Blog Archives – Hyperledger Foundation

May 17

The power of community: How Kaleido works with Hyperledger Foundation to advance Hyperledger FireFly and enterprise blockchain and digital asset adoption

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger FireFly, Member Case Study

Read the full case study here.

Founded in 2017, Kaleido started with the mission of making blockchain and digital assets simple for organizations to adopt. If enterprises didn’t have to reinvent basic solutions, they could shift their development costs to the business logic for their use cases. That could mean millions more dollars focused on what matters most to companies.

But designing a solution to reduce both the time and cost required to get a blockchain app into production was only half the battle. The rest of the challenge: generating enough adoption to really push enterprise blockchain adoption forward.

Kaleido’s Blockchain Business Cloud was designed to reduce both the time and cost required to get a blockchain app into production. That was great for Kaleido’s clients. But other organizations were still struggling. So Kaleido made the decision to open source the solution, and Hyperledger Foundation was the clear choice as the home for the code base. It was accepted as a Hyperledger Lab called FireFly in June, 2021.

After entering the Lab, the community of contributors and supporters grew. And in September 2021, Hyperledger FireFly became an official Hyperledger Project. The Kaleido team and the rest of the community then set to work getting it ready for production use. By April 2022, Hyperledger FireFly 1.0 was ready for release with version 1.1 coming shortly after in September 2022.

With this development work, Hyperledger FireFly is now the first open source Supernode. The community has built out a full tech stack for enterprises to build, deploy, and scale Web3 applications up to 50-100x faster and with savings of 90% or more on development costs.

While serving as maintainers helping to drive the development of Hyperledger FireFly, the Kaleido team was also engaging with the community as a Hyperledger Foundation member. Through its active involvement, Kaleido has been able to reach thousands of enterprise blockchain builders, increase awareness in this key community, and land new opportunities and customers for its business.

The Hyperledger Foundation team worked with Kaleido on a case study that tells the story of Hyperledger FireFly, including the decision to contribute the code base, the journey from lab to project and the market needs it is addressing. The case study also details the work Kaleido has done to build a contributor community for Hyperledger FireFly and the ways it has leveraged member benefits to increase adoption and visibility for the both project and itself as a company.

Read the full case study here.

May 15

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Blockchain and the Energy Transition: Creating the Platform for a Sustainable Oil and Gas Industry

By Si Chen, Open Source Strategies, Inc. Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Fabric

For the last three years, I’ve been looking at how blockchain could solve the climate problem as part of developing the blockchain-carbon-accounting solution in the Hyperledger Climate SIG. Thanks to Andrea Frosinini, one of the many people I’ve connected with through Hyperledger Foundation, I met Dr. Soheil Saraji, an expert on Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS. This technology captures CO₂ emissions and stores them underground in old oil fields. The meeting turned into a collaboration as Soheil and I have recently finished writing Sustainable Oil and Gas with Blockchain, which is set to be published in June 2023 by Springer.

While writing this book, I’ve discovered what an important role the oil and gas industry could play in solving the climate problem. I’ve also uncovered what I believe may be the biggest opportunity for blockchain, especially enterprise blockchain.

Oil and Gas and Climate

I’ve never doubted that fossil fuels cause climate change.

Working on the book, though, made me realize how much we need fossil fuels to keep the world going. Everything that you’ve touched today used energy, and most of that energy came from fossil fuels. Furthermore, most of those things will continue to need energy from fossil fuels for decades. Even under the aggressive 1.5℃ by 2100 scenario, the IEA predicts that about 70% of the world’s energy will come from fossil fuels in the 2020’s, falling to 48% in the 2030’s and 28% in the 2040’s. (Based on IEA 2021.) Producing those fossil fuels generates a whopping 3 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent emissions per year. It also requires $800 billion to $1 trillion a year in capital investments. (IEA 2022)

So if you’re interested in the climate problem, the oil and gas industry is actually where the action is. We must get it to reduce its own emissions. We must get it to shift its investments to produce zero carbon energy. At the same time, though, the oil and gas industry must keep providing the world the energy we all need just to keep going. This is what the “energy transition” means, and it’s truly a delicate balancing act.

You might think that the oil and gas industry doesn’t want such a transition to happen. I found the opposite to be true. The whole sector is actually very concerned about climate change, because it knows its future, even its existence, depends on solving it. Just about every oil and gas company now publishes its own emissions. Most have a strategy to reduce emissions and are making investments to do it.

Yet there’s no question they need to do more, and do it faster.

Challenges of the Energy Transition

The question is “How?”

Each of the industry’s solutions have significant benefits but also potential downsides. Carbon capture and storage is a proven technology that certainly removes CO₂ from the air, but it could also be used to extract more oil, which would cause more emissions. Biofuels are also a proven technology–you’ve probably already driven a car or even flown in an airplane powered by them. But they only reduce emissions if they don’t cause people to clear cut forests to grow crops for fuel. Hydrogen itself is clean and emission free, but its production and transportation could cause a lot of emissions. Finally, eliminating methane leakage and flaring requires constant monitoring and plugging of leaks.

