Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dominated conversations around the world ever since Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to him. Seen as brash and controversial by many, he is nevertheless regarded as a visionary entrepreneur with ambitious plans for space travel and creating brain-computer interfaces.
Does India have its own version of a tech leader like Elon Musk? Kunal Bahl, the CEO of e-commerce platform of Snapdeal, has an answer.
In a recent LinkedIn post, Bahl said he regarded Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani as India’s Elon Musk.
Nilekani spearheaded the Indian government’s gigantic effort to create Aadhaar -- biometric IDs for all citizens -- and also helped unveil Unified Payments Interface or UPI --- a real-time and instant payment system. Thought ambitious, the projects have led to debate. Aadhaar gave rise to concerns about security and data privacy. A matter related to UPI is being considered by the Supreme Court.
Now, Nilekani is helping the government create Open Network for Digital Commerce -- a platform to rival e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart.
Bahl said that because of such impactful projects, Nilekani’s impact on India and its position abroad has been “nothing short of incredible”.
“His ability to repeatedly create something from scratch that endures for so long and impacts billion+ people positively, is just amazing,” the Snapdeal CEO added. “His personality and approach is distinct from that of Elon Musk, but the quantum of his impact is no different in the context of what