Thanks to DICE co-founder and DIDAS President Daniel Saeuberli for collaborating on this post.
The Digital Identity unConference Europe (DICE) has been an annual event for the digital identity ecosystem: a gathering of academic institutions, developers, policymakers and business people building the future of interoperable digital identity in Europe. With numerous projects and global community members participating in DICE gatherings, the OpenWallet Foundation has been a fan and supporter of this effort since 2023 when DICE first launched. This post details why we believe in the community of DICE and why it is critical to the future of trust and interoperability in the digital ecosystem.
One of the leading events in the EU where both work and bridge building around interoperable digital identity and verifiable data flows takes place, the DICE community gathers in Zurich on March 4-5 and September 2-4, bi-annually for the first time on the community’s request.
If you are new to the digital identity community, DICE is a unique experience. An “open space technology conference” (aka “unconference”), in which the attendees create the agenda at the start of each day, identifying and collaborating on discussions and working sessions across category, team and topic. For the rest of the day the community joins the sessions they can either learn the most from OR add the most to. At the end of each day, each session briefly updates the conference on their session and notes are handed into the organizers (who then share them as a “book of proceedings” with all of the attendees). These unconference-style gatherings have proven to be instrumental in addressing complex multilateral challenges, accelerating ecosystem adoption, governance challenges, and advancing technical and regulatory frameworks for digital solutions.
This year at DICE, the main focus is ecosystem success: bringing together the community to better understand and support real-world implementations with all stakeholders from s governments and private sector companies, that are adopting these data exchange mechanisms technologies in the market. DICE isn’t an echo chamber, and a big goal for this year is making sure new, interested players in the space who need to adopt these mechanisms, technologies and respective governance frameworks, can find their entry-points.
If you are working on or are just interested in how digital identities and verifiable data exchange can create value extending your organisational processes and value streams to the broader ecosystem your organisation operates in, you will find an opportunity at DICE. This year’s key focus areas include:
- Worker mobility & onboarding (Telco, Banking, Insurance, Compliance)
- Regulatory and governance challenges for verifiable identity ecosystems
- Use case-driven ecosystem growth, methods and tools
- Trust Registry interoperability as a foundation for adoption
- Organisational Credentials extending key value streams and organisational processes
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, participatory events like DICE Europe, DIDAS Association gatherings and its Horizontal and veritcal working groups, and the OpenWallet Forum play a pivotal role in shaping the future of secure, interoperable digital identity ecosystems. These events emphasize unconference formats, fostering innovation and collaboration across governments, industries, and civil society. This is why the OpenWallet Foundation and our community participate in this important event every year.
As DICE co-founder and DIDAS President Daniel Saeuberli has said “Let’s jointly think of a future in which all transactions and interactions become trusted, as their essence becomes verifiable. Authentic data will change digitalization efforts towards becoming truly native ones, in which the main actors retain sovereignty and control. And as a founding member of the OpenWallet Foundation, we remain highly committed to contribute to the OpenWallet Forum efforts as well”.”
Find out more about DICE here: https://lu.ma/DICE2025
The OWF Community is discussing DICE planning on our Discord. Join here.
Throwback: Here’s a Photo from the OWF inauguration call streaming from Zurich (Feb 23, 2023!)
