The Future of Identity

Phil Windley discusses the rise and fall of the Sovrin Foundation as a self-sovereign identity metasystem. He shares lessons from successful identity systems like social login, and failed attempts such as certain identity blockchains. The podcast delves into the evolution of digital identity, funding strategies for tech visions, user-centric identity initiatives, and the importance of governance in self-sovereign identity systems.

Nick Thomas, co-founder of Finicity and EVP at Mastercard, discusses Finicity's journey from app to data aggregator. He shares insights on open banking, verifiable credentials, and parallels between fintech and IDtech. The podcast explores industry collaborations, disruptive innovations, and challenges in digital identity infrastructure.

In this episode, we talk with Jacques von Benecke, CTO of DHI, the commercial and investment arm of the government of Bhutan. If you haven’t heard, Bhutan has launched one of the most complete SSI ecosystems in the world! We spent most of the time diving in to how it’s going since launching just a few months ago.We get into metrics, like how many users have onboarded, and the growth rate over time. We cover use cases, business models, governance, and more! We even cover how they productize wallets for accessibility, and we were amazed to hear they have iOS, Android, and web… but they have 11 other wallet configurations they’ve had to build to cover the whole population!Most of all it was really interesting to see what can happen when you have top-down mandate to develop better digital identity and a strong technology approach to execute.To learn more about Bhutan’s National Digital Identity initiative you can visit Bhutan NDI or listen to Jacques' interview on the (un)Trustables podcast.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more announcements related to the future of identity at trinsic.id/podcastReach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Jon Gelsey, Founding CEO of Auth0 Inc, shares insights on building Auth0, technology adoption, and avoiding disruption by embracing change. He discusses the role of big tech in identity management and the importance of innovation in staying competitive. Gelsey emphasizes the user-centric approach and the future of secure identity practices.

In this episode, we sit down with Harrison Tang, Co-founder and & CEO of Spokeo, which is a “people search engine”. Spokeo aggregates many sources of data about people and sells that data to verifiers. So at first blush, Harrison is an unlikely person to be a massive advocate for SSI and co-chair of the W3C Credentials Community Group.We dig in to why Spokeo cares about verifiable credentials, and how verifiable credentials represent the opportunity to deliver more trust to Spokeo’s customers and how they allow Spokeo to participate in the next wave of digital identity innovation. We also explore complex concepts like negative reputation and how AI will impact the personal data landscape. We finish out by talking about what current IDtech companies can learn from Spokeo’s early go-to-market and what it will take to get verifiable credential adoption.To learn more about Spokeo visit https://www.spokeo.com/ or follow Spokeo on social media (@Spokeo). You can find Harrison on social media as well (@tang_talks) and keep up with his latest thinking through his podcast ‘Tang Talks’.Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we chat with Carlos Korten, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer of Bindle Systems. Bindle built one of the largest private-sector deployments of decentralized identity in the USA, and Carlos shares tons of stories from the trenches of getting hundreds of thousands of consumers on board.We dive in to the go-to-market strategies Bindle employed, including how they sold directly to verifiers, and how if they could do it over again, Carlos would focus even more narrowly on verifiers. We talk about their business model and what they learned about making money with verifiable credentials. And we talk about some of Carlos’ hard-earned lessons that he recommends to anyone building an IDtech product.From discussing the founding of Bindle, its journey through the pandemic, and then the decision to pivot away from a COVID product, Carlos and Riley’s discussion makes for an engaging episode.To contact Carlos or to learn more about Bindle’s current focus, reach out to carlos@bindlesystems.com.Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we sit down with Nate Soffio, Co-founder and & CEO of Portabl. Nate is applying decentralized identity to fintech and open banking, which is such an important but also challenging use case.We discuss the ins and outs of Portabl’s user experience and how it differs from other reusable KYC products. Nate also provides insight into lessons learned, deliberate product decisions Portable has made, and common mistakes he has seen IDtech founders make.This episode should be useful for anyone interested in fintech or adding SSI to their identity stack.To contact Nate or to learn more about Portabl, reach out to hello@getportabl.com.Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

In this episode, we speak with Andrew Black, Managing Director of ConnectID, which is part of Australian Payments Plus. Andrew, who is an expert in the convergence of IDtech and open banking, sheds light on a unique approach to building bank-backed digital identity and the user experience that it enables. It was fascinating to unpack the role governance plays in ConnectID with some tangible examples, and analyze how the UX of an identity exchange differs from that of an identity wallet.We also speculate a bit on why both true open banking and true interoperable digital identity have weaker-than-expected adoption, and how to balance solving business problems with building a future we all want to live in.To contact Andrew, you can reach out on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-black-a5118239/. Learn more about ConnectID at https://connectid.com.au/.Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.

Sarah Clark, SVP of Digital Identity at Mastercard, discusses Mastercard's ID network and the challenges and opportunities in the reusable identity space. The conversation includes go-to-market strategies, collaboration for a global ecosystem, use cases of reusable identity, decentralized identity approaches, and the future of digital identity in Web3.

In this episode, we sit down with Keith Uber, VP of Sales Engineering at Ubisecure, to discuss the role of verifiable credentials in identity and access management.Keith shares his insights on Organizational Identity and how vLEIs change the game, create new business opportunities, and unlock efficiencies for representatives of businesses to transact more seamlessly.Keith also shares his perspective on how Ubisecure is engaging with the eIDAS 2.0 and European Identity Wallet initiatives on the consumer identity side.We explore the fascinating overlap between Organizational Identity and Consumer Identity. While Ubisecure’s focus is in the EU market, there are loads of insights that will be helpful to people building IDtech products around the world.To learn more about Ubisecure, visit https://www.ubisecure.com/.Be sure to check out Ubisecure’s podcast titled ‘Let's Talk About Digital Identity’ at https://www.ubisecure.com/lets-talk-about-digital-identity-podcast/.Reach out to Riley (@rileyphughes) and Trinsic (@trinsic_id) on Twitter. We’d love to hear from you.