Nandan Nilekani is getting ready to manage the most technologically challenging and largest scale project he has ever handled: the national identity project. Here, he tells Forbes India how the skills he learnt at Infosys will help him in the new assignment
Of all the opportunities available to you, why did you choose to head the national identity project?
This is a very very complex and a very difficult project, it is really challenging. The scale of it is unprecedented. It has stakeholders across many levels and if you can pull it off the rewards will be great. It can have a big impact on so many different things that the government wants to do. So I was attracted by the twin facets of it: Big impact and high risk. If I had to give up my career at Infosys for something, it had to be impactful like this.