Consider the following:

1. Aarogya Setu
2. CoWIN
3. Digi Locker
4. DIKSHA

Which of the above are built on top of open-source digital platforms?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 2, 3 and 4 only

(c) 1, 3 and 4 only

(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

Ans: d

Explanation:

A Digital Platform is a business-driven framework that allows a community of partners, providers and consumers to share, extend or enhance digital processes and capabilities for the benefit of all stakeholders involved through a common digital technology system.  

Closed source software – The creator or copyright holder sells the proprietary or closed source software to end users, who are not allowed to edit, enhance or redistribute the product except as specified by the copyright holder. Ex-  software applications such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Illustrator. 

Open source software (OSS) is source code developed and maintained through open collaboration. Anyone can use, examine, alter and redistribute OSS as they see fit, typically at no cost. 

“Open source” also refers to a community-based approach to creating intellectual property, such as software, through open collaboration, inclusiveness, transparency and frequent public updates.

Examples of open source –  GitHub, Mozilla Firefox, Linux, WordPress, Bitcoin, and Android.

About Digilocker

•  DigiLocker is a secure cloud based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents & certificates.
• DigiLocker system is developed on an Open Source stack and the components in its entirety or in parts may be made available to other countries for their own implementation of a similar product.
• Utilization of cloud based services by DigiLocker for secure and scalable system can be good best practise to be replicated globally.  

About Aarogya Setu

• On 2nd April 2020, India launched Aarogya Setu mobile App for helping augment the efforts of limiting the spread of COVID19, with an objective of enabling Bluetooth based contact tracing, mapping of likely hotspots and dissemination of relevant information about COVID19. The key pillars of Aarogya Setu have been transparency, privacy and security and in line with India’s policy on Open Source Software, the source code of Aarogya Setu has now been made open source.  

About DIKSHA

• DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) is a national platform for school education, an initiative of National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), under the aegis of the Ministry of Education (MoE), GoI.
• DIKSHA is built on open source technology, made in India and made for India, which incorporates internet scale technologies and enables several use-cases and solutions for teaching and learning. DIKSHA is built using MIT licensed open source technology called Sunbird, which is a digital infrastructure for learning and solutions and offers over a 100 micro services as building blocks for the development of platforms and solutions.

About COWIN

• CoWin stands for Covid Vaccine Intelligent Work. In January 2021, the platform was unveiled by the union government as it launched the vaccination drive in the country. 
•  The primary feature is to give users a chance to book a vaccine slot anywhere in the country 
• The code for CoWin was made open source. The government won’t attach any intellectual property rights to it.

Hence, option d is correct.

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