AI Leaders

Nandan Nilekani

Co-founder & Chairman · Infosys / EkStep
IndiaFounderPolicyInvestorDigital Public InfrastructurePopulation-scale AI

Nandan Nilekani co-founded Infosys and served as founding chairman of UIDAI, the authority behind Aadhaar. Through EkStep and the People+AI initiative he advocates population-scale, open digital public infrastructure and argues AI should be applied to India's development problems rather than only replicating Western consumer products.

Career timeline

  1. 1981
    Infosys co-founded
    One of seven co-founders of Infosys.
  2. 2009
    Chairman, UIDAI
    Leads the Aadhaar programme.
  3. 2015
    EkStep
    Co-founds a non-profit for learning at scale.
  4. 2017
    Returns to Infosys
    Becomes non-executive chairman.

Major achievements

  • Aadhaar
  • India Stack / UPI advocacy
  • People+AI

Public perspectives

Interview · 11/15/2023

Argues India should apply AI on top of its digital public infrastructure — identity, payments and data-sharing rails — to deliver population-scale services rather than compete purely on frontier model training.

People+AI

Books & writing

  • Imagining India — On ideas that can transform a nation.

Official sources

EkStep People+AI