Ep. 61: Decentralized Identity - Carsten Stocker, PhD (CEO Spherity)

Carsten Stocker, founder and CEO of Spherity, which is building a blockchain and cloud based identity solution. We talk about a variety of blockchain ecosystems related to self-sovereign identity and concepts like the digital twin. Spherity was founded in November 2017 and employs currently 12 people. His company is based in Berlin, Germany and were recently part of a government sponsored hackathon where they built a solution called E-receipt to digitally prove a patient’s identity when getting a prescription. Company Website: https://spherity.com/ Show Notes •Introduction of Carsten's background in Germany •Journey into information technology, consulting, business and healthcare •When did you first hear about blockchain? •Ethereum and meeting Vitalik Buterin (Founder of Ethereum) •Blockchain adoption and awareness in healthcare developing globally and domestically •Blockchain in Germany and Europe - How has the Ministry of Health advanced digital health efforts? •WirVsVirus - Hackathon experience: https://medium.com/spherity/spherity-contributes-to-wirvsvirus-hackathon-for-corona-virus-solutions-3c59b1557fdf, •e-Rezept: https://devpost.com/software/e-rezept-digitale-rezepte-zur-vermeidung-von-arztbesuchen#updates •Avoiding unneccessary brick-and-mortar clinical visits •Social Distancing effects on prescription fetching •Decentralized Identity Management - why is it so challenging? •Business development strategy: Focus on customers and companies that are technology literate, not wasting time •Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), pairwise pseudonymous identifier, and other digital privacy methodologies •Self-sovereign identity (SSI) •Digital Twin concept and the story of everything •Technology Stack: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards, Ethereum, Sovrin and Hyperledger Indy •Dynamically defined supply chains •Open Software and Consumer health data ecosystems •Biggest blockchain misconceptions from healthcare executives •How can various stakeholders benefit by using your identity platform? •Data Privacy concerns and opportunities for blockchain •What are the failure points of your platform? •How can you break the status quo with Innovation? •Telegram community question: Could e-Rezept be combined with some sort of location beacon (maybe FOAM? foam.space) and allow for medications to be delivered by drone? •Ecosystem roadmap 2020 and beyond •Favorite scientist of all time – physicist Lev Landau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau) •How are you occupying yourself in self-quarantine? Health Unchained New Corner On April 10, Google and Apple announced a joint effort to use Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus, with user privacy and security central to the design. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/ Singapore has already developed an app called TraceTogether that also uses Bluetooth to detect possible contact with an infected person. Although Singapore claims that Tracetogether data older than 21 days will automatically be deleted, many critics argue that this type of data collection is only increasing the level of government surveillance. TraceTogether is developed by the Ministry of Health and Government Technology Agency (GovTech), in support of SGUnited. https://www.tracetogether.gov.sg/ SafeTrace: Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing for COVID-19 (https://blog.enigma.co/safetrace-privacy-preserving-contact-tracing-for-covid-19-c5ae8e1afa93) Health Unchained Links Website: https://healthunchained.org Telegram: t.me/healthunchained Twitter: twitter.com/Healthunchaind Bert’s Blockchain and Healthcare Weekly Newsletter: https://bert.substack.com/