Public Sector SIG Update July 2019 Q2

Special Interest Group

Public Sector SIG

Working Group Health

Working Group has been in operation for three quarters now. Number of participants on calls is holding generally steady at around 12 per call, with variation. Last call had 22 participants. A sub-group has recently formed and is holding its own scheduled calls. The purpose is to draft a White Paper on Public Sector uses and dynamics.

Issues

Chair hopes to continue to improve the balance of group tasks distributed between Chair and membership. This has been an ongoing challenge to attract interest in the membership to take on Administrative tasks, with a handful of notable and very appreciated suggestions. Requests for support in finding an intern have been issued to both Hyperledger and the Membership, but so far no material response on that front either. 

Overall Activity in the Past Quarter

Regular meetings have been held, occasional meetings have been missed due to public holidays or availability of the Chair, without alternate to moderate or curate. The chat channel still has low activity. The mailing list is still primarily used for Agendas as well as call follow up discussions.

1. We have a new sub-group formed, which is developing active momentum. Its topic is to write a White Paper on Public Sector uses of blockchain. The group has sought support from Hyperledger Community Architects to add their weekly calls to the Community Calendar.
2. The Public Sector SIG continues to attract a diverse range of presenters for each call. This Quarter's activities include the following Agenda highlights:

April 12

Live Public Sector Blockchain Deployments from Uzbekistan

A great opportunity to hear both from the dev implementer, as well as the government side on how blockchain projects have been deployed. Bring your questions on how they got it to work out.

Lessons learned while implementing blockchain in the public sector. How to build decentralised solutions in a hierarchical centralised government structure. Based on real-life case scenarios: education certificates and Kindergarten admissions. (The Government of Uzbekistan and Blockchain Contractor: Blockchain Industrial Alliance )

Presenter: Sergei Smalkov (Dev). 
Joining contributor: Mr. Bahodir Atahanov, Government of Uzebekistan. 

Alpesh Doshi, Fintricity, London will also be joining the Uzbek presentation. Alpesh runs a blockchain consulting company with real-life technical and legal case studies. He consulted with Government Officials of Uzbekistan on the blockchain strategy, and can speak to how that process has worked.

A great opportunity to hear from a range of participants in a live remaking of public sector services using blockchain. Join the call this Friday to learn how they did it, what were the bottlenecks, and the solutions found.

April 26

Uzbekistan - A country dedicated to use DLT as their core technology for its 2021 digital economy strategy! Obviously interest and participation where high, as people were interested to hear from Vasiliy Vasilkoff, a member of the development team, on how they approached and convinced key players within government and administration. Vasiliy presented their roadmap, starting with the creation of a core blockchain system serving as the platform for applications, as well as a pilot lab to foster the fast development of those applications. Interested in more details? Check out the slides posted on the wiki. 

Hyperledger strives from our engaged community. Bobbi Muscara showed us how to use the wiki (wiki.hyperledger.org) to facilitate collaboration among the members.

One vivid example of the community work is the SIG white paper working group, which briefly introduced their recent decisions to focus on identity, governance and, to make the topic tangible, use cases within the public sector.

May 24

1. IBM Global Government - "Recognizing registry use case patterns for blockchain in public sector."

Pete Teigen from IBM Services: Global Govt ~ Blockchain, Mobile, Emerging Tech will present IBM's observations from many implementations in government and share emerging trends in the field.
 

2. DoubleNova Group - Jorden Woods and Radhika Iyengar-Emens

What enterprises and the public sector need right now is a better technology that provides a secure layer of trust, transparency, and accountability to mitigate the inherent weaknesses of Web 2.0 and the Internet. Blockchain-based technologies provide these and other needed capabilities to safeguard data, bring massive efficiencies to business and government, and protect consumers. Furthermore, these claims are real and are currently backed up by 100+ enterprise deployments and thousands of blockchain pilots across sectors like supply chain, logistics, healthcare, power/renewables, fintech and government.

Drawing on real-world examples and the experiences of many key thought leaders driving blockchain adoption, the DoubleNova Group illustrates best ways to embrace scaled blockchain technologies for maximum benefit. 

3. Vice Chair Opening

The Public Sector SIG is growing - and may be involving you! We are opening the position of Vice Chair to co-lead the group. Join us to learn more about this position and to evaluate whether it is the right fit for you.

June 7

Group discussion on connecting better with other SIGs.

June 21

1. Members are now venturing out to sit in on other Working Groups (technical groups) and other SIGs. They will be reporting back to the Public Sector SIG on advancements in the groups and sharing information. 

Sean O'Kelly is taking the lead with the WGs, and will sit in the Indy meetings. He will also provide tips to others wanting to sit in WGs on how to report back. 

Bobbi Muscara will sit in the Trade Finance and Telecom Special Interest Groups, and provide a report back this upcoming meeting. 

2. We're starting a new project - RFP Repository! Pete Teigen from IBM pointed out that there are relatively few public Requests for Proposal for blockchain projects out even as of now. He suggested it would be useful for both government and private members of the SIG to see some models on how others write them. That is because unfamiliarity is a major hurdle for public agencies that might be interested in blockchain, but would not know how to procure the technology.

On our call this Friday, if you know of any RFPs - because your government entity issued one, or you are a vendor who has responded to one, or you just happen to track public sector RFPs - please bring them with you to the meeting! If you would like to share them with the group, that would be great. You could either let us know and email during the meeting, or if you want, open it up and talk through the documents. We will all learn a lot seeing how various governments think.

Planned Work Products

• White Paper subgroup

Discussed:

• Suggested project - sitting in on other WGs and SIGs to learn better
• Collecting RFPs to build a government RFP repository, as this is a new type of procurement.
• Other projects as suggested by the membership.

Participant Diversity

The balance of Public Sector representatives, civil society, and private sector representatives remain a fairly even level. Gender diversity remains acceptable, with about a third of participants on a given call being female identified. Participants are joining from all around the world, both as presenters and as membership.

Additional Information

The Public Sector SIG is off to a good start this year. We anticipate a continued diverse range of presentations, and look forward to collaboration around our first work product - the White Paper. The SIG welcomes new members - both with an interest in the Public Sector, as well as looking for generalist members who seek out key community strengthening activities, such as documentation, communication, reporting, etc. Additional suggestions and nominations of presenters and use cases are welcome on an ongoing basis.