In each case, whether the initiative reduces emissions depends on its specific production process. So, if the energy transition means higher values for lower emissions, then the industry would have to prove that its emissions reductions are real to get paid for its efforts. The value of the captured CO₂, biofuels, hydrogen, and even traditional oil and gas would increasingly depend on environmental attributes associated with them.

Finally, all these initiatives will require massive – think trillions of dollars – of capital. Will investors pay? They’re already worried that climate change would render the oil and gas industry obsolete. The good news, though, is that those same investors see tremendous growth potential in carbon capture, sustainable biofuels, and hydrogen. Thus, if the oil and gas industry could prove its climate initiatives, it could get much higher valuations from investors and be able to raise the capital it needs on good terms.

Applications for the Blockchain

This is where I think the blockchain comes in.

Blockchain technology could allow the oil and gas industry, its customers, investors, regulators, and the general public to work together faster and more efficiently. Smart contracts could turn the massive volumes of data from IOT sensors, drones, and satellites into metrics. Those metrics could then be used to create tokens, which could be traded or attached to physical products. The combination of metrics and tokens could then be used to prove climate benefits to investors and even structure investments.

I see public and enterprise blockchains working together to do all this. Enterprise blockchains such as Hyperledger Fabric are great with large volumes of data and securing access to trusted parties. Public blockchains could connect larger networks of downstream customers and public investors. Hyperledger Besu and Cacti could help bridge the two, by creating enterprise versions of public blockchains and connecting public and enterprise blockchains.

Where Next?

Oil is the world’s most traded commodity. Oil and gas is one of the world’s biggest industries.

As it transforms to meet the challenges of climate change, the environmental and emissions attributes of oil and gas will be increasingly important in determining its value. This transition of oil and gas from a physical commodity to a digital one is a huge opportunity for blockchain technology, because only blockchains can scale quickly enough to meet the needs of this transition. Blockchains, both public and enterprise, will play a big role in this transformation.

So just as the Wild West of crypto speculation may be coming to an end, the biggest opportunity for blockchain, the technology, could be emerging. For those of us in blockchain, this is a chance to help solve one of society’s biggest challenges while building a whole new generation of software businesses.

For more information about the book and related works on a sustainable oil and gas industry, see SustainableOilGas.com

May 10

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Cardea, a privacy preserving open-source ecosystem for verifying health data, joins Hyperledger Labs

By Ken Ebert and Keela Rose Shatzkin, Co-Chairs, Cardea Working Group Blog, Healthcare, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Labs, Identity

Cardea, a complete open-source verifiable credential ecosystem for sharing health information in a way that preserves patient privacy, has been accepted as a Hyperledger Lab.

Cardea emerged from a project to share proof of Covid 19 test status for entry to Aruba. Developed by Indicio, a leading developer of privacy-first decentralized identity and verification solutions, for SITA, the leading global supplier of IT to the air transport sector, the solution went on to win an EIC and SuperNova award for advancing decentralized identity.

Cardea contains all of the necessary components to issue, share, and verify a variety of health information using decentralized identifiers, a mobile application, and a distributed ledger. The unique parts of the codebase were built on Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries and originally donated by SITA as the Cardea Project to Linux Foundation Public Health, where it was further developed to address the broader need for a complete open source solution for sharing health data in a privacy-preserving and secure way. (Read this white paper for a deep dive into how Cardea works and some of the initial use cases.)

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Be sure not to miss our next meeting on 5/11/2023 at 12 noon Eastern Time featuring Sarah Samis, VP of Public health Products and Platforms of GCOM, on vital records!
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Preserving privacy is a critical need both for digital health credentials and travel passes. A recent poll from IATA highlighted that 78% of passengers who took part in the survey will only use a travel health credential app if they have full control over their data.

Data privacy and security are equally critical in healthcare. In 2021, 93% of healthcare organizations experienced a data breach, while 57% of healthcare organizations have had more than five breaches. By using a decentralized approach we are putting control of the end user’s data back into their own hands to store locally on their own verifiable credentials, reducing both the impact of these breaches and the incentive for bad actor’s to attempt them.

By becoming a Hyperledger Lab, Cardea aims to empower public health authorities to design, build, and deploy open-source, privacy-first, and simple-to-use digital health solutions. With this technology, the community can work together to reopen economies without people having to give up their privacy.

“With the migration of Cardea to Hyperledger,” says Heather Dahl, Indicio’s CEO “Indicio has taken the lead on privacy-first decentralized identity technology. And as a Public Benefit Corporation, we believe that open sourcing decentralized identity technology through Hyperledger Foundation will lay the foundation for a better, fairer world to come.”

