Vijayakumar Manjunatha on digital trust, responsibility, and the long road home

When I look back, I don't remember ambition as much as curiosity. I grew up in rural Karnataka, in an environment that was simple, rooted, and deeply human. Life wasn't fast, but it encouraged observation and reflection.

As a child, I didn't have a fixed plan for the future. What stayed with me instead was a strong curiosity about how things worked and why they worked the way they did. My father's principles influenced me deeply; they shaped my approach to problem-solving and encouraged me to think beyond boundaries. Education was valued not merely as a pathway to employment, but as a way of thinking clearly, ethically, and responsibly.

Over time, the values I absorbed from my parents and teachers stayed with me. I didn't know then that I would work in technology or digital trust, but I did know I wanted to build things that were dependable, meaningful, and sustainable. That instinct quietly guided many of my later choices and strengthened my desire to keep learning beyond conventional boundaries.

In my professional journey, I worked with two organizations, Relyon and eMudhra, for over a decade each. I was fortunate to start my career at the grassroots level and gradually grow into leadership roles, building systems, processes, and organizations that delivered long-term results. In both organizations, I had the opportunity to work closely with the founding teams, be part of the management, and contribute to shaping organizational direction and culture.

During my time at Relyon, several individuals influenced my thinking and decision-making, including Vijay Hebbar, Nitin Patel, Shamji L. Patel, Kotaa Krishna Kamath, and HS Nagendra. Their reflections were very helpful in the early days of my career. The consistent mantra was to build systems and processes that were sustainable and outcome-oriented.

At eMudhra, I was truly blessed to have V. Srinivasan as my guide and mentor. His wisdom and perspective had a profound influence on me. Without fully realizing it at the time, that mentorship expanded my thinking, strengthened my ability to drive larger ideas, and shaped the way I approach leadership and responsibility today.

Across these years, I was fortunate to have people who left a lasting impression, not by pushing success, but by instilling discipline, independent thinking, and accountability.

Yes, there was pressure, but it was the right kind of pressure. I've always believed that where there are challenges, there are also opportunities. When you work on systems that affect millions of people, especially in partnership with governments, you're constantly aware that mistakes don't remain theoretical. They have real consequences in people's lives.

What helped me stay grounded was remembering who these systems are ultimately for. They're not built for reports or recognition; they exist for citizens, businesses, and institutions that rely on them every day. That perspective keeps ego in check and brings clarity to decision-making.

I've had the opportunity to build systems at scale, from incubation through to full operation, not only as an architect, but also with the responsibility of running them as live services. Whether it was emSign, India's first global certificate authority protecting websites worldwide, or eSign, India's electronic signature system enabling millions of people to sign digitally every day, the challenge went far beyond technology. At the time, we didn't have ready-made software platforms or trained teams. Both the technology and the people had to be built from scratch in a short span of time, and then scaled to operate with world-class reliability.

V. Srinivasan was always a guiding presence for me, not only through his calm approach, but in showing the right path to overcome challenges. While he does not come from a formal technology background, he had an exceptional ability to understand the core of complex issues, offer deep support, and stand firmly alongside me when it mattered most. On a personal level, my family, especially my wife, has been a tremendous source of support. She helped me manage the intensity that comes with such responsibility. Over time, I've learned the importance of separating responsibility from anxiety. You take the work seriously, but you don't let it consume you. Staying connected to family, to my roots, and later to the land itself has helped me maintain that balance.

Watching eSign evolve from an idea into national digital infrastructure is deeply humbling. I was privileged to contribute as what's now commonly called the technical architect, but this was never the work of one individual. It was the result of a strong collective effort by experienced minds committed to building digital public infrastructure for India.

The idea was driven by a broader think tank that included Dr. R. S. Sharma, Dr. Pramod Varma, Tahseen Khan (then Controller of Certifying Authorities), Ramachandran from the Office of the CCA at MeitY, and several others. Through this collaborative process, we were able to prototype something that was both technically robust and uniquely simple from a user-experience perspective. In the early stages, the focus was very practical: make it work, make it secure, and make it scalable. There wasn't much time to think about legacy.

Today, when I see electronic signatures embedded seamlessly into everyday workflows, across banking, governance, healthcare, and many other sectors, it feels far less like a personal achievement and much more like collective validation. It demonstrates what becomes possible when policy intent, technology, and execution align effectively.

Looking ahead, I hope the next decade of e-signatures is defined not just by adoption, but by maturity. This includes stronger lifecycle governance, better interoperability, and trust models that remain resilient over time, without being dependent on any single platform or identity system.

Equally important is seeing e-signatures move beyond standalone use cases and become deeply integrated into applications and workflows, whether in simple software processes or more complex environments involving automation, bots, and emerging human-machine interfaces.

From a technology perspective, the system was designed with a modular architecture, allowing it to evolve and address future challenges, such as quantum computing or the impact of artificial intelligence. Architecturally, this means specific components can be upgraded or strengthened without disrupting end users or external applications. Taken together, this approach helps ensure long-term trust, resilience, and national impact.

The Asia PKI Consortium is now more than two and a half decades old. When I became involved in 2013, the forum was relatively inactive and largely limited to formal proceedings, with limited collaboration or regional impact. Since then, under the guidance of V. Srinivasan, I had the opportunity to help re-energize the forum, bringing more countries together and initiating meaningful regional dialogue focused on shared learning and collective progress.

In regional conversations, trust doesn't begin with agreement; it begins with listening. Every country comes with its own legal frameworks, levels of technical maturity, and national priorities. Building trust means acknowledging these differences rather than trying to flatten them. Today, the consortium stands stronger than ever, with active participation from over 14 countries and economies, and with genuine collaboration on issues that truly matter.

