2025-04-16 Steering Committee Meeting Notes
Attendance
Steering Committee Members Attending and Participating
- Daniel Bachenheimer, Accenture Global Solutions Limited
- Steve McCown, Anonyome Labs, Inc.
- Alex Tweeddale, cheqd
- Steven Milstein, Collab Ventures
- Scott Perry, Digital Governance Institute
- Eric Drury, Forth.IO
- Wenjing Chu, Futurewei
- Drummond Reed, Gen Digital
- Karla McKenna, GLobal Legal Entity Indentifier Foundation
- Nicholas Rasz, Keystate Capital
- Neil Thomson, Query Vision
- John Phillips, Sezoo
- Carly Huitema, University of Guelph
Also Participating
- Daniela Barbosa, (LFDT Executive Director)
- Michelle Janata, (LF PM)
- Makki Elfaith (Hkdolts)
- Cole Davis (Steamroller Systems, Inc.)
Call to Order
Scott Perry called the meeting to order at approx. 14:05 pm PT and announced the meeting would be recorded. There were no objections.
Antitrust Policy Notice
Scott Perry reminded the Steering Committee of the Antitrust Policy.
Agenda
Scott Perry and Carly Huitema introduced the agenda. No additional topics were added.
Review of Action Items from Last Meeting
ACTION: Carly Huitema and Eric Drury: Invite both CAWG and the DIF DID Methods WG to present to the Ecosystem & Governance WG
ACTION: All SC Members: Plan for a ToIP Activity Showcase / Webinar Deep Dive this summer that can show off the work of all the WGs — potentially for our 5th Anniversary celebration in late September or October
-Suggestion to form a task force to help pick a day and start planning for it.
-Could be anytime later this year
-Could be before the fall IIW
ACTION: Carly to start a Slack channel for planning the above.
-DONE: created - the link is https://trustoverip.slack.com/archives/C08JF908C4V
New Business / Agenda
- Continue ToIP Business Plan Positioning and SWOT Analysis Discussion — Scott Perry
- Originally proposed in the 2025-02-19 meeting.
- Consider https://medium.com/wardleymaps/on-being-lost-2ef5f05eb1ec
- Communications Committee: do we need to reconstitute it? — All
- Plan for our upcoming All-Members Meeting on April 23 (11AM PT / 18:00 UTC)
- ToIP Foundational Document Update Task Force proposal — Drummond
- Introduction to ToIP
- Design Principles for the ToIP Stack
- ToIP Technical Architecture Specification
- ToIP Governance Architecture Specification
- ToIP Glossary
- Update on the First Person Project — Drummond Reed
- Reception at IIW
- Linux Kernel project (kernel.org)
- LFDT and ToIP participation in the Global Digital Collaboration, July 1-2 in Geneva
- Upgrading of the existing Technology Stack WG AI & Human Task Force into a Working Group — Wenjing Chu
- Preliminary proposal for a new Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group — Drummond Reed. See description below:
Continue ToIP Business Plan Positioning and SWOT Analysis Discussion — Scott Perry presents the Organization Plan. Found here
Scott led a discussion on the organizational plan, focusing on the mission statement and vision. The team debated whether the current mission statement accurately represented their goals, with suggestions to include technology and governance stacks. They also discussed the role of the organization in creating standards and the potential for these standards to be adopted by larger bodies. The team agreed to revise the mission statement and vision, with the aim of making it more specific and inspiring. They also discussed the structure and governance of the organization, with a focus on the steering committee and working groups. The team agreed to provide feedback on the revised mission statement and vision.
The steering committee discusses the inclusion of the mission statement in the organizational business plan. Scott argues for its inclusion to ensure alignment between plans and mission, while Wenjing and others expressed concerns about potentially changing the charter through this document. The group agrees that any changes to the mission statement or charter should be a separate process from creating the business plan. Daniela explains that charter revisions require steering committee approval and submission to the project formation legal team for review. Daniela also explains that the Steering Committee (or for our other LFDT projects the TSC), can at anytime make changes/updates to the charter. You will just need to agree and approve those changes and then work with our project formation legal team. You can work with David Boswell on that when needed. The committee decides to continue working on the operational plan while considering a separate discussion about potential charter updates.
SWOT Analysis Discussion
Scott and Carly discussed the status of working groups and task forces, with 8 responses received. They identified the missing working groups and task forces, and decided to remove the human experience group as it hasn't been meeting. They also discussed the need for the KERI Stack working group to submit their answers. Carly requested someone to nudge KERI to fill out the questionnaire before the end of the week. Scott then moved the discussion to the SWOT analysis, where they identified strengths and weaknesses. Wenjing suggested that some of the weaknesses could be seen as strengths, and agreed that they could be both.
Working Group/Task Force Questionnaire
Upgrading of the existing Technology Stack WG AI & Human Task Force into a Working Group
The steering committee discusses two proposed new working groups: one on AI and human trust, evolving from an existing task force, and another on decentralized trust graphs related to the First Person project. They agree to prepare charter proposals for both groups to present at the upcoming all-hands meeting. The committee emphasizes the importance of aligning these new groups with Trust over IP's vision and mission, as well as their potential to raise the organization's profile and attract new members. They suggest exploring joint participation with other organizations like DIF.
Preliminary proposal for a new Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group
Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group Proposed Charter wording:
“The scope of the Decentralized Trust Graph Working Group (DTGWG) is to define the socio- technical standards for a decentralized trust graph where there is no centralized database and all parties control their own subgraph of trust relationships. This work includes specifying requirements for key management, verifiable identifiers, verifiable credentials, verifiable relationship credentials, social vouching, relationship cards (r-cards), privacy-preserving zero-knowledge proofs, trust task protocols, trust registries, out-of-band introductions, UI/UX affordances, decentralized naming and discovery mechanisms, and governance considerations. This work will be based on the Design Principles for the ToIP Stack, the ToIP Technology Architecture Specification, other ToIP technical specifications, and complementary open standards for decentralized digital trust infrastructure.”
Trust Registry and Decentralized Trust Updates
Carly discussed her work on bite-sized trust videos and the potential for a trust registry as an upper working group with task forces. Wenjing shared updates on the DIF project and its potential collaboration with the 1st person project. Drummond provided an update on the 1st person project, highlighting its focus on decentralized trust and its reception at the Linux Foundation. Eric expressed interest in seeing a demo of the 1st person project. Nicholas raised awareness about the UNC Fact global trust registry initiative and suggested involvement in its governance framework. The team agreed to keep updated on the initiative.
Action Items from this meeting:
- Carly Huitema to update the organizational plan with information received from working groups and task forces.
- John Phillipps to create a Wardley map for Trust over IP and share it back to the steering committee.
- Wenjing Chu to prepare a proposed charter for upgrading the AI and Human Trust Task Force to a working group by next Wednesday.
- Drummond Reed to prepare a proposal document for the First Person Project working group.
- Michelle Janata to set up a recurring meeting on Mondays before the all-members meeting for agenda planning.
- Drummond to discuss potential collaboration opportunities with Kim Duffy from DIF during their lunch meeting on Friday.
- Steering Committee members to review and provide feedback on Carly's bite-size trust videos in the Slack channel.
- Eric Drury to attend the UNC FACT Global Trust Registry Initiative call and keep the group updated.
Next Meeting:
May 21, 2025
14:00 PDT / 17:00 EST / 21:00 UTC
Adjournment
At approximately 15:32 PT, Scott Perry adjourned the meeting.