The SSI Orbit Podcast – Self-Sovereign Identity, Decentralization and Digital Trust

Antti Kettunen is a digital identity and digital trust expert and advisor. He designs ecosystem solutions, actively participates in standards and industry groups (e.g. CEN, Trust over IP, Mobey), and helps customers deliver value in their digital identity projects. He also writes and speaks about digital identity and the ongoing paradigm shift in his blog Identifinity. Antti is also one of the co-founders and advocates of the FindyNet cooperative, a digital identity network for Finland.About EpisodeDuring this conversation, we discuss: The current digital landscape in the Nordics, the maturity of e-Government and digital registries, and the trust that citizens of these countries have towards their governments. How does the private sector in the Nordics look at self-sovereign identity? Where do they see the benefits? How do they look at the onramp from their existing federated authentication models? Knowing where my organization fits inside my value chain and why knowing this will help me understand how to both benefit, contribute and thrive within an ecosystem-centric system. How to decide whether or not to participate in the governance of an ecosystem? The problems with API-centered architectures and the benefits gained from adopting data-centric architectures. Why focusing too much on the Verifiable Credential Trust Triangle isn't sufficient as the only tool to help with the adoption of SSI ecosystems. An update on the EU Wallet and some thoughts on how it can spur SSI adoption, while looking at the risks of it possibly impeding private sector adoption.And more!For those interested, this is the book that Antti refers to during the conversation: https://www.amazon.com/Wide-Lens-Successful-Innovators-Others/dp/1591846293Where to find Antti? Twitter: https://twitter.com/anttikettunen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anttikettunen Blog: https://identifinity.net/Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

Stepan Gershuni is working towards making it easier for DAOs to onboard talent through Professional ID credentials. There is an oversupply of talent looking to join DAOs and Stepan is trying to help them manage their excess talent pools and onboard people faster. About EpisodeDuring this conversation, we discuss: Where are the opportunities to apply SSI principles and frameworks towards DAOs? How do you decentralize hiring, education, and the coordination of work. Are .eth good or bad identifiers? Are .eth names and decentralized identifiers (DIDs) mutually exclusive? How can the decentralized discovery of professional skills happen?And more!About GuestStepan Gershuni is the Lead Product Manager at Affinidi, Founder of Credentia and Deep Skills.  Twitter: https://twitter.com/sgershuni LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgershuni/Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

- Governance Orchestrators -The orchestrating required to bring together decentralized identity ecosystems is today's biggest gap for Commercial SSI. By this I mean the Trust over IP Level 4 governance authorities that are required to make something commercially real.We have the approaches, the principles, the technologies and the standards down. There is also clear market demand for data ownership and privacy-preserving digital interactions. We've have also seen great enhancements on mobile devices for authentication methods such as biometrics and continuous authentication.So the question is: how we make decentralized identity more of a reality in our day-to-day lives?How can we create a place in which a bank, a gig economy company or a start-up can all simply plug-in and begin using verifiable credentials?There is a glaring need for Commercial SSI Governance Authorities.As we know, half of the battle in decentralized identity, especially in government regulated industries, is governance. We require governance entities to help in the formation of ecosystems, the setting of rules, the making of markets, the monetization strategies, the dispute strategies, etc.More entities are required to manage the bits of a trust framework that are commercial decisions.About EpisodeDuring this conversation, we discuss: Charlie's learnings from the Trust over IP Foundation and the Good Health Pass Collaborative Thinking about the Governance of Decentralized Networks The opportunity for Vertical Market Makers Digital Smart Agents - the smart processing of wallets and storage Commercial SSI Governance AuthoritiesAbout GuestCharlie has been a thought leader in the digital identity space for many years now, having spent time across organizations such as: SecureKey - helping secure key Canadian market customer and partner relationships, and key strategic partner engagements, and $21M Series C funding closed in December 2014. Idemia - driving the Government Identity Services cross division activities in the field of digital identity services. MasterCard - responsible for the strategy, definition, and rollout of a major new global business within MasterCard focused upon digital identity services – this the ID Service. Whilst at MasterCard he was a co-founder and on the steering board of both the Trust over IP Foundation and the Good Health Pass Collaborative.Now with Avast, Charlie is responsible for developing their identity services strategy as the company expands its expertise and innovation in privacy and identity products.You can find Charlie on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charleswalton2020/.Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

