Bill Gates keen to invest in e-payment start ups in India

Bill gates met with IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad to express his interest in e-agriculture and e-payments projects. Bill Gates sees agriculture as a huge market as it still employees the majority of Indian workforce.

Founder of Microsoft and co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates talked about how over the last half century India has made amazing progress through Green Revolution. But he is very much aware of the challenges India faces such as a need to solve malnutrition and address the challenge of climate change. He said that addressing these challenges and achieving the government's vision of doubling farmer income by 2022 will require advances in science and technology to boost productivity.

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A government official who attended Gate’s little over half hour long meeting with the IT minister told Business Insider that Gates was very keen to participate in e-agriculture and e-payment platforms talking specifically about initiatives like patient digital health records and e-mandi. Gate was especially excited about developing apps for the two platforms, showing a lot more interest in e-payment platforms in India. He discussed developing apps around e-payment and talked about how more payment banks need to come up in India. Praising the government for being able to get a billion people on Adhaar, Gates also discussed how the government should look at connecting the soil health to the unique identity which can help developers to build apps that will help make a farmer’s life much easier. He ended by emphasizing his interest in investing in e-payment and e-agriculture start-ups.

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