KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS 3. Why this needs an institution, not an app Every Indian state procures government software the same way: department by department, vendor by vendor, one contract at a time. It is the model every state is buying into, and it is increasingly inadequate to what the AI era demands. A model society is not built by a project that ends when its budget runs out. The behaviours this book is about, cleanliness, road safety, water security, public health, are permanent features of a place, so the capability that nurtures them has to be permanent too. That is why the most expensive mistake available here would be to build this as an app, or a startup, or a single department’s procurement; each of those is temporary, and a temporary thing cannot carry a permanent ambition. What is needed is an institution, the kind of durable, publicly-owned capability that outlasts the government that founds it. The precedent is digital public infrastructure The model already exists; it is simply not yet pointed at civic behaviour. Singapore did not buy government software department by department; it built GovTech as a state institution and runs the 67