2A/ Meet the NEW Sovrin Foundation
Meet the NEW Sovrin Foundation
Tuesday 2A
Convener: Chris Raczkowski
Notes-taker(s): Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay, Nicky Hickman
Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:
Please see notes, included with the slide screenshots that are provided below.
[Chris R] What is happening at Sovrin and the plans we have. Members of the BoT are also on the call to be able to respond to comments, questions and clarifications.
[Chris] 2020 has been a busy year for Sovrin. There have been adjustments which were undertaken in Q1. Sovrin1.0 (or the old Sovrin) - had a fair amount of uncertainty and concern around the direction as well as financial constraints. The transition team took over during Q2 for the daily operations and stabilized Sovrin financially and from the overall direction of the organization. There is a pipeline of projects which are in the works for Q4 and beyond.
Chris acknowledged the huge help of a tireless team for transition including those not trustees, includes Joyce Searls, Riley Hughes, Paul Knowles, Anna Johnson, Karl Kneis, Drummond Reed, Darrell O’Donnell, Dan Gisolfi and Jason Law
[Sankarshan] As a response to the question from Karn Verma “Could you say a bit about the MainNet for those new to Soverin?
[Stephen Curran] The foundation of Sovrin has been Indy - a very stable product. MainNet has had 100% uptime (there is an upcoming session around the technology of Sovrin). There are stable operating nodes from Stewards
Sovrin is a governance organisation that manages, monitors network, coordinates with Stewards and MainNet, Staging and Builder are all rock solid and high performing.
Sovrin is a “not for profit” business. The BoT has also taken a new approach and a fresh perspective to look at Sovrin as a “sustainable social enterprise”.
Sometimes you have for profit businesses that still have a social purpose, Sovrin remains NPO
There are aspects to Sovrin that are not limited to the utility network. Rather the multiplier effect of the community and stewards contribute to the health and growth of the Sovrin brand.
[Arnon Zangvil] Is Sovrin a democratic institution? [Nicky] Yes @ Arnon, although we don't have voting members. We are going through a process of 'decentralizing governance' making things more open and community led. Not quite there yet, but certainly a benevolent oligopoly at this stage
Christmas Survey coming up to seek and receive feedback from the community.
Question: Sovrin vs ToIP
[Joyce] Can the board members explain the difference between Sovrin Foundation and the ToIP Foundation?
[Phillipe] The relationship between these 2 activities are perhaps a natural one. Drawing upon the work being undertaken in the Guardianship WG, when the Sovrin GF was v2.0 - and yet the solution needed work to be taken up at the both technical and governance levels. The Sovrin Guardianship TF paper led naturally to the “dual stack” which underpins the way ToIP see this.
ToIP is scaling out everyone to a global scale - thus there is a wider representation of community. Sovrin Foundation will continue to do its work as a pioneer (as a first utility network) - and in effect is a practical instance of what is being built in the ToIP.
Sovrin is the instance, ToIP is the class. Sovrin is doing, ToIP is framing
[Chris] ToIP’s origins lie in the Sovrin world but at the same time it focuses on the wider set of requirements originating from the SSI stack.
[Nicky] There are briefings with APAC based communities and groups as part of the open Board meetings. The present set of meetings and engagement timings are US/EU centric. A decentralised and federated model is possibly something to consider. Being guided in our work by the “Identity for All” mission to have a council around I4A.
[Phillipe] I4A allows the Sovrin Foundation to focus on activities across the globe. Identity is not to be looked at in the same way across regions - instead local requirements, nuances and aspects need to be factored into the way designs have been created.
[Karn] How many SSIs are operational in the world today.
[Andre] would like to seek clarification around the usage of SSI
[Stephen Curran] - to interpret it as “how many credentials have been issued”. From a BC Gov perspective - there have been millions of credentials. The specific number will not be possible to declare as a result of the privacy preserving design. Also see https://indyscan.io
[Arnon] So how can we know if you are delivering on the mission?
[Karn] How does Sovrin Foundation measure progress on the mission through metrics?
Key question: How are you able to measure delivery on the mission? Some qual and some quant metrics, but Aaron is right we need to be able to measure this and show our delivery
