Page History

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• February 24, 2021

Attendees

• John Jordan 
• Drummond Reed 
• Chris Ingrao
• Charles Walton
• Dan Gisolfi
• Christine Leong
• Jessica Townsend
• Hwajeong Hwang
• Steve McCown
• RJ Reiser
• Andre Kudra
• Mike Vesey
• Karl Kneis
• Michael Nettles
• Vladimir Zubenko
• Darrell O'Donnell
• Jim St.Clair
• Steve McCown
• Thomas Plagge
• Wenjing Chu
• Will Groah
• Paul Knowles
• Ken Adler
• Steve Maggenis
• David Luchuk

Agenda 

Presentation/Documents

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• Brief - revenue options (pdf):

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name Brief - ToIP Steering Committee - Revenue Options.pdf height 250

Presentation - meeting agenda (pdf):

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name Steering Committee - Special Topic - Agenda 02.24.21.pdf height 250

Recording

• Link

Notes

Remarks - Special Topic MeetingsIntroductory Remarks 

• David Luchuk opened the meeting with  provided a brief welcome to the first Special Topics meeting of the Steering Committee. He explained that these meetings are meant to provide Steering members with the opportunity to explore important subjects in more detail than is possible during plenary sessions.
• These meetings are not meant to feature voting decisions on proposals that require Steering Committee approval. Those decisions are intended to occur during plenary sessions. 

Good Health Pass - Discussion

• overview of Trust over IP's stable and viable budget situation. This strong position presumes that paid members will choose to renew their Membership agreements, with the majority of those set to renew starting in May 2021.
• Membership renewal, which will be sequenced to align with Trust over IP's shift to a calendar-based fiscal year, offers an opportunity to make potential changes to fee structures and membership tiers in the coming two months.
• David Luchukadvised that Linux Foundation and the JDF organization should be engaged early to ensure there is a clear understanding of why Trust over IP aims to increase revenues and what resources Linux may be able to offer to  help it reach those goals.

Need - uses for added revenue

• David Luchuk offered a brief outline of some possible uses for added revenue including the acceleration of key deliverables, hiring of strategic resources and issuance of value-added contracts to support the Foundation's work.
• Jim St.Clairasked whether Trust over IP has a comprehensive list of needs and possible activities it would aim to support with additional funds adding that it will be easier to start with a complete sense of exactly what the Steering Committee wants and then seek a budget to fit.
• John Jordan indicated that the Foundation will benefit from more time and effort committed from the Program Manager on community engagement and outreach to new and prospective members. Other Linux Foundation projects, for example, feature a "Director of Ecosystem" role in addition to Program Manager.
  • Drummond Reedagreed that more effort dedicated to outreach would ultimately lead to more paid memberships and a more diverse community.
• Jim St.Clairasked whether Linux Foundation places constraints on the manner in which Trust over IP choses to spend its budget.
  
  • David Luchukexplained that it is not a question of constraints being imposed. Rather, Linux Foundation aims to ensure they fully understand what projects like Trust over IP are trying to achieve so that the maximum benefit can be generated from resources and services Linux Foundation has to offer its projects.
•  Will Groahreminded the group that in prior discussions, Steering members had envisioned an order-of-magnitude change in the budget for Trust over IP. He asked whether there was clarity on how much revenue was generated, and how program operations were managed, at other Linux projects.
  • David Luchuk committed to follow up on this question with Linux Foundation and JDF.
•  Karl Kneisindicated that Trust over IP needs to point to progress and deliverables in its marketing and communications. We need to challenge ourselves to produce artifacts that show progress to educate the market on what we are doing. Trust over IP needs to be seen for being more impactful and influential.

