2020 May - Aug Meetings

Owned by Drummond Reed
Last updated: Sept 01, 2020 by Andre Kudra
12 min read

This page has agendas, notes, and action items from each meeting of the UFWG in reverse chronological order.

Tuesday, Aug 04 — 18:00-19:00 UTC / 11:00-12:00 PDT / 14:00-15:00 EST / 20:00-21:00 CET / 03:00-04:00 JST (=next day)

Proposed Agenda

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Claudia Grytz, esatus AG
    2. Karen Hand, Ontario, Agro industry expertise and focus
  3. WG Reminder: Our Objectives
    1. Introductory notes and walk-through of objectives - with specific focus on the assistance and guidance mode that the WG focuses on; TIPs and other work which has work-in-progress and/or active collaboration
    2. Show and tell of the GitHub page+repo about the utility projects being documented. Utility Foundry decision tree and workflow being the work/task which has the current focus - to create sample stories of network projects in Layer 1
  4. Open Items
    1. DID Utility / DID Method Cross-Industry Interlock
      1.  Enterprise Ethereum Alliance: Status of Drummond's conversation with Dan Burnett on collaboration on ToIP-compatible DID methods for Ethereum. 
        1. Richard Esplin mentioned "Cross ledger InterOp Fest" with Indy.
          1. Indy Interop-athon Virtual Conference - Sept. 1, 2 - Indy Interop-a-thon - Making "Network of Networks" Real
          2. Not specifically linked with the EEA conversation (likely wait for Drummond Reed)
  5. Utility Project Status Update
    1. Bedrock
      1. Call for interested companies that may be interested in joining. Send email request to Dan Gisolfi stating company name and contact email address.
      2. Pre-Launch activities progressing with target formation of LF Utility project set for 01 Oct 2020.
    2. SSI4DE
      1. Co-Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs.
      2. 3 projects (out of 11) to be selected in the competition to be funded over a period of 3 years.
      3. Launch ceremony could occur this month.
    3. Sovrin MainNet
      1. Transition Team has commenced work. Stability of MainNet is the focus. There is focus on membership ramp-up and acquiring new funds for the Sovrin Foundation to have operational stability and hire for new positions including a Community Manager (see post from Sovrin Foundation around this).
    4. others
  6. Layer 1 Technology Projects: 
    1. Hyperledger Indy: easy tasks for a new contributor to get started. Contact Richard Esplinif you want additional guidance.
  7. WG Research Status Update
    1. Horizontal Interop
      1. Who has convened to establish a list of applicable use cases?
        1. OPEN item - will require following up into the next meeting. Lack of volunteers would indicate lower priority of this topic.
        2. May be a good item to carry forward into the APAC meeting to seek and generate interest.
    2. UFWG Sandbox Utility
      1. Who will lead a subgroup to create this utility
        1. The members of the UFWG need to gain experience before writing guidelines and best practices.
        2. Challenge: Create a Sample Utility comprised of 3-5 nodes for testing purposes using the Blockchain Automation Framework (BAF)
        3. Goal: Leverage this research exercise as a way to create BAF artifacts for Hyperledger Indy
        4. Tools: Bootstrapping Node Hosting - Learn BAF
    3. Utility Foundry Workflow Update
      1. New User Stories?
        1. GitHub repo has an entry from Vinod on the Kochi OrgBook; likely to be discussed at an upcoming meeting
      2. Swimlane 1 Deep Dive: Volunteers requested
  8. Education & Awareness
    1. Set dates for upcoming presentations to the UFWG. These events will be recorded and the dates should not leverage UFWG Monthly meetings.
      1. Jessica Townsend (Accenture): Presentation of BAF process and toolset
        1. would be recorded and made available for those who are unable to participate at the specific instance
        2. date to be announced via the mailing list and Slack in the coming days
      2. Kapil Singh (IBM): DDNR Awareness
        1. session will be announced in the coming days
  9. Topics for Future Meetings
    1. Trustbloc

