Progress Summary - May 2018
In line with our efforts to be more vocal, we are delighted to release our first monthly progress summary. We are on track and as committed as ever to make DID a success!
Overall:
This was our first month after the post-ICO hangover and our processes and technology are being finalised. Things are getting smoother with a steady flow of operations now in place. We continue being a team spread all the way from Australia to Mexico and while it has its challenges, it is also our strength. We had great success in terms of technology and we are very near a major sale for the DID system.
Company:
Unlike a few other projects out there, DID employs full-time team members who are geared towards the privacy agenda we started the project with. We are a group of professionals from the field, including some who have left their jobs to join the DID agenda and the team remains intact and as strong as ever.
Direction- Sales
The team has been focused on a pure one-point agenda: to implement the DID system in a real-world environment. We have been hunting sales and we are currently presenting-to and in-talks with:
- A US state department looking to put people’s IDs on the Blockchain
- We are competing to be the main vendor for an EU country’s ID management system
- We are presenting to a state in the Asia-Pacific region looking to modernise their digital records
- DID is in close talks with a government body in Latin America to move their driving licenses onto the Blockchain
- Our quote to an Asia-Pacific venture capitalist firm to check the feasibility of Financial IDs is already in. Waiting …
- We are in talks with two other Blockchain projects to help integrate DID into their systems.
Team:
The following changes have been made within the company to streamline operations:
- Abdullah: As the CTO for DID, he is focusing on the delivery of the technology.
- Sebastien: Is now the General Manager for DID, focusing on day-to-day running of the business.
- Javed: Is now the Liaison manager for the governments, he has been able to swiftly cosy-in with the local and national governments in the UK.
- Kaitlin: now has the added responsibility of looking after our communications including social media.
- Alex: has been given extra responsibility to map out user experience for the DID Login app — design for which is under consideration
- Geoffrey: Is now the Sales Manager for the Asia-Pacific region. True to his professionalism, he has been able to grab us contacts from day-1.
- Dolciebella: Is now the sales manager for Africa — she is putting the DID agenda across to the government in Nigeria & Uganda
- Victor Hugo: Is now the sales manager for Latin America — we just presented to a Govt authority in Latin America — thanks to him
- Blossom: remains in her role to provide necessary technology around the DID infrastructure.
- Audrey: has been deputed back to the parent company to resume her duties there.
Marketing:
We participated in:
- Cold calls to ID issuing authorities in the US, Canada and the EU (yup, cold-calling!)
- Publishing contracts and interviews with three technology correspondents
- Finalising a social media agency for our needs
- Events: We were a part of three events last month. The team has been very focused on making a sale for DID, we will be back on the roads soon.
Foundation:
We are facing considerable problems with setting up a DID Foundation:
- Given the fact that we did not raise enough capital, starting and maintaining a Foundation is sounding like a draw on the company’s resources.
- We had great applications, however we do not have a complete team yet
- Our clients/governments are happier talking to a company rather than a Foundation.
Given all of the above, we are still debating on how to progress with the proposed DID Foundation. Watch this space for further updates…
Technology:
We intended to stabilise our nodes, servers and demos all of the last month. This is what the team has been up to:
- Experimenting with permissioned Blockchains: a request from our prospective clients.
- A study at the UI of our app/demo: The DID login app is a complete cryptocurrency and ID management wallet. Because it encompasses so much, the marketing team was facing troubles giving demos. We therefore separately made a demo-deck to show the system actually working.
- New scheme for data-validation: We just moved to SHA3–512 hashes to store data on an ID card. This is a great step ahead. The DID scheme now uses the top-of-line hashing scheme.
- A DID/ETH-less system: On a permissioned blockchain where there is no mining fee involved, we tested the DID system to observe the speed, agility and immutability of the digital ID data.
- Minor improvements in the current DID Login app include: fixing connections and making them faster, changes to the way ID data is backed up, improved ID restore feature, fixing status of nodes on the app.
- Exploring possibilities / a native app: We will still fall back on the same problem where Apple would not allow apps that use other cryptocurrencies (apart from the major brands) in their app store. Thus, being a complete system where DIDs are actually spent to do an ID transaction, we have no other way but to keep the app web-based.
- Support makes us better: The first month of usage users complained of: missing transactions, slower rate of sending and not being able to import an ID into their wallet. We have been working hard to fix these issues. All users should rest assured that because the private keys are in their hands, the DIDs associated can always be recovered.
- A new website is coming your way soon
Please contact us on +44 207 101 3390 or email info@decentralized.id