Options - open discussion

• David Luchukopened a discussion on potential options for increasing revenue by highlighting possible changes to membership fee structures, potential to pursue a membership drive, opportunity to seek targeted funding through crowdsourcing and fee-for-service approaches such as external certification.
• Jim St.Clair observed that these options are mutually supportive and all ultimately tie back to demand in the market for Trust over IP expertise and products.
• Drummond Reed asked about the role Linux Foundation plays in determining how Trust over IP spends its operating budget.
• Darrell O'Donnell added that our Foundations needs to better understand what we have access to from Linux directly.
  • David Luchuk reiterated that Linux Foundation aims to fully understand what Trust over IP aims to achieve with its budget so that the community benefits as much as possible from services it offers to projects. 
• Will Groahraised the possibility of generating revenues by seeking sponsors for media content, such as webinars and podcasts.
• Karl Kneissuggested Trust over IP aim to learn from external organizations such as ID2020 about how they generate revenue and mange their program operations.
• Drummond Reedsuggested Linux Foundation projects be the starting point for learning about how other initiatives are funded and structured.
• He also shifted the discussion to the question of membership fee structure and the possibility increasing the highest level of fees for large Steering members in our Foundation. 
• John Jordansuggested that increasing Trust over IP's connection to Linux Foundation leadership, so that our work is more visible and better understood, will help create opportunities to grow.
• Jim St.Claircommented on the possibility that Trust over IP could seek grant funding, in some cases, and offer expertise as an independent body as a service with fees attached.
• Darrell O'Donnellraised the difficulty this could create in terms of portioning the work, credit and revenue among participants.
• John Jordanindicated he wasn't convinced this sort of activity was in scope for our community.
• Jim St.Clairasked for clarification on Trust over IP's legal status and its ability to apply for grants, charge fees, offer services.
  • David Luchuk committed to seek further clarity from Linux Foundation.

Conclusions and Next Steps

• Drummond Reed suggested that Trust over IP should set itself the goal raising its profile with, and getting the attention of, Linux Foundation leadership to further its goals and pursuing options to increase revenues
• Charles Walton introduced the Good Health Pass topic by discussing the urgent need to respond to COVID and the severe limitations the pandemic has imposed on global travel.
• MasterCard has made a strategic decision to support this industry and its clients by helping drive the effort to use digital credentials to solve the set of problems associated with interoperable digital vaccination records.
• Many organizations are working on different solutions, each looking at the problem in a different way. There is an urgent need to describe what “good looks like” to advance these efforts towards solutions.
• Charles Walton then presented the Health Pass Ecosystem, and described how it points directly to the Trust over IP model as an approach that will bring the necessary pieces together.
• Under the Ecosystem Foundry Working Group, a Good Health Pass Taskforce is being created to make recommendations for industry and government on the governance framework required for interoperable, privacy-respecting vaccination credentials.
• The target for this work to be complete is March 2021.
• In the coming week, the Good Health Pass Collaborative will be launched with a press release (Feb 9) and webinar (Feb 11).
• Drummond Reed introduced the work underway through IATA and described the ways in which their questions and priorities align with the Trust over IP model (e.g. use of open standards, emphasis on interoperability and development of modular tools).
• The aim of IATA’s effort is to emerge with a set of modular, interoperable tools that combine into one integrated service ... a trust ecosystem.
• This also aligns with the approach being taken by the WHO expert panel, which envisions an ecosystem of-ecosystems model.
• Chris Ingrao discussed the launch of the Lumedic Exchange ecosystem in 2020, which is now producing and sharing verifiable credentials for more efficient healthcare processes. Lumedic is well positioned to share what it has learned in support of the Trust over IP Taskforce for Good Health Pass.
• Dan Gisolfi recommended that 1) a correlation chart be created in this area to better understand which organizations are developing solutions, 2) a parallel Trust over IP announcement be developed to line up with the Good Health Pass launch, 3) a list of vaccination record projects be created along the lines of what the Utility Foundry Working Group has for public utilities.
• John Jordan recognized that many questions need to be answered, and observed that Trust over IP has provided a quote for the Good Health Pass press release.
• Michael Nettles asked 1) what elements of data/information in the Good Health Pass will be unique compared to other trust ecosystems, 2) who the target audience is for an announcement, 3) what is unique about the governance framework for God Health Pass compared to others?
• John Jordan suggested that questions between government jurisdictions, domestically and internationally, related to who can issue credentials and how trust can be established, are central to the ecosystem. The key is to make sure countries are able to apply their laws and policies in using credentials to confirm vaccination.
• Charles Watson observed that airlines may effectively be in the position of having to act as proxies for destination countries in assessing vaccination records, status of variants, border control measures for their passengers.
•  David Lucatch offered for KABN’s PR/Communications firm to work on a Trust over IP press release to align with the Good Health Pass announcement.
• Drummond Reed indicated that a note would go out to All Members announcing the Good Health Pass Taskforce once a meeting schedule is set.

Action items

•  David Luchuk to follow up with KABN on working with their PR/Communications firm for a Trust over IP press releaseLinux Foundation and JDF to request information regarding how other Linux projects generate revenue and structure their operations, as well as to clarify Trust over IP's legal status and ability to generate new revenue through various means.