Tuesday, Aug 04 — 06:00-07:00 UTC / 23:00-00:00 PDT (=prior day) / 08:00-09:00 CET / 15:00-16:00 JST

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Claudia Grytz (esatus)
    2. Sumod Rajan George (Wipro)
  3. WG Reminder: Our Objectives
    1. Brief recap on mission, scope, objectives, work in progress
    2. Plan to increasing outreach to have broader representation of APAC community in ToIP and particularly UFWG
    3. Everyone to reach out within her/his network to make APAC communities aware
    4. Increasing interest level of ToIP by outlining its goals and related projects
    5. Use examples like KochiOrgBook and examples from CCI to provide insights and create interest
    6. UFWG needs further details on TIP structure and contents and naming schema (e.g. SaturnV)
    7. Establish a working mode for global UFWG stakeholders and efficient information sharing incl. transitioning meeting summaries between APAC and EU/US meetings
  4. Education & Awareness - presentations to UFWG ex regular meetings
    1. Jessica Townsend (Accenture): Presentation of BAF process and toolset
    2. KochiOrgBook
    3. Selected CCI APAC examples
  5. Topics for Future Meetings

Tuesday, July 21 — 06:00-07:00 UTC / 23:00-00:00 PDT (=prior day) / 08:00-09:00 CET / 15:00-16:00 JST

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Sandy K (Infoeaze, Vice-Chair of this WG)
  3. Update on currently identified Utility Projects (Reminder pls update list or submit issue!)
    1. Sankarshan
      1. Will update the group further in next meetings
    2. SSI4DE update
      1. Naming for the network in decision process (SSI4DE is the project name of project sponsored by BMWi)
      2. Governance of network itself has progressed, legal entity type has been decided
      3. Technical requirements of the test network have been specified
      4. Adrian Doerk will present the project in one of the upcoming WG sessions
      5. Richard Esplin offered to advise on the level of effort (staffing) required to support a new network
    3. Sovrin
      1. Drummond Reed updated the group on the Governance Framework WG of Sovrin
      2. Sovrin founding story could be fed into a user story to capture process with which Sovrin network was created
    4. Drummond pointed out that Dan Burnett, formerly with ConsenSys, has now become the Executive Director of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. Drummond suggests we reach out to Dan to discuss collaboration on ToIP-compatible DID methods for Ethereum. Drummond will take the action item to reach out to Dan.
    5. Bedrock: Call for interested companies that may be interested in joining. Send email request to  Dan Gisolfi stating company name and contact email address.
  4. Call for user stories to be documented using the GitHub Template
  5. WG Research
    1. Horizontal Interop:
      1. Who feels strongly that interoperability between DID Utilities is required at Layer 1 (horizontal Interop)?
      2. Those that feel strong, please convene and report back in two weeks with a list of applicable use cases.
        1. Drummond reported that Credentials WG work under W3C will be rolled into DID method WG
        2. ToIP Technical Stack WG needs to define what is a ToIP compliant DID method
        3. If a Utility supports one (or more) ToIP compliant DID method, there is no need for interop between networks themselves
        4. Is standardisation of DID method a governance component for Layer 1? → That does not apply to Layer 1, no utility will talk to another utility directly.
        5. Is there a need for private utilities? → Potentially no good use case on Layer 1, on higher layers privacy and access control are strong drivers.
        6. Public utilities are commonly public read / controlled write. Needs to be explained in TSS.
        7. Private utilities, if the creators deem this mode necessary, can certainly be ToIP compliant.
        8. Question tbd: Who "certifies" ToIP compliance? → Will be covered by Governance WG. Trust Assurance TF will perform the related work.
        9. Compliance certification will be performed by governance authority (GA), i.e. the GA that will determine the compliance of a ToIP Layer One public utility can be at any higher layer (2, 3, or 4).
        10. ToIP Foundation will not issue certifications. Third parties potentially will be very interested in being eligible to attest ToIP compliance.
    2. DDNR 
      1. There is work underway in DIF Identity & Discovery WG that is addressing Decentralised DID Namespace Registry (DDNR).
    3. Creation of a Utility Foundry Sandbox Utility
      1. The members of the UFWG need to gain experience before writing guidelines and best practices.
      2. Challenge: Create a Sample Utility comprised of 3-5 nodes for testing purposes using the Blockchain Automation Framework (BAF)
      3. Leverage this research exercise as a way to create BAF artifacts for Hyperledger Indy
        1. Discussion showed that this is a time-consuming and labor-intense exercise that cannot easily be performed by the WG memebers.
        2. Presentation of BAF process and toolset appreciated by WG.
        3. Jessica Townsend of Accenture will organize a presentation for one of the next WG sessions.
  6. Education & Awareness
    1. Bootstrapping Node Hosting - Learn BAF: Request Accenture Presentation Daniel Bachenheimercan organize
    2. DDNR Awareness: Setup a presentation for a future date:  Contact Kapil Singh Dan Gisolfi can organize
  7. Topics for Future Meetings