- Thinking in a decentralized architecture -We have a tendency to apply existing solutions or frameworks towards new things.In the early days of the web, many companies implemented fax on the Internet, rather than rethinking if faxes were still the best solution for certain types of information exchange.Are we doing the same thing today with wallets?Wallets are a tool which we employ to store physical identity cards, credit/debit cards, receipts and other things. But when we think about storing digital identities/credentials, of course employing a wallet sounds like an appropriate thing to do, considering it's what works as the physical world.I wonder however if framing it as a digital wallet boxes our thinking.A second tendency we have, specifically in the digital identity space (and I'm guilty of this at times..), is to look at things as layers or foundations.I often hear phrases such as: "Government issued digital identities will form the foundation for [insert use case]."Rather than looking at it as something foundational, we should try framing our thinking around a decentralized architecture.Read more here: https://northernblock.io/musings-on-wallets-identity-metasystems-with-phil-windley/About EpisodeDuring this conversation, we discuss: SSI Wallets - what can be learned from the Web Browser? How will SSI Wallets be adopted? - Will we have very few or many wallets? Distinguishing identity systems from Identity Metasystems. How can governments best contribute to Identity Metasystems? Phil’s thoughts on Open ID SIOP (self-issued IDs).About GuestPhil enjoys teaching, writing, and solving problems. He writes content on https://www.windley.com/, elegantly covering topics such as information technology, identity, decentralization, personal autonomy, computer science and more.You can find Phil on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/windley; and on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/windley/.Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

- Filling holes in the web3 stack -This was a very fun and interesting conversation with Lauren Feld, Head of Growth at 3Box Labs, a company building the Ceramic Network.The Ceramic Network in my opinion is one the most exciting projects in the web3 space. Ceramic is a decentralized, open source platform for creating, hosting, and sharing streams of data.This is interesting to consider in a decentralized identity context. As we all know, we leave massive traces of ourselves in the digital world. The products that have enabled user generated content in the web2 world have dramatically increased the volume of data we leave behind. If this data is valuable, which social media companies can attest is true, then how could this data be returned to the rightful generator/owner of it,. How can it also be made portable across different applications?On this podcast we often talk about Verifiable Credentials and recently a bit more about government issued digital IDs. I hope this conversation gives listeners some excitement about what’s now being made possible with some exciting bottom-up approaches and how turning the data layer of applications into a public utility is the logical evolution of the web.About EpisodeDuring this conversation, we discuss: What excites Lauren about web3 applications? What is the pulse on DAOs to incorporate Decentralized ID into them? The importance of Mutability An overview of Decentralized Data Storage Ecosystems, in particular IPFS, one of first protocols in the web3 space What makes Data Composability important for open data layers? How to go about building Distributed Data Models? Key considerations when Selling to Developers rather than to enterprises How to think about Verifiable Credentials in a context of your online data Some Exciting Use Cases happening using Ceramic (you can find more use cases here: https://blog.ceramic.network/) Can older business models use Ceramic to decentralize their data layer?About GuestLauren Feld, Head of Growth 3Box Labs, building The Ceramic NetworkYou can find Lauren on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/laurenfeld629; and on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-feld-5b04249b/.Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

About Episode - Progress is often slowed down because of binary thinking. This type of behaviour sometimes happens within the self-sovereign identity world: “Such protocol is good, such protocol is bad”; “Such community is good, such community is bad.”During this conversation, we discuss: Digital Sovereignty - operating in the digital world (or metaverse), with an emphasis on Government’s role in the digital world. Why organizations such as Mozilla, Google, Apple recently objected to the W3C decentralized identifiers standards - does this go against the independence of people? Does it have to do with energy consumption of proof-of-work blockchains? Deciphering Interoperability - there's a need to focus more of the conversations around portability. Rouven provides some easy to understand examples. What’s happening in the DIF and what are some of the cross-community collaborations Overviewing Top-down and Bottom-up approaches - the differences in governance,  the importance of reputation, opening up portable reputations from siloed spaces. What to control and what not to? Where do I fit into a Decentralized ID ecosystem? Some examples of services offerings, including how financial institutions can create new value offerings. Verified vs Verifiable - why these two words are fundamentally different and how they sometimes wrongly used.About GuestRouven Heck is the Identity Lead @ ConsenSys Mesh and the Executive Director @ Decentralized Identity FoundationPrior to joining ConsenSys, Rouven had a number of positions at Deutsche Bank working as a Blockchain Expert, COO, Program Manager, and Service manager.You can find Rouven on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/rh7; and on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rouvenheck/.Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

