Part Deux! Permitify – dFlow in Action

Part Deux! Permitify – dFlow in Action

Day/Session:Wednesday 4F

Convener:John Jordan & Stephen Curran

Notes-taker(s): Stephen Curran

Tags for the session – technology discussed/ideas considered:

</nowiki>#von, #sovrin, #ssi, #government, #verfiablecredentials </nowiki>

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:

The session was a follow on to "A Catalyst For Trusted Digital Ecosystems (Part 1?)" (Tuesday, Session 3A). We began with an overview of the motivation and concepts behind TheOrgBook - a directory of public Verifiable Credentials about organizations or individuals, and the related (usually Government) Services that issue authoritative credentials (registrations, licences and permits) to both TheOrgBook and to the SSI-enabled subjects of the Verifiable Credentials. The slide deck for the presentation is here, and those interested can view a webinar of an earlier version of this presentation.

Next up was a summary of the technical components of TheOrgBookecosystems (perhaps to be called "Hyperledger Indy Catalyst" in the future) that we have in production today as the BC instance of TheOrgBook. That includes:

• TheOrgBook - a Sovrin Agent that has a community wallet holding (currently) over 1.4M Credentials, including one or more for every incorporated (and "Doing Business As") entity in British Columbia. TheOrgBook also has a processing engine for credentials to create a web- and API-accessible searchable directory of organizations based on Name and Credentials held. TheOrgBook is also capable of allowing search on locations of the entities.
• VON-X - a Sovrin Agent designed to make it easy for existing Credential-issuing Services to issue digital Verifiable Credentials - currently just to TheOrgBook, but in the near future to subject organizations directly.

TheOrgBook has been built on Hyperledger Indy software and is anchored in the Sovrin Provisional Network (DIDs, schema, etc.).

We also talked about (and answered a number of questions about) the enterprise-ready elements of the solution, including the horizontal scaling (capable of processing 3,000 credentials/minute), enterprise storage (Postgres database), and supporting tools for development using Docker and deployment using Red Hat's OpenShift Kubernetes platform.

From there, we demonstrated Permitify, an early version of a "dFlow" - a Decentralized Workflow application built on top of TheOrgBook ecosystem. Our workflow challenge is helping (particularly) new and small businesses navigate the myriad of jurisdictions, permits and licences necessary to open a new enterprise - a restaurant, shop or service provider. The problem is usually just left to the business to learn as they go from the various Issuers, although some manually curated directories are available (such as Bizpal in Canada). Neither solution is ideal - the latter because of the workflow variations and ever-changing requirements. The idea behind Permitify is that each Credential issuing organization declares, through their SSI proof requests, the prerequisite permits and/or licences needed to apply for the permit/licence they issue. By iteratively (recursively) and dynamically finding the prerequisites for each credential, the business owner's Agent can provide a roadmap to the goal. Further, by checking their Digital Wallet for those credentials, the Agent can determine exactly where they are on that journey - what verifiable credentials they have and what ones are left to get. The decentralized component of the solution is that each Issuer need only state what they require before accepting applications, vs. the entire, ever changing, workflow for each scenario. The Agent collects the decentralized information and presents it to the Business Owner.

Questions or comments should be directed to: John Jordan, Stephen Curran