Tuesday, July 21 — 06:00-07:00 UTC / 23:00-00:00 PDT (=prior day) / 08:00-09:00 CET / 15:00-16:00 JST

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. No new members
  3. Update on current work items
    1. Update from Drummond Reed on key topics out of Governance Stack WG (Governance Architecture TF, Process and Roles TF)
    2. Adressing Utility interoperability as priority item
      1. Interoperability is a priority topic for the global community (Benny and others)
      2. Interoperability is understood differently as the term is not uniformly defined (Sankarshan)
      3. Working on technical interoperability requires developer resources in the related projects, there is currently a shortage (André)
      4. TSS is required for Layer 1 on interoperability, agnostic to TIPs, potentially the most straightforward to define and implement (Drummond)
      5. All agreed to create a document (e.g. markdown document on Hack md to be put in github) collect all materials/aspects/topics of interoperability and structure contents from there
      6. Discussion led to the understanding that taking a most used network technology/stack (i.e. Hyperledger Indy) as baseline example for understanding all interoperability aspects and solutions for this first
      7. This document can be transitioned into the TSS at a later stage
      8. Vinod will create a respective github section to get work going
  4. Topics for Future Meetings

Tuesday, July 7 — 18:00-19:00 UTC / 11:00-12:00 PDT / 20:00-21:00 CET / 03:00-04:00 JST (=next day)

Suggested Prep Work

  1. READ the Utility Foundry Workflow Proposal
  2. READ the Sample Story
  3. CONSIDER a real or hypothetical Utility story that you would be willing to document (for the 7/21 mtg).
  4. Provide updates to or issues against our Utility List.

If anyone has suggestions/concerns/issues for the proposed workflow, please open an issue. 

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Adam Lemmon (Convergence.tech)
    2. Adrian Doerk (Main Incubator)
  3. Revisiting call for chairs & vice chairs
    1. Chair volunteers are: Dan Gisolfi (IBM), André Kudra (esatus), Vinod Panicker (Wipro)
    2. Vice Chair volunteers are: Cameron Boozarjomehri (MITRE), Mathieu Glaude (Northern Block)
    3. The term defined for the first set of Chairs and Vice Chairs is 6 months.
    4. The WG can have up to 3 Chairs and there is no limit on Vice Chairs.
    5. The call remains open until end of day July 10, 2020 (23:59 UTC-12 Anywhere on Earth - AoE time zone).
    6. The WG members agree that after the call ends and if no further Chair candidates are nominated, the aforementioned Chair and Vice Chair volunteers plus additional nominated Vice Chair volunteers are considered elected for the first term period.
    7. In case additional Chair volunteers are coming up, an election will be conducted by the Utility Foundry WG members.
  4. Address priority ("get to work") items
    1. Review Terms and Concepts
    2. Review Utility Foundry Workflow Proposal
      1. Dan Gisolfi guides WG members through the workflow proposal.
      2. Dan Gisolfi illustrates the workflow via a sample story "Bedrock".
      3. Discussion among WG members around economic model for Layer 1 utility and magnitude of annual budget items for operating a node.
      4. Intermediate conclusion is that with creating a Layer 1 Utility, determining a sustainable business and funding model is a critical success factor.
    3. Discuss process for gathering user stories
    4. Discuss open source decision tree rendering tools (i.e.: PlanetUML Activity Diagram)
  5. Update on Utility project liaisons
  6. Topics for Future Meetings