About Episode - Every week there seems to be mention of a new Trust Framework. People are now trying to monetize them. But to understand trust frameworks, let’s first understand what constitutes trust. We must define concepts such as levels of assurances and what defines technical vs human trust? Once this is better understood, the conversation about where a particular organization fits into a digital identity ecosystem is simpler. And note, in user-centric digital identity (or SSI), organizations no longer need to be at the centre of the universe.During this conversation, we discuss: Levels of Assurance (LOA): an introduction to LOAs as they relate to Digital Identity and why they're an important part of the recipe in achieving digital trust. Tim and Darrell give us some practical examples of LOAs. The Concept of Trust: how do we define trust at a high-level and how do we differentiate between technical and human trust? How can we build trust with credential issuers but also with credential holders? The World of Trust Frameworks: what are trust frameworks and what are different types of frameworks being deployed in both the public and private sectors? How are organizations trying to monetize trust frameworks? What's going right, and what's going wrong with the way trust frameworks are being implemented? The Importance of Open Source for Trust Creation: why is open source important for achieving digital sovereignty? Is open source the only way to improve transparency, flexibility and accountability?Mentions during episode: Dee Hock: his book & his Twitter account Link to episode with John Ainsworth, where we talk about Dee and payment processors such as Visa UK's guidance on open sourceAbout GuestsTim Bouma is  Senior Policy Analyst for Identity Management at Treasury Board Secretariat of the Government of Canada. My mandate is to develop a government-wide identity management strategy that spans across the service delivery and security communities.You can find Tim here on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/trbouma; and on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trbouma/--Darrell O'Donnell is a technology company founder, executive, investor, and advisor. He’s on a mission to help organizations build and deploy real-world decentralized (#SSI) solutions. He advises numerous startups, senior government leaders, and investors.You can find Darrell here on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/darrello; and on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrellodonnell/--Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

About Episode - What use cases should a National Digital Identity program prioritize in collaboration with the private sector? As use cases become verticals of their own, what are then some of the horizontal considerations that need to be applied to enable all of the use cases to function within their relative ecosystems? Hakan Yildiz can help us answer these questions being that he’s a Research Associate at TU Berlin and a Consortium Partner at IDunion.During this conversation, we discuss: IDunion 101: a general overview, what are some of the early credentials being issued by government (people and legal entity VCs) and some of the existing ecosystem participants IDunion Use Cases (Verticals): what are some of the government use cases (eHealth, eGov and Education)? What are some of the private sector use cases (Financial, Hospitality, IAM)? IDunion Workstreams (Horizontals): governance, cybersecurity, wallet security, UX, interoperability and more.About GuestHakan Yildiz is a Research Associate at TU Berlin and a Consortium Partner at IDunion. He’s a seasoned product manager with experience in every product life cycle for B2B and B2C products. Hakan is a SME in Blockchain, Distributed-Ledger Technology (DLT) and Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI).You can find Hakan on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/h-yildiz/Follow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/

About Episode - This episode features a live recording of an Indicio community event. Digital Wallets are taking off! OS operators such as Apple are starting to support open standards for digital credentials (here). Technology disruptors (like the companies represented in this episode) are taking wallet solutions to market (here). This objective of this discussion is not to take a deep dive from a technical perspective, but more from an adoption standpoint.During this conversation, we discuss: An introduction to SSI and the role of Digital Wallets How does one go about building digital wallets? (UX and various other considerations) What are some promising Use Cases for Digital Wallets Live answering of questions from attendeesAbout Guests Mike Vesey, President, IdRamp Dev Bharel, Product Owner and Software Architect, Globalid Adrian Doerk, Business Development Manager, Lissi R.J. Reiser, Chief Business Development Officer, Liquid Avatar Michael Boyd, Chief Product Officer & Co-founder, Trinsic

About Episode - Yoma is a youth marketplace that is incubated by UNICEF in Africa.  It enables youth to Learn (through Yoma learning partners), Earn (through employers in the ecosystem) and Thrive by completing Impact challenges (e.g., plastic clean-up, reforestation) that benefit our environment and communities.  All of this is enabled through a SSI-enabled digital CV and personalized learning environment.During this conversation, we discuss: An overview of Foundational Government Identity in Africa How Yoma creates Digital IDs, Digital Verifiable VCs and a Skills Backpack for Youth Yoma's approach at both global and local Governance Frameworks Building the Yoma Ecosystem, by onboarding both demand and supply side participants to the table What the future holds for Specialized, Intelligent Agents How technology can be used to further the Impact EconomyAbout GuestLohan Spies is the Founder & CEO of DIDx, a South African company focused on self-sovereign identity. Lohan is thought leader in decentralized identity and well tapped into the pulse on the African continent. DIDx is also a founding steward of the Sovrin Network.Lohan also acts as the technical lead for the Yoma Foundation, a UNICEF organization that is using SSI to empower African youth to learn, earn and create impact.Follow Lohan Spies  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lohanspies/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lohanspiesFollow Mathieu Glaude Twitter: https://twitter.com/mathieu_glaude   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathieuglaude/