UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION PROJECT FOR 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE IN INDIA: CAN IT FILL INSTITUTIONAL VOIDS AND ENABLE 'INCLUSIVE' INNOVATION?
India has no equivalent of a social security number and more than 400 millions of poor suffer in the hands of the existing corrupt system because they are unable to participate in the formal economy. In a nation that is struggling to meet basic challenges of poverty, hunger, poor infrastructure and corruption, the govern- ment of India's Unique Identification (UID) project appears to be a striking outlier as it is building the world's biggest and advanced biometric based database of identities for 1.2 billion people at a remarkable pace. Using the theoretical lens of institutional voids, this paper describes the case of UID project and explores its poten- tial in terms of filling institutional voids and enabling inclusive innovation in India.