Bridging Trust in the Digital Age: Piyush Peshwani, OnGrid

In this exclusive interview, Piyush Peshwani, Co-Founder & CEO, OnGrid, spoke to Dataquest about the evolving landscape of digital trust, identity verification, and India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI). He shares his perspective on the role of Aadhaar, UPI, and DigiLocker in transforming governance and business operations, how OnGrid is leveraging AI and blockchain for seamless verification, and the future of digital credentials in sectors like education and healthcare. With cybersecurity and data privacy becoming paramount, he also discusses OnGrid’s approach to ensuring compliance, security, and trust in an increasingly digital world.

Excerpts:

DQ: You worked closely with the government on digital public infrastructure (DPI). What motivated you to transition into the private sector?

The motivations for working in the government versus the private sector are quite different. While my role in the government was centered around building a nationwide identity framework, the private sector offers agility in innovation and implementation. Aadhaar was a massive step in creating a unified identity for 1.4 billion people. But working within the government isn’t straightforward for professionals from the private sector—it often requires working through non-profit consulting setups. Aadhaar was unique in that it brought together experts from both public and private sectors, allowing for a startup-like approach in the early days. Transitioning to the private sector allowed me to leverage my expertise in identity verification to create scalable, commercial solutions that enterprises could use to bridge trust gaps efficiently.

DQ: How has India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) transformed governance and business operations?

DPI has made essential services more accessible and efficient. For instance, earlier, filing income tax required printing documents and physically mailing them to the tax office. Today, with Aadhaar-based authentication and e-signatures, it’s a seamless digital process. Similarly, UPI has revolutionized digital payments. Who would have imagined 20 years ago that a street vendor could accept payments via QR code on a smartphone? FastTag has improved logistics efficiency by cutting down waiting times at toll booths, reducing fuel wastage, and enhancing economic productivity. These initiatives don’t just enable convenience; they create systemic efficiencies that lower operational costs for businesses and increase access to services for individuals.

DQ: What is the core vision behind OnGrid?

Our vision is to build a trust infrastructure for India. Trust is a fundamental challenge in our economy—whether it’s hiring employees, onboarding customers, or conducting financial transactions. For example, in developed countries, a simple credit card swipe is enough to complete a transaction, whereas in India, we needed additional security layers like PIN verification to prevent fraud. These trust gaps exist across multiple domains. OnGrid aims to solve these challenges by providing digital verification services that are seamless, secure, and compliant. Whether it’s identity verification, background checks, address authentication, or KYC/KYB processes, we ensure that businesses can verify individuals efficiently and without unnecessary friction.

DQ: How do you define digital trust, and what metrics do you use to measure it?

Digital trust is the ability to verify identities and credentials in a secure, cost-effective, and scalable manner. Traditionally, trust was established through physical verification—checking ID cards, signatures, and personal references. Digital trust eliminates these inefficiencies by using technology. For example, at airports, a security officer checks your ID against your face. Digital trust replaces this manual process with AI-powered facial recognition, reducing human error and increasing efficiency. The key metrics we look at are accuracy of verification, turnaround time, user adoption rates, and security compliance with national and global standards.

DQ: AI and blockchain are often seen as transformative technologies. How is OnGrid integrating them?

AI and blockchain are means to an end, not solutions in themselves. AI is already playing a major role in document verification, especially for handling thousands of formats like employment certificates and educational degrees. Instead of manually entering data, AI-powered OCR extracts information automatically, improving efficiency. Blockchain, on the other hand, has potential in decentralized credential verification. While not mainstream yet, its ability to provide tamper-proof, verifiable records will be valuable in the long run.

DQ: Digital credentials are useful for large enterprises, but how does OnGrid help smaller businesses adopt them?

Issuing digital credentials shouldn’t be limited to large enterprises. Our eLocker platform—akin to DigiLocker but for private sector credentials—is a free solution that helps small businesses issue and verify credentials seamlessly. For instance, a large company with 10,000 employees may onboard and offboard 500 people per month, while a smaller business may handle just five. The effort scales accordingly. By automating this process, even small companies can benefit from efficient credential management without incurring additional costs.

DQ: How will digital credentials reshape sectors like education and healthcare?

In the next five years, digital lockers will replace physical records for education, employment, and healthcare. Students will have verifiable digital degrees, eliminating the need for physical certificates. Patient records, prescriptions, and test results will be digitally stored and interoperable between hospitals and clinics. Instead of repeating an MRI scan at a different hospital, patients can securely share existing records with new doctors. This will improve data accessibility, reduce duplication, and enhance service efficiency.

DQ: With cyber threats increasing, how does OnGrid ensure data security and privacy?

Data security and privacy are two separate but equally critical aspects. Data security involves encryption, decentralization, and regular security audits. Data privacy, on the other hand, is about ensuring user consent, purpose limitation, data minimization, and the right to forget. We align with global privacy frameworks like GDPR and India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act to ensure compliance while maintaining seamless services.

DQ: Do India’s regulations support innovation in the digital space, or are there policy gaps?

India’s digital public infrastructure is a major enabler for businesses like ours. Without Aadhaar, UPI, and DigiLocker, our solutions wouldn’t be as scalable. The policy ecosystem is evolving alongside technological advancements, ensuring that DPI components continue to expand. However, for DPI to truly benefit small businesses and entrepreneurs, it should be made more open and accessible. If digital infrastructure becomes interoperable across sectors, its potential impact will be far greater.

Final Thoughts

India’s digital trust ecosystem is evolving rapidly, and solutions like OnGrid are at the forefront of this transformation. By making identity verification seamless, secure, and scalable, the company is not only addressing trust deficits but also driving financial inclusion and economic growth. As digital public infrastructure expands, trust-driven innovations will shape the next decade of governance, business, and everyday life.