How Tamil Nadu Used Technology to Tackle the Coronavirus Crisis

Tamil Nadu is a state in southern India with more than 80 million residents, about the same population as Germany. When the coronavirus pandemic struck earlier this year, the state faced enormous challenges, ranging from answering citizens’ questions about COVID-19 to identifying people who needed urgent care. As rules around the nationwide lockdown were gradually relaxed, Tamil Nadu also needed to ensure that information was communicated to those who needed it.

Santosh Misra, CEO of the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA), was tasked with developing and driving technology-related initiatives to tackle these problems and more for Tamil Nadu. In this interview, he speaks with Wharton marketing professor Raghuram Iyengar, faculty director of AI and Analytics for Business, about the role that TNeGA played in e-governance for the state and the initiatives the agency deployed to contain the crisis.