Hello everyone
This is the running update from the Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact Colin at kantarainitiative dot org.
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Welcome to the new decade Kantarians - 'the new roaring twenties' - as some have described it and taken up by eGov WG Chair Rainer Hoerbe.
It seems to have started off extremely briskly - certainly for Kantara and I sense our entire ecosystem. It's as if those decisions on hold throughout 2019 are let loose in 2020. January has always been a busy one for Kantara but this one is unprecedented.
2020 marks Kantara's second decade of serving members and non member participant supporters in the digital identity (and more recently personal data privacy) ecosystems across the world.
2020 is also set to be defining for Kantara as it doubles down on its mission with a series of strategic partnerships and reinforced alignments that we expect to announce over the course of the year.
2019, Kantara's 10th anniversary year, was the appropriate point in time to brainstorm ideas with the Board and its sub committee the Assurance Review Board, to set in play a series of activities in 2020 that together cement the foundational role that Kantara assumes in the industry. I look forward to sharing more with you when there's more to share.
January saw good progress in the other two Kantara branded entities. In the Kantara Educational Foundation, the Board was strengthened with the arrival of Mary Ellen Condon as an additional Non Executive Director, continuing a role she held at IDESG up until its assets transitioned to Kantara and gives increased continuity with respect to those ex IDESG assets that are in the care of the Foundation. The Foundation was also received its non-profit determination letter from the IRS, a further step towards fulfilling its mission regarding grant-funded and and sponsored education and outreach. In Kantara Initiative Europe, work on evaluating the 2nd call proposals continued unabated through the holiday/New Year period, culminating in a meeting of the consortium partners in Brussels on Friday, January 31st, the last day of the month.
Our working groups were busy right up till the holidays. The new FIRE working group reincarnated from IDESG committees has just released the first draft of a very interesting specification entitled Distributed Identity Assurance 1.0.0 Draft 1 and encourages initial reactions, suggestions and comments from the community. To be clear, this draft is an early version and not a final draft commencing Kantara's formal publication process for its Recommendations and Technical Specifications.
The Consent and Information Sharing Work Group has announced its intention to wind up and launch the Information Sharing Interoperability Work Group with a broader scope to enable more projects to be worked on, such is the interest being generated by Kantara’s Consent Receipt. Join the ISI-WG here.
The Federation Interoperability Working Group is about to release a minor .1 revision of its SAML V2.0 Implementation Profile for Federation Interoperability while also having its Deployment Profile companion out for 45 day IPR review and public comment
The closing of NGI_Trust’s 2nd call for proposals has kept Kantara Europe busy as it prepares reviews. Some 90 proposals were received, 30 of which have to be evaluated by its small team by January 15th.
Remaining in Europe, we topped off an exciting year of additional strategic partnerships with a liaison with the newly formed UK based Arena for Data Protection Professionals (ADPP) this month. These folks really like Kantara’s assets in this domain and seek further collaboration. Kantara members in good standing get an immediate benefit with a 50% discount on ADPP membership £75 down from £150 in 2020. Please Contact Us for the code.
And last but most certainly not least, I am delighted to announce that Andi Hindle – Kantara member & UMA WG aficionado, Identiverse content chair, subject matter identity expert and all-round good guy – is our 6th staff contractor. He takes up the new role of Kantara’s UK Ambassador to progress Kantara’s footprint in the UK, complementing Chris Healy in a similar position in Washington DC. You can contact him on andi at kantarainitiative dot org or Contact Us.
Wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year and new decade.
Cheers!
Colin
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