To learn more about how you can participate in the Cardea lab, keep an eye on our wiki: https://wiki.hyperledger.org/display/labs/Cardea+Lab or sign up to receive emails at https://lists.hyperledger.org/g/labs

Apr 27

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Introducing Kubernetes operators in Hyperledger Bevel with Bevel-Operator-Fabric

By Sownak Roy and Suvajit Sarkar, Hyperledger Bevel Maintainers Blog, Hyperledger Bevel, Hyperledger Labs

We are excited to announce that hlf-operator, a Hyperledger lab, has been integrated into Hyperledger Bevel and has been renamed Bevel-Operator-Fabric.

With this addition, Hyperledger Bevel has taken a stride towards unifying Hyperledger technologies that are intended for deployment of blockchain networks. This integration will bring together the expertise from these different tools and create synergy in the community to allow more interest and growth opportunities.

Adding Bevel-Operator-Fabric is an important milestone for Hyperledger Bevel and a step towards the redesign of Bevel with support for Kubernetes operators to achieve DLT (distributed ledger technology) network deployments and automation.

What is Hyperledger Bevel

Hyperledger Bevel is an automation tool for deploying consistent, production worthy DLT platforms on cloud. It provides three key aspects – security, scalability and acceleration for DLT deployments.

It provides a secure environment for your deployments by utilizing the best practices of key management, which is available by default in the solution.
It is a truly scalable solution allowing the platform to be used for early POCs and pilots and then scaled-up to run in a true production environment.
It is an accelerator that provides a proven architecture pattern to the whole DLT community; with Bevel you can create a dev or test environment in under an hour and cut development time from weeks to hours.

Hyperledger Bevel currently supports deployment of R3 Corda open source and enterprise, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, GoQuorum and Hyperledger Besu. It uses ansible scripts and helm charts responsible to achieve the desired DLT network state on Kubernetes and uses Flux GitOps for automation.

What is a Kubernetes operator

As Kubernetes application complexity increases and requirements become non-generic, managing the deployments becomes difficult. Kubernetes Operators solve this problem by creating custom resources having domain-specific schema, and controllers baked with domain intelligence responsible for maintaining the desired state. Operators combine custom resource definitions (CRDs), and custom controllers. They intend to eliminate the requirement for manual intervention while performing tasks such as upgrades and handling failure, which makes them more resilient and self-sufficient.

What is Bevel-Operator-Fabric

Bevel-Operator-Fabric is the first of the different sets of Kubernetes operators that Hyperledger Bevel will ultimately support. As the name suggests, it is a Kubernetes operator for managing Hyperledger Fabric networks. Bevel-operator-fabric enables developers to define Hyperledger Fabric components in the form of custom resources and associated controllers to manage the lifecycle of those components.

Bevel-operator-fabric has two components to it.

Operator
Kubectl-hlf plugin

Operator runs on Kubernetes and tries to bring the current state to the desired state, a process called reconciliation. The kubectl-hlf plugin is used to create the custom resource and send the commands to the operator. It also provides an abstraction to create CRDs.

When to use what?

Both Hyperledger Bevel and Bevel-operator-fabric allow deployment of Hyperledger Fabric on Kubernetes cluster, and support network operations such as adding peers and orderers, creating channels, installing chaincode, etc. Bevel provides users with secure, scalable, and declarative environment state for Hyperledger Fabric and other supported DLT deployments, whereas bevel-operator-fabric provides Fabric deployment using operator pattern in discrete and procedural steps.

Users having the need to rapidly and consistently setup production ready DLT networks should consider Hyperledger Bevel, whereas users needing to deploy Hyperledger Fabric components quickly and have operator pattern in place should consider Bevel-Operator-Fabric.

What is next?

In addition to ongoing enhancements and operational features for its currently supported DLT platforms, the Hyperledger Bevel development roadmap includes refactoring its helm charts and adding them to the helm repository. This will allow users to work with Bevel helm charts independent of its configuration management suite. As a result, bevel-operator-fabric and other future bevel operators will be able use Bevel-provided self-dependent helm charts.

We welcome all suggestions and contributions to take Hyperledger Bevel to the next level. To learn more, check out the Hyperledger Bevel channel on Hyperledger Discord.

Apr 25

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The DLT Landscape Becomes the Hyperledger DLT Landscape

By Csilla Zsigri, Chief Strategy Officer at BTP Blog, Education

We are excited to announce that today the DLT Landscape officially becomes the Hyperledger DLT Landscape.

The DLT Landscape is an open-source market segmentation initiative – modeled after the CNCF Landscape – that BTP initially launched in April 2021. See our original blog post The DLT Landscape Has Landed.

The creation of the DLT Landscape was inspired by the growing complexity of the evolving enterprise blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) market, more specifically, the increasing number of projects and companies innovating in areas outside of the core distributed ledger layer, which considerably transformed the vendor landscape in this space.