What these discussions have taught me most is patience. Standards and mutual recognition do not, and should not, move at startup speed. Long-term trust infrastructure requires careful consensus, institutional continuity, and shared responsibility, not shortcuts. Over time, we have reached a point where multiple countries are speaking with a common voice and carrying a shared regional vision.

For Asia to get cross-border digital trust right, the next critical step is practical interoperability. This goes beyond shared principles to include shared operational understanding; how certificates are issued, managed, audited, and trusted across jurisdictions. That is where real credibility is built.

At the same time, it is equally important to translate this interoperability into real-world, trust-enabled use cases that benefit people and businesses directly. The goal is to ensure that digital trust works not only between countries, but also for citizens, through solutions that meet a minimum level of interoperability while remaining accessible, inclusive, and scalable across the region.

What connects all these spaces is one recurring lesson: technology alone doesn't create trust, governance does. Whether you're participating in a standards forum or advising a regulator, the same fundamental questions always return. Who is accountable? How is risk managed? And what happens when something fails?

For systems meant to last, short-term efficiency must never override long-term integrity. The kind of thinking that matters most today is systems thinking, which involves understanding how legal frameworks, technology, operations, and human behavior interact and evolve over time.

While these forums may appear different on the surface, they all speak a common language of security and trust, with a shared objective of enabling simple and usable experiences for end users. I have been actively involved in many of these bodies for over a decade, and I continue to contribute to several of them even today. Decision-making in these forums is never driven by individuals; it is built through consensus, grounded in ideas that serve the collective objective. Ultimately, all of this work converges toward the same goal, building trust systems that are resilient, inclusive, and designed to last.

Organizations need to move away from thinking of security as a milestone and start seeing it as a continuous process. Shorter certificate lifetimes and automated lifecycles are not just technical changes; they demand a cultural shift in how security is understood and operated.

During my previous tenure, I headed IT operations, cybersecurity, and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) for an organization of over 800 people, operating systems across multiple in-house and cloud data centers. In such environments, adopting change requires multiple layers of review and careful planning. The challenge is not just introducing new controls, but doing so with minimal or zero disruption to users and critical use cases.

From that operational perspective, change is never trivial. Kaushik, the co-founder, was a strong guiding influence in navigating this balance. Our approach was always to move forward with changes that improved transparency and automation, while reducing dependence on manual processes. The same philosophy applied to PKI and certificate management. For example, the certificate discovery tools we incubated were designed to operate across organizations, users, and systems, providing actionable dashboards that enabled proactive governance.

In today's dynamic digital trust ecosystem, the ability to quickly identify gaps and mitigate risks before incidents occur is essential. This requires visibility, automation, and disciplined operational practices.

The hardest part for many teams is letting go of familiar forms of control. Automation requires trust in systems, monitoring, and transparency, and it exposes weaknesses quickly. That discomfort is healthy. It pushes organizations toward operational maturity and resilience, rather than checkbox-driven compliance.

People often focus on convenience and cost, but they should pay equal attention to governance, how cryptographic keys are protected, how identities are verified, how auditability is ensured, and how solutions align with legal and regulatory requirements. As adoption grows, what will matter most is interoperability and consistency. E-signatures must work across platforms, borders, and time, without diluting legal validity. Trustworthiness comes from respecting both the letter of the law and the realities of how people actually use these systems.

As with any mature digital process, platforms play a critical role in making e-signatures robust while remaining easy for users to adopt. E-signature solutions must evolve in line with established standards and compliance frameworks, remaining compatible with national legal requirements while also aligning with global best practices. In this sense, platforms act as the bridge between regulation, technology, and everyday use.

Equally important is how e-signatures are delivered to users. These platforms should not function merely as standalone document-signing applications. Instead, they must integrate seamlessly into existing enterprise and business workflows, whether in ERP systems, billing, logistics, HRMS, or other operational use cases. When e-signatures become an embedded part of how systems work, rather than an external step, they achieve both scale and long-term trust.

The move felt natural rather than dramatic. After years of building digital systems, I felt drawn to something equally complex but more elemental: the land. Agriculture teaches patience, humility, and long-term thinking in ways technology rarely does. I had always felt a strong desire to be closer to my aging parents and to give back to my hometown in rural Karnataka. Over the past two and a half decades, I've accumulated learnings and experiences that I believe can be applied meaningfully in this region.

At the same time, this shift did not disconnect me from my earlier work. In today's connected digital world, physical location matters far less than it once did. I continue to work with global organizations in advisory and honorary capacities, contribute to international initiatives, and remain actively engaged with professionals across India and the rest of the world.

I see this work as complementary, not separate. Sustainable rural development will increasingly depend on digital trust, whether it is access to markets, finance, or identity. This is not something that happens overnight; it requires time, sensitivity, and local understanding. My hope is that this journey helps bridge these worlds in a way that is practical, inclusive, and deeply respectful of local realities.

One of my mentors once told me, "There is no retirement time to relax. Life is really about how we balance our day-to-day living." That thought has stayed with me. For me, family has always come first. Their constant support has made everything else possible, and I try to consciously make time for them. In life, we shouldn't miss the moments that allow us to keep our loved ones happy. When we look back years later, it's important not to regret the time we failed to give to the people who mattered most.

Professionally, a life well lived is one where responsibility and meaning coexist, where you build things that outlast you, but you don't lose yourself in the process. Titles and outcomes matter far less than intent and integrity.

Beyond roles or recognition, I would hope to be remembered as someone who approached trust with sincerity—who tried to build quietly, responsibly, and with respect for both people and systems. If the systems I helped build continue to endure and serve as a foundation for the future, long after I step away, that would be more than enough.