The session focus was on ‘Strengthening Governance and Citizen Engagement Digitally for Last Mile Access and Delivery of Public Schemes Information and Entitlements’.

The panelists included – Ms. Sumita Banerji, Assistant Country Director, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India; Mr. Pattabiraman Subramanian, Senior Programme Manager – Development Co-operation Office of the Delegation of the European Union to India; Mr. Anirban Mukherji, Senior Manager, Wireless Reach, The Qualcomm Inc; Mr. Nehal Sanghavi, Senior Advisor, Innovations & Partnerships, United States Development Agency (USAID), India; and Mr. Soumya Sarkar, Editor, The Mint Newspaper. The session was moderated by Dr. Syed S Kazi, Deputy Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation.

The key points of discussion were – governance, capacity building of communities and institutions, innovations & partnerships, programme design, implementation, information entrepreneurship, digital innovations and scale up, hard data evidence and partnership, enhancing access, ICTs and last mile service delivery, technology and operations and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, data gathering, citizen engagement, citizen centric approach, technology and pro-active disclosure of information by public service providers, role of intermediaries in services delivery, technology – credibility and retaining peoples trust more so in today’s technocratic society of ours.