On July 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the CoWIN Global Conclave where he announced that the CoWIN platform would soon be made open-source, and they will be available for any and all interested countries for usage. He offered the CoWIN platform as a digital public good to the world to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
Addressing #CoWINGlobalConclave. https://t.co/cC5cguCyWz
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 5, 2021
Prior to the announcement, Dr RS Sharma, chairperson of the Empowered Committee for the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine in an exclusive interview to The Print shared, “The Centre has received interest from 76 countries thus far.”
Clarifying the availability of the platform, Dr Sharma said that while the Government of India is more than happy to share this successful platform an open-source one, the only condition would be that the software should not be allowed to be used for commercial use or repackaged to be sold.
The Global Conclave on CoWin witnessed participation from 196 officials from foreign countries and 116 private individuals from 41 countries.
CoWin achieved 20 crore registrations in the first four months of its launch on 16 January and as of 1 July, 35.4 crore people have registered on the platform, informed Dr Sharma.
As per a PTI report, the countries that have shown interest in adopting the digital platform include Canada, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, and Uganda, among others.
Link passport with vaccine certificates
Dr Sharma also informed during the interview that there are plans to update the CoWIN application by adding a feature to link passports with vaccine certificates for international travel.
The other changes on the platform will include the introduction of an editing tab enabling corrections in personal details in the vaccination certificates.
“The government has observed that in many cases, people submit incorrect personal details while registering, such as their name, date of birth or gender while registering themselves. We will now allow people to correct these details to enable corrections in their vaccination certificates,” he said.
Adding further, “We have created a mechanism to allow citizens to combine their certificates when they have, by mistake, used two different user accounts for the two different doses of vaccination,” said Dr Sharma.
“We are constantly taking feedback from all the stakeholders, learning from our own experiences, and evolving the platform to make it as accessible and inclusive for all,” he added.
CoWin integrated with consumers apps like Paytm, Reliance & others
Dr Sharma, who is also CEO of the National Health Authority, said that the software is creating new benchmarks and records every day. With an aim to have a wider outreach, consumer-facing apps such as PayTM, Reliance Group, Jubilant Foodworks, Ibibo, 1MG, Max hospitals, EkaCare, Apollo Hospitals have reportedly come onboard for integration.
“We have received over 204 applications from private and public entities to integrate with CoWIN, of which 148 have been accepted and are in the process of completing integrations,” Dr Sharma said.
He also informed that these companies will be able to allow the users to “look for available slots for vaccination or vaccines.”
Fastest tech platform
Addressing the CoWIN Global Conclave, Dr Sharma on Monday said he is proud that CoWIN has become the fastest tech platform in the world.
“It fills me with pride to share with you that CoWIN has become the fastest tech platform in the world to amass over 200 million registrations in a record four months, and then 300 million registrations in a mere five months, yet another record. What adds more credibility to this achievement is the sheer stability of the system, which is entertaining over a billion HTTP requests on an average daily,” he said.
Proud to say this: Co-WIN, the fastest tech platform in the world, amassed 300+ million registrations in a mere 5 months!
— Dr. RS Sharma (@rssharma3) July 5, 2021
Has entertained over a billion HTTP requests on an average daily#DigitalIndia #VaccineForAll #COVID19 #CoWINGlobalConclave #LargestVaccineDrive #COWIN
Talking about the success of the vaccination drive, Sharma noted that India has achieved an administration of over 350 million vaccine doses, with at least 284 million Indians receiving at least one dose.
