July 31, 2020
In the short six weeks since the new members of the Sovrin Foundation Board of Trustees have taken their seats, they have formed a viable path forward for the Foundation. This “path” and other exciting resolutions were presented at the Board’s most recent meeting on July 30, 2020. Below are the highlights from the meeting that the Board would like the entire Sovrin community to be aware of.
After several months focused on reorganization supported by community volunteers, the new members of the Board of Trustees have reached a forbearance agreement in principle with current creditors.
This agreement adheres to a staged repayment approach which is tied to specific financial goals in the sustainability of the Foundation that are not triggered by time. Because of this repayment structure, all financial contributions received by the Foundation at this time will go towards supporting a Minimum Viable Foundation (MVF) and its core activities and not towards relieving debt.
The Sovrin Board and community are grateful to these creditors and acknowledge their extraordinary show of support and belief in the mission of SSI.
In moving from crisis mode to sustainability and growth, the Foundation will proceed in a staged approach starting with a minimum budget of $20,000/mon and a staff of two (a Community Manager and a Network Operations Manager) to support the volunteer efforts.
Following a rousing speech from the Foundation’s Chair Dr. Sam Smith, several members of the community who were in attendance at the board meeting pledged funds to this MVF while the upcoming Foundation membership program is being sorted out. During the meeting, several organizations pledged a donation, including one of our oldest Stewards, Desert Financial Credit Union, and one of our newest, AyanWorks. Other pledges of contributions came from Cloud Compass Computing Inc., DIDx, esatus AG, Evernym, and Trinsic.
Listen to an excerpt from Sam’s request to the Sovrin Community below:
You can donate at https://sovrin.org/donate-to-sovrin/ or email info@sovrin.org to receive an invoice.
In a packed agenda, the stand-out announcement was that the Sovrin Foundation will be joining other leading SSI networks to organize an Indy Interoperability Conference (code name “Indy Interop-athon”) which will focus on the work needed to be done to the Hyperledger Indy and Aries code bases to make the network of networks a reality.
Details about the conference and registration can be found here. In addition to the benefits of further decentralization, resilience and value creation through cooperative network effects, interoperability also brings the goal of Identity for All one step closer, a mission which cannot be achieved with one network alone.
Commenting on this, Sovrin Foundation Vice Chair Stephen Curran said, “The upcoming Indy Interoperability Conference is a key step in enabling a technical foundation for the interoperable use of verifiable credentials in a wide variety of contexts across jurisdictions, business ecosystems and governance frameworks, or in simpler terms, across a network of networks.”
One of the main focuses of the Board is the decentralization of MainNet governance. The process for creating and maintaining criteria for code releases to Sovrin MainNet across various Sovrin governance and community groups will be further defined, increasing transparency and ensuring proper checks and balances.
To move forward on this goal, community members are invited to contribute to this discussion document.
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If you have any questions or would like to discuss with a board member about any of the topics above, please reach out to info@sovrin.org.
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