2022-3-23 Steering Committee Plenary Meeting Notes

Agenda 

• 2022 Goals and Priorities 

Attendance

• Judith Fleenor (ToIP - Director of Strategic Engagement)
• Drummond Reed (Evernym/Avast)
• John Jordan
• Andre Kudra (esatus)
• Bryn Robinson-Morgan (Mastercard)
• Steve McCown (Anonyome Labs)
• Scott Perry (Scott Perry CPA)
• RJ Reiser (Liquid Avatar)
• Michael Nettles (ETS)
• Elisa Trevino (LF)

• Recording

Link

• Presentation (Google Slides)

Notes

Agenda Review 

Judith Fleenor kicked off the meeting and presented to agenda and the anti trust policy. She went on to share the highlights from our last discussion in February. 1. advocacy that we need to provide support for advocacy of the imporatnad of the stack. 2. Guidance - one need to provide guidance to our working groups so that we can help them understand our larger 2022 goals. Additionally we need a feedback loop to help evaluate the work that's being done within the working groups and to help fill gaps across the foundation. 3. Growth - to bring the right new membership organizations to the table and leverage organizations who are doing this in the market today. Additionally we can identify orgs that have a large name presence in the market that we can leverage to help our efforts to grow. John Jordan mentioned we need to consider the membership fees and growth. Judith Fleenorwent on to add the information regarding the slide Wenjing Chucreated that outlines our 2022 priorities. 

Judith Fleenor mentioned that we Neds to develop the ToIP Stack and a map to help illustrate the path forward for ToIP. In terms of advocacy, what are our goals that we can accomplish in 2022. She mentioned the OSS as an example of whether it makes sense for us to engage and asked for feedback from the Board. Steve McCown asked about the OSS event sponsors. John Jordan mentioned that these events can be very useful and offer visibility across all LF projects. Scott Perry said that he believes we should target the European summit that way we have the time to prepare and have this be a networking event for ToIP, as well as, an in-person meeting a type of ToIP All Hands. Bryn Robinson-Morgan wants to ensure it aligns with our goals and objectives to ensure it makes sense for ToIP. John Jordan believes that the European event is the best option. 

Judith Fleenor mentioned the CA SB 1190 regarding the creation of a CA Trust Framework and pilot project in education. We have an opportunity to write a statement for the Education Policy Committee and perhaps for the assembly when it gets put before them. She asked the Committee asked if the Board approves Judith providing testimony on behalf of the CA SB 1190. Bryn Robinson-Morgan believes this is a great opportunity and asked for a google doc to share content and bullet points on the testimony. Steve McCown agrees this is a great opportunity for us that aligns with the mission of ToIP. Scott Perry inquired about what/how Judith can speak and represent ToIP. Judith Fleenor mentioned that we don't have a formal process or documentation defining representation on guidance on how we represent ToIP with these types of engagements. She mentioned that currently John Jordan is the primary person in terms of quotes in documentation for press releases. Drummond Reed and Bryn Robinson-Morgan both are in favor and agree that this is a good opportunity. 