In the early days, a number of blockchain and distributed ledger protocols emerged catering to enterprise requirements and use cases, and were essentially the center of all activity. Since then, the enterprise blockchain/DLT space has evolved tremendously, with development focus and innovation moving up the stack, and conversations shifting from technology to business value.

With innovation blossoming at the intersection with other technologies – whether emerging or more established – as well as in areas such as interoperability, smart contracts, tokenization, and usability, among other things, the DLT vendor landscape has changed immensely.

The DLT Landscape was designed to address confusion over terms and where specific offerings and projects fit, whether open source or proprietary. In my prior life as a technology industry analyst, I often found that people were using the same terms for different things or different terms for the same thing, creating a lot of confusion, especially in the complex world that is DLT.

Additionally, the DLT Landscape – I believe – is a pretty useful tool for better product and project positioning, as well as partner and go-to-market strategies. We at BTP have been using it extensively in conversations with potential partners and clients.

Below you can see the initial framework or segmentation behind the DLT Landscape open-source initiative – which resembles a technology stack, but in my opinion is better defined as a business stack with a technology foundation. Regardless of difference of opinions on what it looks like, this is how the DLT Landscape journey started.

By using the CNCF Landscape code – which is obviously open source, and used across many Linux Foundation projects – we were able to transform this framework into an interactive, living market segmentation (web) application. Below there is a snapshot of me presenting the DLT Landscape – in its element – at the European Blockchain Convention in 2021.

Structurally, the DLT Landscape starts with the compute infrastructure layer at the bottom and goes on to distributed ledgers, technology intersections, interoperability, smart contracts and tokenization, application tooling and integrations. It also features the multiparty application layer at the top. On the two sides, you will find platforms, standards, and services. These are key layers and pillars that either represent critical technology components or provide key tools to drive the adoption of DLT.

We decided to contribute the DLT Landscape to the Hyperledger Foundation because we believe that it will help put all Hyperledger projects – that also evolve alongside the market – in context, as it provides a better understanding of the broader market, as well as where specific projects fit.

The brand-new Hyperledger DLT Landscape can be found here.

We invite the Hyperledger community – as well as the entire DLT market – to help shape it and evolve it. Don’t hesitate to reach out and/or submit a pull request!

About the Author

Csilla Zsigri is Chief Strategy Officer at BTP, a digital provenance company, a GBBC Ambassador, and a regular blogger and speaker on the subject of blockchain and associated concepts and technologies.

Apr 18

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Namaste 2023 – New Beginnings at Hyperledger India Chapter!

By Deepika Karanji, Co-chair, Hyperledger India Chapter Blog, Regional Chapter

2022 was a very successful year for the India Chapter, with both in-person and virtual events spanning across not just India, but internationally as well. Ably led by Arun SM, Staff Engineer at Walmart Global Tech and Kamlesh Nagware, CTO at Snapper Future Tech, the chapter saw increased community participation in 2022.

The chapter hosted several webinars, meetups, panel discussions and technical hands-on workshops, with experts in the field sharing insights on several exciting opportunities in blockchain:

The Women in Blockchain Webinar series, conducted in association with Saintgits College of Engineering, featured eminent women in the blockchain space sharing their thoughts on blockchain for social good, industry applications of blockchain, developer perspective from Web2 to Web3 and contributing to open source.
Blockchain Techfest ’22 was an event held to celebrate Hyperledger India’s 4-year anniversary. The event saw maintainers and blockchain evangelists discussing ESG, tokenization and the Metaverse.
Blockchain Stories was yet another in-person event where Julian Gordon, VP, Asia Pacific, Hyperledger Foundation and OpenSSF at The Linux Foundation, attended as the keynote speaker. Industry leaders from across the geographies spoke about the advancements in blockchain research and enterprise adoption of the same.
Other country-wide events included meetups, technical workshops and Hyperhack, a hackathon that garnered participation across the APAC region!
On the international front, we saw notable representation of India at Hyperledger Global Forum 2022, held in Dublin, Ireland. Some of the Indian speakers were Deepika Karanji, Arun SM, Vikram Sharma and Kamlesh Nagware. Ravi Pratap Singh, a student contributor to the India Chapter and Hyperledger mentee, got a full scholarship to attend the event.

As of 2023, Arun SM has been elected as the Vice Chair of the Hyperledger Foundation Technical Oversight Committee and will be stepping down as co-chair of the India Chapter. Taking over the baton as co-chairs are Vikram Sharma, Blockchain Practice Lead at HCL Technologies, and Deepika Karanji, SDE2 at Walmart Blockchain. Kamlesh Nagware will continue as co-chair in 2023.

In a proactive move to streamline processes and to improve community outreach further in 2023, the Hyperledger India Chapter has revamped the team structure. A team of leads, working with the newly appointed co-chairs, will be overseeing specific domains.

