Main Incubator, Proof Market, and Spherity Become Stewards of the Sovrin Network

April 28, 2020

Provo, UT, April 28, 2020—The Sovrin Foundation, an international nonprofit focused on the advancement of self-sovereign identity (SSI), is pleased to welcome main incubator, Proof Market, and Spherity as the newest Stewards of the Sovrin Network. They join nearly 80 other organizations which volunteer their resources in support of the network’s mission and operation.

“The global adoption of the Sovrin Network continues moving forward with the addition of three more Stewards this month,” said Phil Windley, Chair of Sovrin Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “We are thankful to all of our Stewards for their commitment and dedication to the success of the Sovrin Network as a global public utility for SSI.”

main incubator GmbH is the research and development unit of Commerzbank Group, which is the second biggest bank in Germany. An initiative of 20 entities, with main incubator heading this project group, launched “Lissi.id“—an open identity ecosystem in Germany, which already developed its own software agents based on the open-source frameworks Hyperledger Indy and Aries.

“main incubator, the research and development unit of Commerzbank Group, fosters lasting technology solutions with a purpose, such as Lissi—a German SSI initiative, which is supporting the European idea of data sovereignty,” said Michael F. Spitz, CEO of Main Incubator.

“For us, the Sovrin Foundation is an important community effort that has shaped the topic of self-sovereign identities both content and technology wise like no other. We are very happy to join the Sovrin ecosystem as a Steward, and together we will initiate self-sovereign identity and empower individuals, legal entities, and machines to control their identity,” said Spitz.

Proof Market is delivering instant, privacy protecting digital verification of medical test results on any mobile device, using distributed ledger and open source cryptographic standards supported by governments and global companies. This service is provided under the brand name of PrivateMedCreds, which helped kickstart the COVID-19 Credentials Initiative (CCI).

“The first generation of the internet made it easy to duplicate and share information. It was not easy to assert ownership of information or reliably verify where information came from, until recently. With protocols like distributed ledgers (aka blockchain), it has become possible to assert ownership of information in a manner that an observer can confirm. Now, with SSI, we are able to reliably identify the source of information,” said Tony Rose and Chris Raczkowski, Co-founders of Proof Market.

“It is the combination of these new features, verifiable digital property and digital identity, that create the foundation for the next generation of global economic infrastructure. Proof Market is excited to be at the forefront of bringing identity and trust to the world along with the other leaders in the SSI community,” said Rose and Raczkowski

Spherity GmbH builds cloud SSI wallets and information systems for enterprises, specializing in machine identity and supply chain auditing for highly-regulated industries like pharmaceuticals and mobility. 

“Sovrin represents a unique approach to decentralized identity, which draws its strength from technology leadership, thoughtful governance, and shared infrastructure,” said Carsten Stöcker, Co-founder of Spherity.

“The Indy blockchain and the open-source Aries codebase are driven forward by a wide-ranging coalition of enterprises and communities. We are excited to become Stewards, which will enable us to support German and Europe-wide efforts to build trust frameworks and identity infrastructure from the ground up without starting from scratch,” said Stöcker.

To see a complete list of the Stewards and the rest of the Sovrin Foundation members, please visit https://sovrin.org/membership/.

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About the Sovrin Foundation

The Sovrin Foundation is a nonprofit organization established to administer the Governance Framework governing the Sovrin Network, a decentralized global public network enabling self-sovereign identity on the internet. The Sovrin Foundation is an independent organization that is responsible for ensuring the Sovrin identity system is public and globally accessible.