Actor Abhijeet Daigavane – Behind Offline Transactions on INS Vikramaditya

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of digital India has appealed to one and all. Be it youngsters or senior citizens, everyone is trying to develop themselves ‘digitally’. Even the defence forces are also developing itself with new generation technology. Taking a step forward in the direction of digital India, State Bank of India, recently, launched a new card named NAV eCash onboard the Indian Navy’s biggest aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, at Karwar, Karnataka. The card was jointly unveiled by Vice-Admiral R Hari Kumar and CS Setty, Managing Director (Retail and Digital Banking), SBI.

This innovative initiative holds a great importance for all the new age educated and multi-talented actors and it also stands as a matter of pride for the youth of India. Actor Abhijeet Daigavane, who runs Atom O’Sphere, is part of this unique initiative. This dual chip card enables payments, in the offline and online environment. The online part of the same will be handled by State Bank of India and Abhijeet’s team will be taking care of the offline mode of the card. 

An intelligent team of officers of INS Vikramaditya, led by Commander Vasu Dheeraj had come out with this concept to replace cash payments with digital transactions even in areas devoid of real-time internet connectivity, like warships at sea, offshore oil platforms and remote areas. They were searching for the firm that can take care of the transactions that would take in offline mode. Indian Navy officials learned about Abhijeet’s company and contacted him. 

“Last year officers from INS Vikramaditya called me up directly over phone after checking out our works in offline payment technology space on our website. After 10 days of constant correspondence and brainstorming, I got an invite to visit the location, INS Vikramaditya. I was so surprised that I thought it’s a prank call. But then my partner and cofounder of the company Atom O’Sphere Captain Raj Raney and I thought of visiting the vessel INS Vikramaditya at the Naval Base, Karwar,” said Abhijeet. Elaborating further, Abhijeet said, that both of them visited the vessel in December 2020 and they were absolutely amazed. However, while having this surreal experience, Abhijeet received a sad news of his granny’s demise. 

Sitting right in front of Commander Vasu Dheeraj and Lt. Commander Karthik and explaining the concept, was another overwhelming experience for Abhijeet and Capt. Raj Raney. After having an outstanding brainstorming session, the officers were completely aligned with the solution capability. They then discussed their vision of the system to be deployed inside the ship and disclosed their ideas with them, added Abhijeet.

While concluding the interaction, Abhijeet mentioned that this is the first of its kind payment solution to be deployed on such a huge aircraft carrier warship in the world. It requires pin for every transaction even in offline mode and is highly secured.