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Hello everyone

This is the running update from the Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact ED colin at kantarainitiative dot org.

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March saw a continuation of high levels of downloads from our Reports and Recommendations web repository that have been evident since the begining of the year.   March saw a high level of renewing members and new members alike.  For the 3 months ending March 31st, we welcomed new members iWelcome from the Netherlands, Trunomi from the Carribean, DataFund from DenmarkReliable Identities from the US, Unify Solutions from Australia, Sphere Identity from New Zealand and Dylan Woodburn as an individual contributor. We welcomed back renewing members New Zealand Goververnment (Dept of Internal Affairs), Nixu from the Netherlands, SecureKey Technologies from Canada, Cirrus Identity from the US and individual contributors Andi Hindle, Mikael Ates and William Nelson.  It's great to have you all with us here at Kantara and we look forward to working together with you to advance the industry. 

As they often do for me, the month began with calls to our members - in this instance our Approved and Trust Marked credential service provider Zentry, that part of the Verizon/Synchronoss partnership that provides the identity-related services. My first conference of the month was the London leg of the Event Creation Network's KYC and AML Summit series.  I moderated a panel primarily focussed on privacy joined on the stage by Paul Simmonds the lead for the non profit Global Identity Foundation, Gouri P Khatua most recently with RaboBank before commencing her own GDPR consulting firm, and Charlie Walton from Mastercard. These conferences follow a different but quite successful mashup of keynote, panel and workshop with the same folks showing up year after year. 

By mid-month my focus was on our many liaisons - drafting our Liaison Statement and reviewing our comments on ISO 29184 and ISO 27552 to go to ISO SC27 WG5 for the upcoming meetings in Wuhan, China later this month, discussing the role Kantara could play in the ONC's Trusted Exchange Framework Common Agreement in US Healthcare together with Kantara members Experian and ForgeRock, and advancing no less than three separate bids for H2020 EU grant funding via Kantara Europe, and finally 'circling the wagons' for Kantara's panel at the KNOW Identity conference with panelists Mary Hodder from IDESG, Scott Shorter from Kantara Accredited Assessor KUMA, Tracy Hulver for Kantara Approved CSP ID.me and Leadership Council Chair Andrew Hughes. The topic was 'Service Provider Certification: Who cares anyway?'. We worked through what certification is, the different stakeholder perspectives, and we had some great comments from the full house.    

The early months of the year give me a great opportunity to acknowledge and thank selected member organizations for their support as I undertake my semi-annual round of 1:1 calls with Directors and Trust Marked Service Providers and Assessors.  These folks provide much of the fuel for the monetized engine room of the organization that allows many of you reading this to enjoy the benefits of low barriers to participation in Kantara's working groups and discussion groups, either through their Directors dues or support of Kantara's 'raison d'etre' - the Trust Framework Operations program.  As the only global 'non pay to play' consortium in our industry, and in support of our ethics based and mission-led culture, we should remember just how hard a business model it is to operate. It’s a model that Kantara's contemporaries won't even try. Without the Directors, Members, Sponsors and Trust Framework participants stepping up to the plate, Kantara would not exist. It's fitting then that in OWI's recent 'top 100 Influencers in Identity', 14 of them were Kantara members.  See them here in Kantara's own press release. Speaking of members, have you completed the Member Survey? Tell us what you would like Kantara to do in 2018 and beyond. 

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Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:

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