Hello everyone
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'It was the worst of times, it was the best of times'..
How will historians describe this pandemic crisis period I wonder.. I'm reminded of the This Dickensian paradox from the Tale of two cities'.
Amongst the global scale, severity and suffering of the COVID-19 outbreak, have been some truly remarkable stories of courage, duty or calling and selfless dedication. The people who do often largely thankless tasks to maintain our everyday living and to keep us safe and well, have rightfully been called out for our adulation. The contribution of those in healthcare, in law enforcement, in transport and logistics, in city refuse and so on are nearly always overlooked in the cut and thrust of the issues of the day that we have the luxury of engaging in because our other needs further down Maslov's hierarchy are taken care of - largely by these unsung heroes. Times like these that we have today are an opportunity to reflect and reset - not just on our economies and our ecologies, but also on ourselves as human beings. Perhaps our industry even learns a thing or two along the way - that fragmentation and competition should give way to coherence and collaboration. The future will not be the same as the past. Things will not return to the way they were. There will be valiant attempts I'm sure, but the reset to 'the new normal' may actually bring some good. Let's hope so.
For me, it has been interesting to observe how different organizations in our industry have approached this period. For years now, we have raised awareness of just how critical appropriately applied digital identity is to much of our digital lives - strong and secure when the identity-related risk in the use case calls for it, less so when it is not. Same with privacy - having agency over our personal data volunteered by us or collected by others. Different uses cases call for different approaches, brought into sharp focus right now when trust in one's government authorities, in one's digital platforms, in the developer community is pivotal to our adoption of apps for contact tracing, for test validation and so on.
The role that industry organizations play is important. But it is not all about them - tempting as it is - to attract attention by binding to the issue of the day. You'll note that Kantara has not played that game. The reason it exists is because its members want it to exist. Kantara has called out the great work its members such as UK members There seems to be a chink of light at the end of the Covid tunnel - or at least there seems to be..
The easing of the lockdown restrictions together with better spring-like weather, spirits have been lifted even if the reality of our global situation is still months, if not years, away from something resembling normal.
Even the new normal starts to seem appealing!
And as the blame game heats up as the citizenry take stock of how well or how badly its government handled the early phase and peak of the pandemic, we can be collectively proud of the Kantara members that reworked their solutions to contribute to the construction of the road to lead us out of this crisis. Thank you again digi.me at Director level and Folio.ID are doing in , Identos and MIT Trust::Data Consortium with its Safepaths program, along with members Transmute, Meeco and individuals Mark Lizar and supporters Adrian Gropper all still working on various aspects of the COVID crisis in our community and others. , just as it calls out the great work its members all round the world are doing in other aspects of the digital economy at any other time. Kantara is blessed with some of the most thought-leading and innovative organizations and individuals in our space on the planet. Kantara amplifies and showcases those, and other members' great works, because it really is all about them. And as I said last month, it's about 'playing it forward' for the long haul - not sound bites on the issue of the day. 'Nurture, Develop, Operate - that's what we do'.
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