The new team consists of:

Event & Engagement Leads – Rajesh Krishnan & Ritu Jain (She/Her)
Student Society Leads – Ravi Pratap Singh & Pramod Dhumal
Developer Advocates – Kartikey Kashyap, Aditya Joshi & Nidhi Singh

One of the key values at the chapter is to recognize community contributors for their hard work. The new team structure aligns with that focal point, with each of the succeeding co-chairs and leads having put in noteworthy efforts to support the chapter in the last year.

Additionally, in an effort to increase dialogue and participation this year, we are now on Twitter and Reddit.

As we kickstart Hyperledger India’s new innings, we look forward to seeing greater engagement in the community, onboarding more folks, brainstorming on fresh ideas, hosting debates and discourse on everything blockchain, and using the key learnings from these discussions to take ideas to fruition!

Exciting things ahead. 2023, here we come!

Apr 12

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Calling the Next Generation of Open Source Blockchain Contributors: Applications are Open for the 2023 Hyperledger Annual Mentorship Program

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Mentorship Program

Looking to get a jumpstart on a software career? Want to roll up your sleeves and dive into open source or blockchain development? Ready for some one-on-one mentoring and a project that will help drive a technology ecosystem forward? Then now is the time to apply for the annual Hyperledger Mentorship Program.

Now in its seventh year, the Hyperledger Mentorship Program provides a structured and guided learning opportunity for anyone, at any career stage looking to gain exposure to or entry into the Hyperledger open source development community. The program offers mentees an opportunity to hone not only their development skills but also gain real experience in collaborating with a global open source community working on complex cutting edge technologies.

This year, there are 30 projects focusing on coding, documentation and/or research. Each project is designed and proposed by active members of the Hyperledger community. Those who propose the projects serve as the mentors and work closely with their mentees on developing a project plan, setting milestones and solving problems.

Mentees can expect regular evaluations and feedback as well as a stipend. Mentees will also have the opportunity to showcase their work through blog posts and speaking opportunities at meetups and conferences. They may receive free tickets to attend our global events. For more about the program, including the schedule and stipend details, go here.

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Learn even more about the program, including both the project and application processes, from active mentors and past mentees by watching this session on How to Apply to Hyperledger’s Annual Paid Mentorship Program.

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This global program draws mentees and mentors from around the world. To date, there have been mentees from 25 countries, spanning North, South and Central America as well as Europe, Asia and Africa. Their code, research, and documentation contributions have helped advance the Hyperledger code base. For many, the skills, experience and networks they built have also accelerated their professional, academic, and research careers.

Read on for descriptions of some of the projects planned for this year.

Hyperledger Bevel documentation redesign
Project focus: Documentation, Research

Documentation serves best when understood and designed based on user needs. Although Hyperledger Bevel current documentation is comprehensive and robust, it still requires improvement and can be much more effective and useful if designed based on user and community needs. The project scopes to structure the existing documentation of Hyperledger Bevel and redesign it from the perspective of user personas and their deployment needs. It would equally benefit product users and developers, and increase usability and adoption.

The learning objectives for this project are

Hyperledger Bevel concepts, features and operations
Documentation techniques and best practices
Hyperledger Bevel community, users and use cases

The expected outcome of this project is

Complete redesigned of documentation based on the decided structure and theme

Hyperledger Cacti: Ledger Data Sharing with Proof in Hyperledger Besu and Ethereum
Project focus: Coding, Documentation, Research

Hyperledger Cacti provides a protocol and trigger mechanism for the sharing of ledger data or data derived from smart contracts (called “view,” and identified by a “view address”) deployed in a network with another network using relays for communication and consensus-driven proof generation and verification in the end networks. Some parts of the protocol are generic and DLT-agnostic, but others, specifically protocol drivers or connectors and core ledger operators (typically built as smart contracts, are DLT-specific.

Presently, Cacti provides DLT-specific data sharing mechanisms for Hyperledger Fabric and Corda. The goal of this project is to add similar support (i.e., build modules, plugins, and APIs) for permissioned networks built on Hyperledger Besu. As an optional extension, these mechanisms will then be extrapolated to share data to and from public Ethereum. This will involve designing and basic building blocks or capabilities for view proof generation, proof verification, and access control of remote data requests, in the form of smart contracts. Higher up the stack, the Cacti SDK for Besu must then be augmented to enable network apps to trigger data sharing requests and submitting the responses for validation to local smart contracts.

The initial phase of the project will require some research and design that builds on existing research done by Cacti maintainers. The implementation will be validated by demonstrating data sharing among test networks within Cacti built on Besu, Fabric, and Corda, and using sample apps available in Cacti. If time permits, the end-to-end data sharing protocol can also be augmented with end-to-end confidentiality features whereby the data and proof are kept confidential from the relays, which are intermediary communication modules.

