He’s been a poster boy of Indian infotech, co-founded a company that has become a byword for participative entrepreneurship, given Thomas Friedman the idea for the bestselling ‘The World Is Flat’, and himself penned a book, ‘Imagining India’.

And now, at the age of 54, his shareholding in Infosys alone worth Rs 3,500 crore, Nandan Nilekani has taken on one of the most ambitious government programs ever envisaged: heading the project to equip every Indian with a biometric Unique Identification Card.

This is the biggest movement from private sector to government in India in re-callable memory.

Back in College when we used to have those personality development classes, each one has to come up and say what they wanted to achieve in their lives. That was one question I hated to answer, not because I didn’t have an answer to that, because how hard I try, I was not able to put the point clearly in front of the class. I used to say, “I want to be Computer Scientist and I want to do something that impacts people lives, enriches them. To do something makes my family and my country proud.” That ’something’ here was very vague to describe, no popular example to put forth.

Today, I have a one word to describe that, Nilekeni.

Personally, there can be nothing bigger than the Mr. Prime Minister of India himself calling you up and giving you an offer to serve the country. That is the ultimate respect I can ask for. In my opinion he did the right thing accepting the offer. An inspiration to both current and future leaders.