Welcome to the very first OWF Newsletter! This is meant to be a public resource for telling our story, and more importantly the stories of our projects and the impact this community is having on the global digital ecosystem. We want this newsletter to keep our community connected and informed on everything happening at the OpenWallet Foundation and our work with the OpenWallet Forum.
Share this newsletter with your team or just forward it to someone who might like to learn more about the people, projects and results. They can also subscribe to this newsletter here. If you no longer wish to receive this, please use the UNSUBSCRIBE link below.
Dr. Roman Zoun leads the Digital Wallet value stream at Swisscom, focusing on secure and trustworthy information exchange. He has deep expertise in Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and data privacy, with a solid background in identity management and cybersecurity. Roman is recognized for his sharp market insights and strategic thinking.
Welcome to Stephen Curran, our newest Technical Advisory Committee Member!
Stephen Curran is a veteran open source contributor and Linux Foundation community member. As a maintainer on ACA-Py, Anoncreds and other projects at the Linux Foundation, he has been a leading thinker/doer in the space. The OpenWallet Foundation is thrilled he has joined the TAC to share his experience and knowledge with our projects and community.
The Architecture SIG Needs Your Help
The Architecture SIG is looking for a co-chair to help run the SIG and keep it moving forward.
At the end of September, we signed an agreement with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to establish the OpenWallet Forum. During the opening ceremony of the Global DPI Summit in Cairo, October 1-3, Tomas Lamanauskas, ITU Deputy Secretary-General, announced the formalization of our partnership and launch of the OpenWallet Forum as a unique opportunity to discuss digital wallets as a critical component of Digital Public Infrastructure and digital transformation strategy ensuring secure participation in the digital economy and advance global interoperability.
The OpenWallet Forum will be a catalyst to advance multi-stakeholder cooperation in developing and deploying globally interoperable digital wallets as the impartial assembly for discussing public policy matters related to digital wallets. In this context, the OpenWallet Forum Government Consultative Committee will bring together government representatives with intergovernmental organizations invited as observers. The Forum activities and outcomes will be coordinated with the OWF private sector, including High-Level Panel Meetings and Multistakeholder Collaboration Meetings.
The Technical Advisory Council for the OpenWallet Foundation provides guidance and technical leadership to OWF projects and community. The TAC meets every two weeks for one hour.
Congrats to the Inrupt Solid Data Wallet on being accepted as a Labs project! We are in the process of getting them set up.
Special Interest Group (SIG) Updates:
Safe Wallet SIG
The OWF Safe Wallet Special Interest Group (SIG) has recently released the Safe Wallet Guide. In support of this launch, we have released a blog post and held an “Ask Me Anything” on Tuesday October 1, 2024
The Safe Wallet SIG is looking for two co-chairs to take this SIG into the future. Feel free to reach out to community-architects@openwallet.foundation or Discord ( #safe-wallet-sig) if interested.
Wallets Overview SIG
On October 17, 2024, Wallets Overview SIG Chair Mirko Mollik held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) to share the work of the SIG, the current state of this public resource and where this SIG is going.
With new labs launching and other projects moving to OWF, the new Wallet Interoperability SIG will kick off on Weds November 6, 2024 (Week A). This meeting happens every Weds
Week A: at 7AM Pacific / 10AM Eastern / 16:00 Central Europe. You can find the calendar link here.
Week B: at 8AM Pacific / 11AM Eastern / 17:00 Central Europe. You can find the calendar link here.
Keep an eye on the OWF Discord (#wallet-interoperability-SIG ) to find out more
Articles / Training / Tutorials:
The ACA-Py community is in the process of organizing a meetup to share the work that has gone into the new 1.0 release.
Watch this space (and our Discord, Blog, LinkedIn, etc.) for more information. This workshop will be free for all and will be recorded/posted to the OWF YouTube.
Events:
Where and when the OWF Community gets together.
Internet Identity Workshop (IIW): Mountain View, CA, October 29-31, 2024
Sean, Daniel + Community will be there
It was great to see Board members, TAC members, Project Maintainers and community members here in Mountain View this week.
Blog post wrapping up IIW will be shared next week
FOSDEM: OWF is currently planning to exhibit at FOSDEM in Brussels (Feb 2025). If you have ideas or would like to help, check out the #fosdem channel on Discord.
We have an EVENTS section of the wiki now including:
Community Calendar – In-person events in the identity and digital wallet space
Town Halls – OWF shares our work with the community
AMAs (Ask-Me-Anything) – Our community members share their work, achievements and what’s next
Workshops (coming soon)
What’s Next/Coming Soon:
Future newsletters will be released on a monthly cadence.