The learning objectives for this project are

Multi-hop protocol design and implementation, and understanding how operations can be distributed and decentralized
Blockchain development on Hyperledger Besu and Ethereum
Art of writing good documentation, both targeted at developers and at users
Designing software with security and privacy considerations in mind
Science of blockchain interoperability

The expected outcomes of this project are

The following features are expected to be completed by the end of the project:
- Besu protocol driver for data sharing
- Besu interoperation module with core ledger operators for proof generation, proof verification, policy management, membership management, and access control
- Besu SDK augmented with data sharing trigger capabilities
Sample applications and end-to-end data sharing test runs for networks built on Besu, Fabric, and Corda (data sharing for Fabric and Corda is already available in Cacti)
Documentation: setup instructions, RFCs, tutorials
(Optional) Extrapolate mechanisms built for Besu to support data sharing in public Ethereum
(Optional) end-to-end confidentiality (i.e., encryption and decryption) support for data sharing to/from Besu networks

Telecom Decentralized Identities Network (TDIDN)
Project focus: Coding, Research, Documentation

The proposed integration of Decentralized Identity (DID) with telecom services aims to provide customers with a secure and convenient way to manage their digital identities, while also offering telecom companies an opportunity to become trusted identity brokers. The integration addresses the challenge of maintaining customer engagement by enabling customers to have a single identity that they can use to access services. The integration also presents a significant opportunity for telecom companies to become identity brokers, leveraging their existing customer base and regulatory relationships. As issuers of verified KYC information, telecom companies can support identity verification by offering APIs to third-party service providers. The integration of DID with telecom services has the potential to revolutionize the telecom industry and offers significant benefits to customers and operators alike.

The learning objectives for this project are

Develop a deep understanding of Decentralized Identity (DID) and its potential applications within the telecom industry.
Analyze the specific challenges faced by telecom companies in maintaining customer engagement and potential solutions for these challenges through DID integration.
Evaluate the regulatory requirements and compliance standards for DID integration within the telecom industry and develop strategies for ensuring compliance with these requirements.
Build the technical skills necessary to implement DID integration with telecom services, including understanding API integration, security protocols, and verification processes.
Develop a comprehensive project plan for implementing DID integration with telecom services, including defining project scope, identifying stakeholders, developing a timeline, and managing project risks and challenges.
Collaborate with other team members and stakeholders, including Telecom SIG, telecom companies, regulatory bodies, and third-party service providers, to ensure the successful implementation of the project.
Monitor and evaluate the impact of DID integration on customer engagement, fraud prevention, and convenience in managing digital identities, and identify opportunities for further improvements and enhancements.

Expected outcomes: The intern will join the Hyperledger Telecom SIG meetings, mailing list, and chat room in developing the following:

A functional DID-based telecom application: The main outcome of the project would be a fully functional application that allows telecom companies to authenticate their customers using decentralized identity (DID) technology. This application will be built using Hyperledger Indy and Aries, two open-source blockchain frameworks specifically designed for building secure and decentralized identity systems.
Improved user privacy: The application will provide users with more control over their personal information and allow them to manage their identity in a decentralized manner, leading to improved privacy and security. By using Hyperledger Indy and Aries, users can be assured that their identity information is stored in a secure and tamper-proof manner.
The telecom application will be built using open standards such as DID and Verifiable Credentials, which will ensure that it is interoperable with other identity management systems that use the same standards. This will enable the application to integrate with other DID-based applications and systems, leading to increased interoperability across the ecosystem.
An ability to monitor and evaluate the impact of DID integration on key metrics, such as customer engagement and fraud prevention, and identify opportunities for further improvements and enhancements.
The project will involve creating documentation and tutorials that will help developers understand how to use Hyperledger Indy and Aries to build DID-based applications. This will help increase the adoption of decentralized identity technology across telecom industry.
A valuable experience in implementing cutting-edge technology within a complex industry, and a deeper understanding of the potential for blockchain and decentralized technologies to transform traditional business processes.

The Hyperledger Mentorship Program is part of the Linux Foundation’s overall commitment to mentoring. The application process is being managed through LFX Mentorship, a platform created by the Linux Foundations to train future open source leaders.

Check out the full list of mentorship projects and start your application today. The deadline to apply is May 15. We encourage applications from diverse communities. All are welcome here!

Apr 11

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Why Hyperledger Foundation Sponsors, Attends and Works at Internet Identity Workshop

By Sean Bohan, Community Architect Blog, Hyperledger AnonCreds, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Ursa, Identity

Since the launch of Hyperledger Indy, a DLT purpose-built for decentralized identity, in 2017, Hyperledger Foundation has been a proud sponsor, attendee and contributor to the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) community. We continue that commitment in 2023 and welcome new and existing Hyperledger community members to join us at IIW. Not only is it a good event with great people, but it is an event/space/community where the work is getting done.