Judith Fleenor asked what are the deliverables that we want to define for ToIP 2022. Drummond Reed believes technical architecture as the number one priority. He went on to state we focus on detail specifications for Layer one or Layer two, possibly both. Scott Perry believes that creating templates for the various layers for the governance and trust assurance templates for the layers, ideally in Layer 1 and Layer 3 (Layer 2 is still evolving). He went on to say that we can put out what we think, but we need to working group chairs to offer feedback regarding what they believe they can accomplish. John Jordan mentioned that he's been sending people white papers and the design principles where he's getting questions about the technology implementation. He believes Layer two is the layer that creates the confidential connection and that's a big differentiator. He also believes that advocacy is extremely important in our overall effort. Drummond Reed agrees that Layer two is extremely important. John Jordan reiterated that we need speaking points for future opportunities for advocacy. Drummond Reed continued that an explainer of the technical architecture documentation is necessary and the message our efforts so that our mission is represented in our 2022 goals. John Jordan believes there's a missing element in Communications to bridge the gap between what is ToIP and content to consume and understand. We need some type of brochure or video content that helps tell our story and that's easily consumed by the public. Judith Fleenor asked if we need content that speaks to various audiences. Bryn Robinson-Morgan agrees that we need to have content to gain advocacy so that people understand what we're doing and why it's important. This will help across the board for buy in and membership growth and adoption long term. John Jordan mentioned that we need to build a connection between Confidentiality, Confidence, and Authenticity. These words can drive into the principles and then subsequently the design. John Jordan mentioned that we need to identify a set of deliverables that are the communication products that will help us drive membership, have advocacy and adoption.  Drummond Reed stated that the working groups are working to identify the specific goals of the Working Groups for design or usage of the stack. RJ Reiser agrees and mentioned that he's more interested in learning how actually using wallets and principles, how implementation plays a part here. How can we drive more actions, rather than documentation. John Jordan chimed in and said at ToIP, we don't have the implementation, but when there are a group of implementers, they could be aware that we're aligned with the ToIP trust principles. We don't currently have that connection for implementation and ToIP. RJ Reiser asked that if we're interested in Layer two, then we need to get together and see if the peer to peer communication is working or if there needs to be tweaks to the spec that aligns with our overall effort. He believes we need to implement that work so that we can understand if the efforts are successful. Steve McCown jumped in and said that within his company they're building things and discovering issues that arise where code gaps exist and how tools work with each other for the overall efforts. He believes that folks will start inquiring about what is the stack? Then what do I need to do (buy/aquire/build) to connect to the ToIP Stack? Here are the benefits of creating the stack. How do I do it? What product to I need to buy at level one? We need to think about software integration to educate users on how to leverage the stack. We need to help software developers know what they need in order to proceed. Andre Kudra agrees that we need to address these questions and be thinking about this stuff right now. Drummond Reed mentioned that we just have to proceed through progressive levels of detail: we need to get the specs out, then the interoperability requirements and conformance testing. 

Judith Fleenor asked about our advocacy goals to the Board and Michael Nettles asked how do we persuade enterprise level components that ToIP is what they need? He went on to share that if his company didn't use what ToIP is providing, they would have to pay someone to create this for them. He believes that everything doesn't need to be proprietary and that we need to explain that part so that the messaging is being delivered and understood within the community. John Jordan mentioned the Lumedic problem and the needs to describe and satisfy how ToIP can solution the problem and issue many groups are facing. Michael Nettles mentioned the collective needs need to be better articulated so that we can share those in the market. 

Membership Recruitment Judith Fleenor presented Membership Recruitment and what are the areas we should be focusing on to drive new membership. She asked who would the companies that you bring into ToIP and why? Andre Kudra mentioned that we need Bosch who is already active in this space and they're active in large scale, INX who is also SSI focused and within the automotive sector. He also mentioned BMW is in the space and active. He went on to discuss the banks in Germany. Deutsche Bank, Deutsch Bahn, 1&1 and Bundesdruckerei are some of the German identity projects. Steve McCown offered the California legislation, as there will likely be a number of companies who will be a part of this, like Microsoft. He believes that if California is going to adopt verifiable credentials, it's like that other states in the country will follow suit. Additionally, it was announced that Arizona residents can now add their IDs to the Apple Wallet, so this digital credentials are merging on the street and this is a great opportunity for engagement. He went on to mention how can we leverage Apple Wallet, since it's already in place and actively used. He proposed if there's a way to collaborate with some of these organizations. Bryn Robinson-Morgan mentioned that if we create this ecosystem, we need to ensure we have issuers on board. We need a strong value proposition that solve business problems (i.e. universities). We also need organizers, like large hotel groups that are working internationally. We need both the issuers and verifiers. Judith Fleenor asked how we engage these folks to create the deliverables? Bryn Robinson-Morgan believes it depends on where we recruit them from and at what capacity we want them.  Scott Perry shared his plan to drive additional members, via a blog post and press release, he's bringing a marque company–AWS. He's starting a relationship about Layer 1 and the stack. He's actively working to book a meeting. Additionally, Schellman works with many other firms, he believes that this is a great opportunity to drive additional membership. DigiCert was an org that he engaged with previously that he's hoping to pull into the Foundation. Michael Nettles shared that he just met with IMS Global who focuses on next generation transcripts for case standards that might be a potential future member because the work that they're doing, closely aligns with the transmission of credentials. College Board is another organization that Michael Nettles shared. Drummond Reed mentioned Expedia and Marriott as potential members. John Jordan mentioned that when he talks with Manitoba, they're interested since they're a government entity, but they don't have much technical depth, so having a provider like Salesforce or Amazon, this would be attractive and beneficial to them. We need the issuers and verifiers identified so that we can direct folks to the right resources. Salesforce is a good resource to their backend systems and government engagement.