Tuesday, July 7 — 06:00-07:00 UTC / 23:00-00:00 PDT (=prior day) / 08:00-09:00 CET / 15:00-16:00 JST

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Vinod Panicker
    2. Sankarshan
  3. Recap for new members
    1. Participants of this call did also participate in earlier call
    2. Jointly reviewing the suggested "get to work" items
    3. Vinod suggested a Sample Story serves as a governance template formulating collaborative interaction and best practice
    4. Sankarshan will prepare a sample for the upcoming meeting in two weeks
    5. Vinod provided an update on the crowd-source and open source project in Kochi in the state Kerala, India to facilitate decision taking for Hyperledger Indy/Aries, working with Cyber Dome police initiative
    6. Michael Shea provided info that in Italy there is another network driven by InfoCert named "DizMe"
    7. Michael Shea provided info about other ID initiatives: "BankID" Norway, "Its.me" Belgium, "NEM ID" Denmark, all driven from financial sector - relevant for ToIP?
    8. André Kudra stated that it is worthwhile looking into official EU activities (EBSI - European Blockchain Services Infrastructure and ESSIF - European SSI Framework)
    9. Benny Jung is interested in interoperability among DID platforms global. (I am working for "Korea DID Council") 
    10. Benny Jung suggested to look into payment capabilities related to ID networks at some point
  4. Revisiting call for chairs & vice chairs
    1. Vinod Panicker volunteered for Chair position
  5. Topics for Future Meetings
    1. Ajay Jadhav suggested to look at governance aspects of networks forming in Europe - how can we leverage for ToIP
    2. Michael Shea suggested to get an update from DHS on interoperability initiatives