“IIW is not the place where CEOs gather to spread their feathers and show off. That’s one reason it’s the most leveraged conference in the world. Actual work happens at IIW, and all of that work is toward starting and moving projects forward. It’s where fully constructive people and organizations such as Hyperledger Foundation come to roll up sleeves and get together with participants old and new, to make new connections and leave knowing more, doing more and working faster on stuff that matters.” — Kaliya Hamlin, Doc Searls and Phil Windley, IIW Organizers

Identity, privacy, anonymity and agency have been intrinsic concepts for the blockchain and decentralized technology ecosystem since the beginning. Even before Satoshi’s whitepaper was released, the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) was a twice-yearly “gathering of the clans” for the identity space. It has a long tradition of being where connections are made, projects are presented, code is shared, (vigorous) debate occurs, and people of varied and diverse skill sets who are passionate about these topics work to bring these solutions to life.

“Hyperledger Foundation’s presence at IIW means that the projects that we believe are central to advancing decentralized identity — Hyperledger AnonCreds, Hyperledger Aries, and Hyperledger Indy — have the presence they need to receive the attention they deserve from the community. As Indicio relies on these Hyperledger projects we, as a longstanding attendee of IIW, are grateful for Hyperledger’s presence and support.” — Sam Curren, Senior Architect and Deputy CTO, Indicio

Hyperledger Foundation is a sponsor of IIW because it is a rallying point for the decentralized identity community, including those contributing to Hyperledger and other LF Identity projects as well as standards and technologies such as W3C Verifiable Credentials and DIF. We look forward to attending for a number of reasons, including:

Potential users of and prospective contributors to Hyperledger projects are at IIW, and we want to meet them.
Stephen Curran and Timo Glastra, new members of the Hyperledger Technical Oversight Committee, will be there talking about Hyperledger technologies and community.
Contributors and maintainers working on Hyperledger identity projects like Hyperledger Indy, Aries, Ursa and now Anoncreds are there to gather, share, hear feedback and work. This list includes Char Howland, Sam Curren, Berend Sliedrecht, and many others.
For the Linux Foundation, IIW is an open forum where other LF Digital Trust initiatives like Open Wallet Foundation, Decentralized Identity Foundation and Trust Over IP can cross-pollinate ideas, get direct feedback from the community, find consensus on direction and build relationships.
IIW is where members of the ecosystem gets to roll up their sleeves. One great example of this is the DIDComm Connect-a-thon.
The most engaged and vocal thinkers and doers in the identity space are at IIW, and it is a critical opportunity for the team to collaborate with them in person, gather their insights and work that feedback back into our community.

Hyperledger Foundation’s sponsorship of IIW takes different forms for every event, but we as a team feel supporting this community is critical to the identity ecosystem in general and Hyperledger identity projects. We are thrilled to fund the incredible work that goes into putting on each IIW, the community that emerges and the work that results.

Please join us April 18, 19 and 20 for IIW #36. Hyperledger community members save 20% using this link.

If you want to find out more about Hyperledger identity initiatives, please check out

Mar 30

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Spotlighting #HyperledgerWomen: Stories from front lines of community building—Ursula O´Kuinghttons, Web3 Foundation

By Hyperledger Blog, Community Spotlight

To celebrate #HyperledgerWomen and their contributions to our community, we are asking a cross section of the many women leaders in our community to share stories about their careers, what brought them to the blockchain space, what projects they’re excited about and advice they’ve received or have to share. In this series, we will share stories from a diverse group of #HyperledgerWomen who are driving progress in our community, and in the industry at large.

Today, we hear from Ursula O´Kuinghttons, Director of Communication and Partnerships at the Web3 Foundation.

What brought you into the blockchain space?

I entered the blockchain ecosystem driven by my curiosity. I first heard about Bitcoin in 2010 while in Israel, but I didn’t grasp the concept until 2012, when I lived in Phoenix and attended a local meetup, seeking friends and a sense of community. What intrigued me most was the potential of this groundbreaking technology to revolutionize the media industry.

Why do you believe in blockchain technology, and in what ways do you think it will change the way we live and work?

I believe blockchain technology, although over a decade old, is still evolving rapidly. Traditional industries are increasingly interested in learning about and adopting blockchain. Many young professionals are already experiencing a shift in their work dynamics. In Latin America, for example, communities are quickly recognizing the value of decentralization and autonomous work, often out of necessity.

How is Web 3 changing the way users interact with online infrastructure?

Web3 has decentralized communication, with online forums and platforms like Crypto Twitter acting as public square for announcements and even controversies.

What projects are you most excited about?

Two projects related to the media industry captivate me. One is Cogency, a collective that involves traditional media giants such as Condé Nast, Reuters, Le Echos, and the Washington Post, where we explore the potential of Web3 technology for the evolution of the media industry, with a focus on decentralized identities. The other initiative is Project Liberty, which aims to strike a balance on the internet by partnering with Frequency (built on the Polkadot blockchain), a protocol for decentralizing social networks that most recently integrated with the California-based MeWe, with 20 million users. In general, advancements in the cultural and entertainment industries will significantly influence the blockchain sector. These industries will also contribute to the global adoption of blockchain technology.

