Abstract
Digital public goods (DPGs) offer many opportunities for improving public life. They promote digital services for citizens, enable seamless data leveraging as digital platforms, and facilitate efficiency gains in the public sector. DPGs’ impact is visible particularly in India. There, the implementation of the JAM-trinity meant and enabled financial inclusion for citizens, ensuring that every Indian has a bank account and is able to engage in economic activities and receive subsidies. Outside India, DPGs are largely unknown, and knowledge on platform design and implementation is still in its infancy. To gain insight into the design and implementation of digital platforms, a single case study of a DPG was performed. Using a sociotechnical systems perspective, twelve principles for public digital platform design were identified. This article discusses their relevance for platform providers, operators, and customers. The results show how academics and practitioners can learn from DPG implementations in India for platform value creation. Beyond the descriptive identification of design principles, the study contributes to the academic discourse on platform design and governance by contextualizing these principles within socio-technical dimensions and stakeholder roles. It extends existing literature by demonstrating how DPGs can inform scalable, inclusive, and adaptive platform architectures in the public sector.
