Bill Gates lobbies Nandan
By Techgirl

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has run a business so well that he is the richest person in the world today. Bill Gates also has the distinction of giving more money to charity and social causes than any individual in the world.

A successful businessman.  And a respected philanthropist.

Last year, Bill Gates stepped aside from his role of leading Microsoft to devote his life to social and charitable causes.  But it seems that you cannot take the business DNA out of a tech CEO.

Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has left the private sector to become Chairman of the Indian Government’s Unique Identification (UID) Project.  In theory, this UID Project is meant to give one set of documentation to each Indian freeing us from the need to have separate set of papers to vote, get a passport, driving license etc.  A great idea, but the implementation will be arduous and time consuming.  Any such project for more than 1 billion people will be challenging.

Bill Gates is currently in India to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development.  Yesterday, at a NASSCOM event, Bill Gates described the Indian Government’s Unique Identification Project as a “great initiative” and spoke about how he would be meeting Nandan Nilekani to work out how “Microsoft can take a possible association further”.

Ideally, the UID should follow the life cycle of most successful projects.  Nandan should get a proper budget (Rs. 120 crore so far).  Next, he should hire the best women and men based on merit (No special favours for a Ministers niece or son).  The third step would be to work out the broad system specifications (Hardware, software etc).  Next, invite tech companies to demonstrate their prototypes. Then Nandan and his team should select a hardware/software partner. Development, unit/system testing ….  That’s how any successful computer system is developed.

What does Mr. Microsoft means when he says that he will speak to Nandan Nilekani to see if he can work out any possible association between Microsoft and the UID Project? The only reason I can think of is that Bill Gates has started lobbying for Microsoft to play a key role in this Project whose cost can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Technologies and systems developed for the UID Project will be worth billions.

Perhaps Nandan may get influenced by such lobbying.  Perhaps not.  Perhaps Nandan will nod politely when Bill Gates meets him in person to see if there could be ‘possible association’. After all, it is very hard to tell the richest man on his face that such lobbying is premature because the hardware/software has not been decided yet.  Or worse, Open Source would be best for this project. 

Above all, we Indians are polite to out guests even when we know they have business on their mind.

Bill Gates received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on July 25, 2009.  Perhaps, a tabloid headline describing his visit would say ‘Came for Peace Prize, but Disarmed Nandan and Developed Microsoft’

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog
http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com