What has your experience been like as a woman in the blockchain and tech sectors?

Although both industries are predominantly male I’ve seen an evolution, with more women venturing into these traditionally male-dominated spaces. However, there’s still a long way to go. The rapidly evolving technology is demanding, and balancing motherhood and professional life can be challenging.

What advice do you have for women interested in open source development or communities?

I encourage them to embrace the unknown, overcome fear, stay curious, and be daring in their pursuit of knowledge.

What was the best advice someone gave you?

Juan Luis Cebrian, the founder of El País and president of the Prisa communication group, was my mentor early in my journalism career. His advice, “A journalist who doesn’t persist is no journalist at all,” left a lasting impression. Persistence is crucial in finding solutions in life.

Mar 30

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Spotlighting #HyperledgerWomen: Stories from front lines of community building—Heather Dahl, Indicio

By Hyperledger Blog, Community Spotlight, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

Today we hear from Heather C. Dahl, CEO of Indicio.

What brought you into the blockchain space?

I’ve been involved in digital identity and privacy for over a decade. All paths led to decentralized identity as the solution to the challenge of identity verification — and blockchain is a key part of that solution. When we launched Indicio in 2020, one of our first goals and achievements was to launch a Hyperledger Indy-based network that was capable of supporting enterprise-grade solutions. We’ve built the Indicio Network into a global suite of networks to satisfy any and all developer needs.”

Why do you believe in blockchain technology and in what ways do you think it will change the way that we live and work?

Distributed ledger technology is a core component in creating a verification layer for digital interaction based on decentralized identity and using verifiable credentials. It is difficult to understate the need for this verification layer. It’s not just about correcting a theoretical defect in the internet when it comes to identifying people and things; it’s about the unsustainable cost of fraud, and it’s about the ability to source identity and trust data in a massively scaled digital world of connected devices, digital twins, and omnipresent AI. The developments in natural language processing over the past few months alone signal the urgency for an infrastructure capable of generating trust in interaction. Blockchain helps to deliver this.

Why is digital identity important for a decentralized future?

The digital realm is a dimension of life that we increasingly inhabit and rely on to make the physical dimension work. Parsing what this means for our hybrid reality means stepping back from the ubiquity of digital interaction and — to borrow an Orwellism — seeing what’s in front of our face. Digitally, it’s the mystery of identity. Who am I dealing with? How can I trust that they are who they say they are? How can I trust their data? We’ve had thousands of years to figure out how to do this in the physical world but these processes don’t yet work well online. A physical passport is engineered to be hard to copy but that gets lost in translation to the digital realm — until now. The combination of technologies in decentralized identity are capable of inscribing origin and uniqueness into digital information, of rendering it verifiable. As this verification is frictionless, you now have immediately actionable data, which is the building block for seamless digital processes. And you can verify without sacrificing privacy. And you can interact over encrypted peer-to-peer channels. Now, as this technology is interoperable, you can take your identity — really, any information that can be rendered in a digital credential — and use it anywhere.

What projects that you are working on get you most excited?

Right now, our work with SITA on an implementation of a digital travel credential (DTC) following the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) DTC standards is a showcase for how verifiable credential technology creates seamless experiences. Imagine a world where you can check in at home and then use a digital credential to board your plane, cross a border, and enter your hotel room without friction. That’s the world we’re building. I’m also excited about using the same technology to transform financial interactions, which we’ve done with the recent launch of Indicio Proven Finance. Imagine being able to prove you are an account holder with a verifiable credential instead of a login, password, and multi-factor authentication. Just think what this will do for payments, and what a KYC credential will do for mortgage applications and for seamless third-party financial services. This is a technology that benefits business, government, and consumers because it makes everything simpler and more secure.

What has your experience been like as a woman in the blockchain space and in tech more broadly?

I could write the response that everyone expects because the cliches are cliches for a reason: they’re true. Instead, I’ll say this: My goal as a CEO at Indicio was and is to build a diverse company. That can be a challenge for a startup as, after all, our resources are not those of a global enterprise. Nevertheless, it has been a priority to recruit and retain women in the company and especially in engineering. The key, here, is to provide the mentoring and model the teamwork needed for each employee to succeed.

What advice do you have for women looking in open source development/communities?

Get involved. These communities are both very welcoming and very appreciative of anyone who wants to contribute. So the simple message is, “push yourself.” Work on community challenges and volunteer to take leadership roles. The more you give, the more you will get; the more everyone benefits—not least other women entering the field who will see what you do as normal.

What was the best advice someone gave you?

“Build, build, build.” Seriously, it has been my guiding mantra at Indicio. We learn by building and implementing and this is especially true for an emerging technology where there isn’t an instruction manual or roadmap.

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