Bi-Annual Report -2019

Assessment of group health
Basic health indicators are good;
o    Meetings are taking place as scheduled every two weeks
o    Agendas and notes are kept
o    Recordings are linked to the wiki

Attendance at the meetings has declined slightly from 20 at the early sessions to 15, through to 7 at a recent meeting.  This may have been caused by time differences as we moved to summertime in different parts of the world.
o    Membership of the email list service continues to grow, with 2-3 new joiners each week and few leavers

Issues being faced by the group
o    Address declining attendance on the calls
o    The activity is focussed on presentations by group members and guests.  We need to decide as a group whether we wish to move beyond this towards the kind of collaborative working that other SIG groups have done.  It may be that the make-up of the membership means that this is not feasible.

Summary of activity in the past quarter
o    Keynote presentations from group members and guest members
o    A run-down of latest news from the world of Trade Finance Blockchain
o    Overview of the entire HyperLedger product and toolset

List of planned work products
o    Survey to establish more information about the group membership and objectives for the future (underway)
o    Specific presentations on trade finance platforms and interoperability

Assessment of participant diversity (consider several factors, including organizational, geographic, gender, and skill level diversity)
o    Organizational;  most attendees on the calls are from the software industry or consulting
o    Geographic;  Europe, East Asia, South Asia and North America are represented on most calls.  No representation from Africa, South America or Middle East
o    Gender; Although the make-up is predominantly male, there are female members of the SIG. Active participation is more evenly split.
o    Skill level.  There is insufficient information to assess skill level.  Knowledge levels vary, but in a constructive way as the meetings feature a lot of knowledge sharing.

Any additional information
o    The next quarter will be important for the group to define the way ahead.  If we wish to continue as an presentation-based information sharing group, then we need to build a strong forward schedule of presenters.  If we seek to participate in cooperative working (e.g. co-authored papers or joint projects) then we will need to put in place the structures to initiate these.