Greetings folks

This is the running update from Kantara Initiative, Inc's Executive Director. Have questions or comments? Suggest some added information or edits? Contact the ED colin@kantarainitiative.org

April 2016 followed March to be as busy and as intense, as we began to operationalize the strategic direction that the Board's decisions earlier in the year instantiated.  

It's been  privilege to work with Virtual Management's team of hard working professionals. Our engagement began by email, then conference calls that moved to remote video and finally ending in a face to face meeting their modern offices in Wakefield, outside Boston. 

The updated and refreshed 'look' of the brand that is carried through onto flyers, cards and banners is a superficial instantiation of their much deeper understanding of the position in the identity ecosystem that Kantara seeks to occupy, all the more credit to them as they manage FIDO Alliance alongside us. Our transition is nearing completion, with only a handful of members still to confirm their intentions with their members dues still held by IEEE-ISTO, and our application lodged with the IRS for confirmed non profit status. The organization is in good financial health, with membership and GPA sign ups on the rise, no doubt helped by the supporting Marcomms. 

I am writing this as we complete two very successful conference appearances, first at IIW at the end of April and then the European Identity Conference in Munich last week. UMA's strong roots inside Kantara are being increasingly supported by the Consent Receipt and User Submitted Terms work being led by Mark Lizar, John Wunderlich, Iain Henderson and Mary Hodder, that was such a feature at IIW. As this work takes shape, Kantara's proud to be part of the collaborative effort alongside Customer Commons and Project VRM, to put the customer back in control of their data, and the part that Consent Receipt plays in achieving that shared goal.

Last week's EIC has often been the event that Kantara has used to launch something new, and this year was no exception. Ian Glazer's call for the professionalization of the identity industry in his keynote just before the EIC Awards ceremony last Wednesday night capped off a quite incredible 48 hours of team effort operationalize that notion and Kantara as the initial home, while folks discuss what they want from 'ID Pro' (attribution Andrew Hughes for that short name) and where they want it.  Pledge your support and sign up here: https://kantarainitiative.org/digital_identity_professional/

As we look ahead further into May we have the Digital Contracts, Identities and Blockchain workshop at MIT Media Labs in Cambridge MA, coming up May 23-24 (see details below) where Kantara's latest Discussion Group, Smart Contracts and Blockchain, makes its debut. And in 3 weeks' time, the Cloud Identity Summit takes place in New Orleans where Kantara will again host a pre-conference workshop.

So you can see it's another busy month or so ahead before we look forward to holidays in the northern hemisphere.  Thank you again for your efforts to support your fellow members and the organization as a whole. An organization is nothing without its members.

Cheers

Colin 

Liaisons:

• ISO/ITU-T: ISO SC27's meeting was held in Tampa FL, and we were fortunate to have a number of Kantara members to attend, speak to our Liaison Statement to Working Group 5, Identity Management and Privacy. Of particular interest is ISO 29184, Guidelines for online privacy notices and consent along with reviews of 29115 Entity Authentication Assurance, and 24760-1 A framework for Identity Management.
• Two further liaisons remain in progress, with an announcement expected in June. 

New Activities:

• I've mentioned the ID Pro initiative above, but in addition we continue to get strong interest in Kantara's R&D funding program, in partnership with Rutgers university, NJ. Another proposal is showing promise, with 4 more in preparation and a further 5 from IIW and EIC still yet to materialize. Thanks to the folks who are preparing further project submissions. We look forward to them. 

New Members:

• Kantara welcomes  the other member from Australia that was in process last month. That organization is the Digital Transformation Office of the Australian Government. Amongst several other notable organizations we welcome back Neustar, Inc. 

Marketing:

• We have a self standing banner, flyers and revised slide deck for use in Kantara supported events. If you have ideas please contact the ED.

Work Group and Discussion Group Updates:

• CIS WG: Consent Receipt nearly ready for prime time at its launch at CIS in June.
• OTTO WG: Really interesting and much needed inter-federation work continues for OAuth and SAML communities
• Smart Contracts and Blockchain DG: This ground breaking working takes some elements of the Common Accord development, together with Distributed Ledger Technology to explore a step-change in the way online services contracts might be structured.  

Events:

• Monday, May 23 Tuesday, May 24, 2016, MIT Media Lab, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. Digital Contracts, Identities and Blockchain workshop 
• Monday, June 6th Workshop, Cloud Identity Summit, Marriott, New Orleans: OTTO, UMA, Consent Receipt, CCICADA R&D Funding Performers, on the slate to speak, along with cameo appearances from the many Kantara members sepaking.