Sovrin Foundation, a private-sector, international non-profit that was established to govern the world’s first self-sovereign identity (SSI) network announced today that its custom-built distributed ledger for independent digital identities has been accepted into incubation under Hyperledger, the open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies hosted by The Linux Foundation.
The project, Hyperledger Indy, will give people, organizations, and things independent control over their digital identities while giving the enterprise new solutions to the complex challenges of digital identity in general.
Hyperledger Indy’s code base enables creating and managing decentralized, self-sovereign identities using distributed ledgers. It also provides a robust cross-ledger identity management capability to other incubated projects such as Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Sawtooth, Corda, and others.
Phil Windley, Chair, Sovrin Foundation, IIW Co-Founder and Enterprise Architect, BYU said:
“I’m excited about incubating Indy at Hyperledger. Hyperledger is home to world-class blockchain projects from leaders in finance, banking, IoT, supply chain, manufacturing, and technology. We’re honored to join this community and bring a purpose-built identity system that is just as decentralized as they are—and which can interoperate with all of them.”
With Hyperledger Indy, the community gains tools, libraries, and reusable components for providing digital identities rooted on blockchains or other distributed ledgers. For the Sovrin Foundation, being incubated within Hyperledger means Indy will attract more developers who want to unleash the transformative power of digital identity that is decentralized, self-sovereign, and independent of any silo. This joint effort will result in accelerated development to solve digital identity challenges that span not just the different Hyperledger projects, but any device, application, domain, or service on the internet.
Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger explained:
“Identity done right is a critical need for the distributed ledger ecosystem and the world at large. With Hyperledger Indy, we are working to provide a digital identity utility that works for individuals, enterprises and connected things. We need identities that are secure, private, distributed, and interoperable across all our projects, and Hyperledger Indy is a force-multiplier for those efforts.“
Peter Simpson, Executive Director, iRespond commented:
“Many organizations are talking about how independent identity could help refugees and at-risk populations around the world. iRespond is actually implementing this now in Asia, and Africa. iRespond’s solutions will use the Sovrin network which is based on project Indy, so we are thrilled to see Sovrin join the Hyperledger family. I invite Hyperledger developers to help make a critical difference in the lives of millions of at-risk people around the world.”
With digital identities powered by Indy, people and organizations will possess an increased ability to exchange and verify identity information easily, securely and privately. Implementations of Indy can be deployed within a single enterprise or community, across an ecosystem of partners, or for the internet as a whole—the latter being the purpose of the Sovrin ledger as a global public utility for independent identity.
Jim Nussle, CEO, Credit Union National Association said:
“Trust defines the relationships that credit unions have with their members. The CULedger initiative’s purpose is to leverage blockchain technology to provide credit unions and their members with innovative, cutting-edge products and services. Sovrin’s identity service will help credit unions safeguard their members’ identity and personal data, which is absolutely critical to maintaining that trust. Having Indy incubated by Hyperledger is a major validation of CULedger’s leadership in this exciting new industry.”
Timothy Ruff, CEO of Evernym, which developed the original open source code base and helped launch the Sovrin Foundation as an international non-profit in 2016:
“With Hyperledger Indy, people and organizations around the globe can, for the first time, have their own permanent, self-sovereign digital identity that no one can take away, and begin to interact peer-to-peer with complete trust and privacy. We’re excited that Indy will be part of Hyperledger, as it validates the fundamental premise of independent identity, facilitates interoperability, and helps accelerate global adoption.”
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