Today, 60-90 percent of the tech stacks of Indian startups, enterprises and e-gov projects consist of FOSS. This has helped India save billions of dollars that would have gone to buy proprietary software. While we have leveraged FOSS tactically to save money, much needs to be done to leverage it strategically. Unique among all categories of technologies, FOSS enables a country like India to maintain strategic autonomy. In other words, FOSS helps India be a part of global value chains while retaining control of the code, and avoiding vendor lock-in. With India now having the third largest number of developers on platforms like GitHub, it is time to start driving innovation and global collaborations through FOSS. With FOSS placed in the heart of most technologies, it is also time for Indian FOSS developers to be more engaged with public policy because, "with great power comes great responsibility." In this panel discussion, we have three Public Policy experts sharing their outside-in perspective with the Indian FOSS community.

Panelists

Prasanto Roy, former editor of PC Quest, and Senior Advisor, FTI Consulting

Saranya Gopinath, Director, Government Affairs & Public Policy at Razorpay

Yatish Rajawat, Founder and CEO, Center for Innovation in Public Policy