OpenID Foundation Elections in Progress

The election of two new Community Board members for the OpenID Foundation is now in progress. The current list of candidates includes:

• Axel Nennker
• George Fletcher <-- That's me :)
  
• Greg Keegstra
• David Marceau
• Patrice Vuillard
• Sébastien Brault
• Yosef Vuillard

If you are an OpenID Foundation member, please log into the OpenID Foundation and exercise your right vote! You can easily sign up for an individual membership for only $25 US.

I'm excited about OpenID's future with the release of the OpenID Connect implementor's draft specs. This body of work is important for moving OpenID from just a federated authentication solution to one that can solve many identity authentication and authorization use cases. These use cases are not limited just to non-risk transactions but can cover higher levels of assurance as well.

Adoption is going to be critical in the next two years and that's one of the reasons I'm running for one of the available board seats. Adoption is more than just OpenID Connect implementations; adoption includes moving beyond low-risk transactions into higher value use cases and really providing convenience and security to consumers. Whether this is a goal that can be accomplished in the next 2 years remains to be seen, but it's a goal worth shooting for.

Of course I'd appreciate your vote!

Running for an OpenID Foundation Community Board Seat

I'm excited to announce that I am running for one of the available OpenID Foundation Community Board seats. While I've been a long time advocate of OpenID and open identity solutions in general, this is my first time seeking to serve the identity community is such a role. My self-nomination is now up in the OpenID Foundation Membership area. If you are so inclined, I'd greatly appreciate your "seconds" to make me an official nominee and of course your votes in the upcoming elections. :-) Here is my self-nomination statement:

I am an advocate of open identity solutions for the Internet and I believe that OpenID Connect has the opportunity to be a key identity protocol for the Web. 

I have a long history with OpenID, starting with AOL (my employer) being one of the first major identity providers to support OpenID 1.0. I contributed to the OpenID 2.0 specification along with a number of the OpenID 2.0 extensions. I’m now an active contributor to the OpenID Connect specifications. In addition, I have experience participating in a number of industry standards organizations (OIDF, IETF, OASIS, Kantara Initiative) working on identity related protocols and specifications. 

As a member of the OpenID Foundation Board, I will work to ensure both technical excellence in the specifications and broad adoption of the OpenID protocols. 

Thanks,
George