Hello everyone
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Keep safe, distanced and hunkered down!
The second sentence of my February blog went "The global impact of extremes continues, be it concerning the weather or virus epidemics".
When I wrote that 4 weeks ago, like most of us I had no idea that the mention of virus epidemics would see us catapulted into a global pandemic the likes of which we have never seen before. When the history of this event is read by future generations we will be judged on the responsiveness of leaders, of front-line healthcare professionals and support staff, emergency services, law enforcement, and of each and every one of us. We will be judged by our actions set in the context of our nationhood, culture, our attitudes and value systems, the balancing of life and livelihood in the here-and-now present, the aftermath and the future that follows it. The human values of caring for others that underpin most belief systems, will be judged against the backdrop of politicization of issues and the self-serving nation-state stances that have undermined global collaboration for decades. Even before history is written on this event, this generation will be rightly judged for its altruism where that cap fits and its shortcomings - dare I say foolishness where that cap fits - an appropriate word perhaps for a blog written on, of all days, April Fools Day.'It was the worst of times, it was the best of times'..
In trying to think how this past few months of world history will be documented, I'm mindful 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, city refuse and so on are nearly always overlooked in the cut and thrust of issues of the day that we have the luxury of engaging in because our others needs further down Maslov's hierarchy are taken care of - largely by these unsung heroes. Times like we have today are an opportunity to reflect and reset - not just our economies and our ecologies, but also ourselves as human beings. Perhaps our industry even learns a thing or two along the way - that fragmentation and competition give way to coherence and collaboration. The future will not be the same as the past. Things will return to the way they were. Valiant attempts there will be, I'm sure, but the reset to 'the new normal' may in fact bring some good. Let's hope so.
I was mindful of
What can we all do? In my email to members several weeks ago, I talked about how fortunate we are in this industry, that remote working and virtualization is second nature to us. We are confident in working with the tools and with the semi-isolation that comes with home-working - its upsides and downsides. Please share your knowledge and experience with colleagues, friends, family, neighbors, everyone you know who you think might struggle with this new normal. IDPro, the digital identity professionals organization that was incubated by Kantara, has a great newsletter this month. Included in it is '10 TIPS FOR WORKING FROM HOME FROM IDPRO' authored by Marla Hay, Sr. Director, Product Management - Privacy & Data Governance at Salesforce. It is members access only but if you haven't got around to joining IDPro, do it now and access the March newsletter.
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Talking of R&D, Tallinn Estonia-based Kantara Europe is gearing up promotion of the NGI TRUST 3rd and Final call https://wiki.geant.org/display/NGITrust/3rd+Open+Call+NGI_TRUST which is now open and closes barely a month away on May 4th. Please consider the following; if you have a great idea but not located in the EU, ensure you have an EU based partner to front it for you, even if you are based in the UK); be aware that we expect more focus to be placed on Type 2 and Type 3 proposals that really are capable of mass consumer adoption; and perhaps not surprisingly, current circumstances may engender greater attraction to proposals including use cases applicable to epidemiology.
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