Tuesday, June 23 — 11:00-12:00 PT / 18:00-19:00 UTC

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording

  1. Welcome and Linux Foundation antitrust policy (André)
  2. Introduction of new members
    1. Richard Esplin—Director of Product at Evernym, very active in Hyperledger Indy, Ursa, Aries
    2. Cameron Boozarjomehri, Mitre
  3. Further call for chairs & vice chairs
    1. Chair volunteers: Dan Gisolfi, André Kudra, others?
    2. Vice Chair volunteers:
      1. Cameron Boozarjomehri
      2. Mathieu Glaude
    3. Karl mentioned that we want to more broadly socialize this WG to new members
      1. Drummond confirmed that this is a priority for all the WGs as we have many new members (over 100 total now)
    4. There was consensus to keep nominations open for one more meeting cycle
      1. ACTION: André to send an email to the all-members list inviting new members and nominations
  4. WIP initial work items—leads, updates, working mode, next steps
    1. Workflow decision tree—Dan Gisolfi as lead (tbc)
      1. Dan explained that the Steering Committee is working on a description of the standard ToIP work products / deliverables (specs, templates, recommendations, white papers, etc.)
      2. Dan and team are working on capturing the stages in the lifecycle of a utility project
      3. He proposes a team that defines the stages in the flow —building on examples of existing or planned projects like Sovrin, Bedrock, etc.
      4. This will help us collectively define the major elements of a utility project
      5. Dan invites anyone who wants to pair with him on this work, just ping him on Slack in the #utility-foundry-wg channel (or DM)
      6. Karl agreed that identifying the stages of a lifecycle is something that also applies to the Ecosystem Foundry WG
    2. ToIP Utility projects liaison—André Kudra as lead (tbc)
      1. André reported that he is in contact with the three potential utility projects underway in Germany
      2. He is encouraging them to join the ToIP Foundation to collaborate to advance their efforts
      3. Karl asked about what definition we currently have of a ToIP Layer One utility?
        1. Drummond said that the most "official" definition is the current ToIP stack defintion in Hyperledger Aries RFC 0298.
        2. Dan pointed out that any ToIP Foundation member could contribute a definition of a term for the ToIP Glossary: https://github.com/trustoverip/concepts-and-terminology-wg/issues/new/choose
      4. Dan suggested that this work item could involve creating a markdown list of the utility candidates
        1. Dan is fearful of the ToIP Foundation becoming a "dumping ground" of projects that may not be qualified
        2. His view is that our list should be utility project who are directly contributing or seeking guidance from this WG about participating
      5. André explained one example: LISSI (Let's Initiate SSI) project lead to follow-up project in Germany, "SSI for Germany" (SSI4DE)
        1. SSI4DE is co-funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs
        2. Currently in the 6 months competition phase
        3. The next phase will filter it down to 3 projects that will each have 15M€ funding for 3 years
        4. He believes it has a very good chance to be a successful ToIP Layer One utility
        5. Company that is the consortium lead is Main Incubator (Commerzbank subsidiary for digitalization initiatives)
        6. Project description (German) under https://www.digitale-technologien.de/DT/Redaktion/DE/Standardartikel/SchaufensterSichereDigIdentProjekte/sdi-projekt_ssi.html
          Google translate:
          https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitale-technologien.de%2FDT%2FRedaktion%2FDE%2FStandardartikel%2FSchaufensterSichereDigIdentProjekte%2Fsdi-projekt_ssi.html
      6. André explained a second example initiated by German "ECO Association"
        1. They have assembled several members who are interested in forming a network
        2. Want to be fully aligned with ToIP right away
        3. André has encouraged them to become Contributor Members ASAP
      7. The third one is govdigital
        1. Driven from the public sector for the public sector
        2. They are also contributing a little to the ECO Association
        3. Only public sector orgs will be able to run a node
        4. Also planning to use Hyperledger Indy 
      8. André shared this link about all the German projects funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs
        1. https://www.digitale-technologien.de/DT/Navigation/DE/ProgrammeProjekte/AktuelleTechnologieprogramme/Sichere_Digitale_Identitaeten/Projekte_Wettbewerbsphase/projekte_wettbewerbsphase.html
        2. Google translate: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitale-technologien.de%2FDT%2FNavigation%2FDE%2FProgrammeProjekte%2FAktuelleTechnologieprogramme%2FSichere_Digitale_Identitaeten%2FProjekte_Wettbewerbsphase%2Fprojekte_wettbewerbsphase.html
      9. Findy (Finnish Indy) — https://www.findy.fi/
        1. Still recruiting members. Expect to join ToIP as both a utility, and as a group of

      10. Project in Austria — https://meinesichereid.org

      11. Alastria in Spain
      12. ACTION: Dan will start creating a file for listing projects and drop it into Slack
  5. Selecting/prioritizing further initial work items—preferences, leads, contributors, task force mode — Dan suggests that we tackle these once we have the SC document on ToIP deliverables
    1. ToIP Utility RFP templates
    2. ToIP Utility Best Practices documents
    3. ToIP Utility website and utility directory
    4. White paper repository & opportunities
  6. Topics for Future Meetings
    1. DanG: Utility Project Workflow
    2. Richard: Presentation on Indy-based utilities and progress of Indy
    3. Richard: Discussion about the current state of Aries, it's future, and interoperability
  7. Adding an APAC call time
    1. André proposes to do this on alternative weeks to the US/EU call

Tuesday, June 09 — 11:00-12:00 PT / 18:00-19:00 UTC

Agenda and Notes

Meeting recording (https://zoom.us/rec/share/5MVZf7yv2XFIY7fk71zmB_88AIDJX6a81SFN_qALmE8DRIo5DLdOJyVdcbx-HPgj)

