Hello everyone
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What a year it's been. Happy Holidays everyone and best wishes for a fruitful and fulfilling 2019 to everyone!
It's New Year's eve as I write 2018's last Director's Corner on a cloudy, mild winter's day. I hope your weather - be it searing heat in Australia or freezing cold in our most northern climes - has not deterred you from having some well deserved rest, recreation and catch-up time with family and friends.
10 days ago in London, that was exactly the case, as the Gluu World Tour rolled into town and I met up with them and the Open Consent Group members for an extended Christmas lunch. With Kantara's 2018 Events Map with its near-on 20 events fresh in our minds, it was great to reflect on the year. I had just returned from Brussels where Kantara Programs Manager Ruth and I had been been forward planning Kantara Initiative Europe's 2019 European Union H2020 grant funded NGI_Trust project with other consortia members GEANT, Fraunhofer, Tecnalia, EFIS and EDN. When the call opens in February to European-based entities, you'll see our KIPI R&D submission process re-purposed for use in Europe that, together with our deep relationship with communities doing ground-breaking work in the digital identity, access and privacy-preserving domains, is the reason Kantara was invited to join this consortium in an already highly successful call.
Reflecting on 2018, from Kantara's perspective, it has been a very good year overall. Kantara has significantly consolidated its finances over its 2017 situation and its net membership has grown despite some churn.
The KIPI R&D program has seen two projects to progress through to Phase 2 (Execution), with Lockstep's MDAV project already in Phase 3 (Transition to commercialisation) branded as ValIDidy while Phase 3 determination on Exponent's MOB4PACS project that uses smartphones as PIV cards with NFC and BLE has been caught in the federal government shutdown. Both of these are stunningly concepted projects capable of significant commercial exploitation for the right investment partner and I will be happy to introduce interested parties.
Kantara's other major program, the Trust Framework and Assurance program, had a busy and And progressive year. Together with its Working Group steward the IAWG and its governance body the Assurance Review Board, the The Service Assessment Criteria for NIST's SP 800-63-3 Digital Identity Guidelines were developed and deployed by the program’s Working Group steward (the IAWG) for Kantara's accredited assessors to review the compliance of identity and credential providers' services seeking Kantara's grant of Trust Mark upon systemic review and, where favourable, approval. To this day, Kantara remains the only entity offering 3rd party conformity assessment and approval for this de jure internationally recognized standard, whose promulgation through the GSA FICAM program, of which Kantara is an authorized Trust Framework Provider, has been significantly impacted by federal funding cuts. Nonetheless, the FICAM Trust Framework Provider community comprising InCommon, Kantara and SAFE-Biopharma have continued to operate the program for the benefit of the federal and state government without the support of the GSA. My sincere thanks, and well deserved community credit, goes out to the IAWG leads participants (led by Ken Dagg , and Scott Shorter) and the Assurance Review Board chaired by Leif Johansson (SUNNET) and comprising Ken Dagg (IAWG liaison), Tom Barton (InCommon), Jamie Bryce Clark (OASIS), Leif Johansson (SUNET), Richard Trevorah (tScheme), Nathan Faut and David Temoshok, upon whose weekly attendance and many hours of pre-meeting preparation the program depends, supported by Program Manager Ruth Puente and editor Richard Wilsher.
During midMid-year, Kantara absorbed the assets of the IDESG largely comprising the IDEF, the self attesting Registry, the wiki, the website, the committee artifacts and a small group of members and non member participants following the completion of the grant funding from NIST. While the transition into the newly established Kantara Initiative Educational Foundation operated occurred almost seamlessly thanks in particular to the efforts of Kay Chopard Cohen, Martin Smith, Tom Jones and Kantara's Oliver Maerz, activity and forward progress has been lower than anticipated. IDESG's Healthcare Committee was the standout exception as it reformed inside Kantara's Health Identity Assurance working group under Dr Tom Sullivan's exemplary leadership, contributing matters of significant concern and importance to the community in the last quarter of the year.
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I think we can be proud of what we have achieved through the support and dedication of members, non member participants, active Board organizations digi.me, Experian, ForgeRock (Kantara President Allan Foster), ISOC (Kantara Secretary, Treasurer Robin Wilton), SecureKey, Leadership Council Representatives (Chair Andrew Hughes whose dedication is seemingly without bounds and Ken Dagg), my near 24x7 staff (Ruth and Oliver), Virtual Inc association management staff (Megan, Bella, Joan, Joe, Rob, Tim and Tom, Bob, Madison, Mikaela and others), and without whom we could not have made 2018 the really solid progressive year for Kantara that it has been.
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