Greetings folks
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It's been a transformational year for Kantara, bringing its own challenges that together, we have all risen to and overcome. When I go back in time 12 months to when the Board made the unprecented decision to self incorporate as a separate organization, replace its service management company, and initiate the transition of Exec Director - all in its one single December 2015 meeting - the enormity of it at the time looked ... well... scary!
Then when one adds the historic ructions in the political landscape and the appauling appalling events brought on by war, terror and natural disaster, there's a valid case to be thankful to see for the last end of 2016, so we can focus on doing our part in making 2017 memorabe for all the right reasons.
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Often without public accolade or recognition, Kantara's member volunteers - drawn from the Directors, the Assurance Review Board, the Leadership Council, the approved CSPs, the accredited assessors, the organizational and individual members, liaison organizations, plus a long tail of non member participants and liaison organizations - put to work their great minds to collaboratively conceive and develop real tools that 'walk' all that 'talk'.
We have UMA - the only profile in the world for distributed authorization and delegation built for the modern mobile world - gaining attention and rapid adoption, not only from the tech, but increasingly from the legal and health professions, as we do with the Blockchain Smart Contracts DG. We have the Consent Receipt specification about to go to public review - another world first. We have become masters in conformity assessment with our experience in operating the Identity Assurance program, with a clutch of partners looking at how we can extend it to their trust frameworks. And we have the other WGs and DGs working towards their goals, such as is the case with the but not limited to the new paradiym that IRM portends and that ID Pro program strives to frame up as the home for digital identity professionals.
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- Kantara and EEMA the European Association for e-identity and Security, signed a Memorandum of Understanding Paris on November 15th. The MOU aims to facilitate collaboration between the two organizations in Europe combining EEMA's network of relationships with Kantara's programs and innovation development platforms.
New Activities:
- The Board and several Leadership Council Chairs have commenced 'Tiger Team' meetings to re-craft the organization's strategy for 2017. The teams cover the organization's Mission, Activities and Membership. We expect to be report out on the results of this work late February. It is a time consuming but immensely valuable exercise which is bringing forward some really innovative ideas. I look forward to sharing them with you.
New Members: Kantara welcomes new member Andi Hindle and Eli Fisk. Great to have you aboard Andi and Eli!
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- Stand by for a short end-of-year satisfaction survey of members. All we do, we do for you. So please take a little time to complete the survey to tell us we have things right or where we can improve.
Program, Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:
- The WGs and DGs of Leadership Council now operate a blog, so you can read what's going on in groups you are not regularly attending. See it here
- ID Pro DG has split deliverables into 4 project streams: Body Of Knowledge, Governance, Membership and Services, and Code of Practice. ID Pro is aiming to open the DG to further membership in late February once this phase of pre-formation is complete.
- As always if you have a query or question, staff are only to willing to assist. Email them on staff@kantarainitiative.org
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