  1. Welcome and Introductions (André)
    1. André Kudra, esatus, Germany
    2. Dan Gisolfi, IBM, New York, USA
      1. Convener of the Bedrock Business Utility
      2. This is the WG that will enable interop between ToIP Layer One utilities
      3. We will "prime the pump" for other utilities
      4. Suggest we start off with a high-level workflow
    3. Drummond Reed, Evernym, Seattle, USA
      1. Chief Trust Officer at Evernym
    4. Darrell O'Donnell, CEO, Continuum Loop, Ottawa, Canada
      1. Want to see us build a very boring utility layer
    5. Matt Davies, CTO, Finicity, Utah
      1. Want to ensure a strong foundation for financial apps higher in the stack
    6. Wenjiing Chu, Futurewei, Santa Clara, CA, USA
      1. Wants to understand the structure and dimension of Layer One 
      2. Goal is to build a stronger and more lasting foundation
    7. Mark Scott, San DIego, CA, USA
      1. Exploring all four of the initial WGs
      2. Generally more interested in the technical stack
    8. Steven Milstein, Ottawa, Canada
      1. Consultant, follower of SSI
      2. Interested in getting more deeply involved
    9. Arjun Govind, R3, typically in Philadelphia, currently in Bangalore
      1. Very interested in participating
    10. Sebastien Weidenbach, esatus AG, Technical Architect
    11. Markus Sabadello, co-founder, DanubeTech
      1. SSI architect
      2. Involved in the DHS Silicon Valley Innovation Program
      3. Sovrin Founding Steward
      4. Also operator of a Sovrin BuilderNet node
      5. Co-Chair of the Decentralized Identity Foundation Identifiers & Discovery (ID) Working Group
      6. Co-Editor, W3C Decentralized Identifier (DID) Specification
  2. Review of mission and scope
    1. André: we help as a community of practice for ToIP Layer One utility networks
    2. Drummond noted the ToIP Layer One utilities that are either existing or planned that may align with this mission
      1. Sovrin Network
      2. Bedrock Business Utility
      3. Findy (in Finland)
      4. Three forming in Germany—all are well aware of ToIP and aligned with interoperability with it—they are all interested in joining
        1. LISSI (Let's Initiate SSI), formally called SSI4DE (SSI for Deuscheland)
        2. govdigital—consortia of public data center providers in Germany that are planning a utility
        3. ECO Association of Internet companies in Germany
      5. Potential utility in Canada, possibly being incubated by the BC Gov Digital Trust Services team
      6. Austrian consortia that may be interested
        1. Banks, telcos, startups (DanubeTech has been an early participant)
    3. We broadly agreed that ToIP Layer One utilities are the foundational layer for decentralized PKI (DPKI)
  3. Proposed deliverables
    1. ToIP Utility RFP templates
    2. ToIP Utility Best Practices documents
    3. White papers
    4. ToIP Utility website including a directory of ToIP-compatible Utilities and Foundry Service Provider
    5. Workflow decision tree guidance <== proposed by DanG
  4. Potential Initial Work Items
    1. Develop ToIP Utility website and directory of ToIP-compatible Utilities
    2. Develop RFP templates and guides
    3. Develop ToIP Utility Best Practices documents and publishing process
    4. Initiate and maintain repository of relevant white papers and identify ToIP thought leadership white paper opportunities
    5. Build ToIP liaison with Utility projects and provide guidance
      • eco German Association of the Internet Industry (in planning)
      • Interop endeavors of govdigital and Findy
    6. Dan raised the liaison between a particular utility and a particular TIP (ToIP Interoperability Profile)
      1. Dan is interested in using this information to gauge market interest in particular Layer One technologies
  5. LF collaboration tools
  6. Github
    • Structure
      • Github training sessions/tools
  7. WG Chairs
    1. Dan Gisolfi is willing to volunteer (seconded by Drummond due to Dan's leadership in convening the Bedrock consortia)
    2. André Kudra was nominated by Darrell and seconded by Drummond
    3. We agreed to open nominations to the mailing list and formally agree on chairs in the next meeting
  8. Meeting time and cadence
    1. We agreed to stick with this meeting time slot once every two weeks