Nandan Nilekani - Agenda Setters 2009

Name: Nandan Nilekani

Title: Head of the Unique Identification Authority of India and co-founder of Infosys

Position: 9    Last year: Not ranked

Why? For heading up India's ID cards project

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Most people would be satisfied with being a co-founder of the Indian outsourcing giant Infosys and a foundation member of the World Economic Forum.

But this year Nilekani will embark on what is arguably his toughest challenge yet, delivering biometric ID cards to every one of India's 1.2 billion population.

As head of the government's unique identification authority he helped conceive the £1.5bn project, which Nilekani says will help ensure universal access to public services by providing a single form of ID.

Before stepping down as co-chairman of Infosys to take up his government role in July he was helping Infosys expand its offerings for the financial sector, which provides a sizeable portion of the company's $4bn-plus revenues.

During his time at Infosys he served as CEO for a time, prior to that he was the COO and, until July of this year, was a board member since the company's inception in 1981.

Despite Nilekani once telling silicon.com in an interview that his life is "very boring", our panellists have displayed a keen interest in what lies ahead for one of the world's sharpest business operators.