

Media on Beckn’s Global Adoption

• ‘Paris, Amsterdam look to adopt Nandan Nilekani-backed Beckn protocol for interoperable mobility’ – Money Control,  October 2023

Beckn Protocol has been adopted over a diverse range of industries

• Mobility
• Retail
• Restaurants/Food
• Logistics
• Health care
• Learning, Skilling & Employment
• Supply Chain
• Circular economy and Climate Action
• EV Charging
• Energy Generation – Microgrids & Decentralised Energy Warehouse
• Manufacturing (Industry 4.0)
• Agriculture
• Government eMarketplaces (B2G, G2C)
• Telelaw (Law Tech)
• Decentralised Dispute Resolution Infrastructure (LawTech)

Before FIDE, Sujith headed Management Consulting practices and Internet businesses in urban mobility and digital payments. Sujith has contributed to many key interventions in the Aadhaar program between 2010-2012. Many strategic actions like introducing standards instead of procurement or creation of a competitive multi-vendor pay-as-you-go approach were introduced by Sujith in his Aadhaar engagement. Impact of the same is discussed here in detail by the Economist. Sujith also designed India’s national transit open payments interoperability (One Nation, One Card) in 2014 to integrate ticketing and payments across public transport systems in the country. He has also been the Chief Business Officer for Mobike, India taking the business from 0 to 100 in India.

• Regional Champion (across 80 countries) – EY Global innovation Award, 2015

Testimonials

"Sujith is an amazing change leader who combines the ambition of scale and speed with a zeal to deliver societal good. His audaciously bold bet of changing the digital commerce landscape with the Beckn Protocol is already set in motion with multiple initiatives in India and worldwide, unlocking innovation with inclusive growth. The traction and diversity of adoption witnessed is a testimony to Sujith’s ability to look at problems deeply and abstract beyond the obvious, to his bias for action and his deep conviction for solving together collaboratively."

–  Nandan Nilekani (Co-founder & Chairman, Infosys)

"To create large population-scale disruption with technology for societal good, Sujith is bringing a one-of-a-kind playbook to the party! With a very small team of seven people, Sujith has managed to imagine Beckn Protocol across multiple industries, pioneered a diverse set of implementations with bottom-up effort, some at a national scale and has built a wide global community of believers. Sujith’s leadership and relentless hustle has accelerated the adoption of Beckn. Sujith is a leader who can get things done, things that are hard to pull off."

– Dr. Pramod Varma (Chief Architect, Aadhaar, UPI)

Mentions in Public Forums

Media mentions and coverages-

• YS
• Global Fintech Fest
• Future of ICT Forum
• The India Advantage (TIA) Summit
• ONDC Foundation Day
• OSTROM Workshop with Doc Shearls
• Sattva Podcast– With Rathish Balakrishnan: Decoding Impact
• a) Vivatech- France, b) DPI Speakers, c) Speaker Profile
• Embassy of Denmark

Public forum mentions-

• Thoughtworks
• YourStory
• BayInd Centre for Business
• CXO Round Table
• Antler’s launch of Beckn Cohort
• Almedalen  2023 & Engaging India