#1
Blake Hall is founder and CEO of IDme. IDme is a
company that provides online credential verification. Blake is a veteran and an
entrepreneur. His company fills a void created by the inability of the US
federal government to provide secure, mandatory, and verifiable identification
for the citizenry. This failure is one of political will, not of technological
limitation. This is where IDme comes in.
Blake is an Army ranger who served in Iraq in
2006-2007. IDme began life as troopswap.com a way for service members to e-verify
their status and qualify for existing zero cost veterans benefits. From that
point Blake realized there was a large underserved market for identity and cohort
verification.
Blake is a successful entrepreneur because he
recognized a political failing (inability to publicly e-verify citizenry) and
found a market based solution. PRC has an RFID identification card that is integrated
into the national transit system and serves over 900 million citizens. India
has biometric identification mandates tied to wealth transfers to the poorest
of its citizens. Empirically, the
problem IDme is solving is one of political honesty and the role of government
not one of technology. IDme is making a
be that the federal government will continue the existing behavior of monitoring
citizens digital movements without explicitly mandating a comprehensive
identity solution. This gap provides a big opportunity for IDme to thrive in
the foreseeable future.
Identification is critical to any successful city.
Anonymity provides opportunity for criminal behavior that cannot be punished. Identity
is accountability. In a smart city on the hill, privacy is dead, get over it.
#2
Tim, Ben, and Nicole presented non-market strategies
for product (or service) success. To create a consumer market for a device capable
of having a real positive impact on the US mortality rate a carbon monoxe
detector manufacture chose to use nurses, doctors, and state legislatures to
mandate the installation of their devices. An alternate path would have been to
educate consumers so that each individual would see value in the choosing to
install a carbon monoxide detector on their own. Consumer education is
difficult, expensive, and time consuming but will increase maintenance (and
thus effectiveness) of warning devices in the long run.
A theme from Tim, Ben, and Nicole was an acknowledgment
that the existing regulatory environment is well intentioned and directed by
people who are also well intentioned. Impact can often be maximized by working
with these regulators to highlight the positive outcome for consumers or
citizens that the new technology brings.
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