Cardano SSI Contributors - Season 2

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

RootsID was funded in Catalyst Fund 8, to engage SSI working groups, specifications, and leadership in order to cross-pollenate SSI standards and Cardano's incredible community. We will continue to improve on these relationships in the following ways:

1. In order to maintain a regular Cardano/Prism/Catalyst voice at the leading SSI working groups, we will continue attending over 10 SSI working group meetings in the Trust over IP (ToIP), Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) and Hyperledger (HL) communities. Some of the groups call us the 'Cardano people' as we continue to make them aware of Cardano, Atala Prism, and Catalyst.
2. By continuing to participate in these ToIP/DIF/HL spec and working group meetings we have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of giants in the industry, but also make these SSI leaders aware of Catalyst/Atala Prism progress. We are able to contribute to these evolving spec/tools, so that our Catalyst/Atala Prism voices can be heard!
3. We will continue to produce a weekly blog/vlog from these working groups and detail how Cardano/Prism/Catalyst can benefit from these specs/tools. We will also detail and produce identity software (like RootsWallet) with features that enable interoperability with the wider identity ecosystem.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Decentralized digital identity should be free to interact with any ecosystem that supports the specifications that keep it self-sovereign and controlled by only the identity owner(s). Therefore, Self-Sovereign identity requires strong specifications in order to allow decentralized digital identities to interoperate across blockchains and identity ecosystems.

By engaging and shaping SSI specs and leadership, we will help Cardano be at the forefront of SSI cross-chain interoperability. This will allow many non-Cardano identity users to engage with Cardano identity users. We are confident that more users and services will flock to the superior qualities of Cardano.

At the same time, we'll be bringing the best technology that the SSI community has to offer back into the Cardano ecosystem. We'll do this by educating people through our vlog and by implementing open source SSI software that anyone can use freely.

RootsID believes this combination of community and software will accelerate Cardano's participation in cross-chain identity.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Our efforts have been encouraged by so many in the Catalyst, Atala Prism, and open source communities that we are confident that our successes and challenges will be worked through together.

• The main risk/opportunity is the rapidly evolving identity ecosystem. Atala Prism is rapidly growing and we are closely working with them. It is a symbiotic relationship that requires attention and effort from both sides. We are building an amazing ecosystem together that is young with many unknowns for Cardano, Atala Prism, and RootsWallet to navigate.
• Another risk is that Lance is the only RootsID team member working on this proposal. If he is unable to perform the work, RootsID would need to hire some one else to do it.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Work on this proposal will:

• Total 3 months (the 13 weeks of Catalyst Fund 9)
• Beginning on September 19, 2022
• End on December 23, 2022.
• We will attend ~40 working group meetings (about 40 hours of time) during the 13 weeks of Fund 9, logging each meeting with notes here.
• We will produce 10 almost-weekly blog/vlog posts during the 13 week period of Fund 9. We will post it to our discord, website, YouTube channel, and Catalyst community outlets.
• These working group meetings will heavily influence the design/implementation of future RootsID software such as RootsWallet, allowing us to better serve our Catalyst partners with SSI software that is designed with cross-chain interoperability and SSI standards in mind. Here is a visual timeline (also attached) of our current and planned RootsWallet SSI features by Catalyst fund.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Project plan consist of the following activities with its duration:

• 40 hours spent engaging Trust over IP/Decentralized Identity Foundation/HyperLedger meetings: $4,000
• 42 hours producing the Vlog: $4,200 (~42 hours)
• Meeting with the Cardano community to socialize the latest SSI trends and update our software strategies and designs, based on SSI standards/tools: $900 (~9 hours)

TOTAL BUDGET: $9100

Deliverables:

• Open Source code on Github repo
• Youtube videos and social/community engagement
• Meeting notes and documentation

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

RootsId team has been delivering Open Source building blocks for the Self-Sovereign Identity ecosystem in Cardano. They have been funded in several Catalyst projects since Fund 6. All of them were delivered successfully on time or still in development in the planned timeline. Our funded projects are:

• F6: Interoperability as Growth Driver: [DELIVERED] [Github] [final report video]
• F7: Interoperability Within Atala Prism: [DELIVERED] [Github] [final report video]
• F7: Hyperledger-Prism Interoperability: [DELIVERED] [Github] [final report video]
• F7: Open Source Credential Wallet: [DELIVERED] [Github] [final report video]
• F7: WAL-CLI Wallet Tools for developers: [DELIVERED] [Github] [final report video]
• F8: Universal Resolver for did:prism: [IN DEVELOPMENT]
• F8: DIDComm v2 Mediator: [IN DEVELOPMENT]
• F8: RootsWallet - Support for sidetree: [IN DEVELOPMENT]
• F8: KYC Credentials PoC: [IN DEVELOPMENT]
• F8: Cardano SSI standards contributors: [IN DEVELOPMENT] [video]
• F8: RootsWallet beta - Backup/Recovery: [IN DEVELOPMENT]
• F8: WAL-CLI Communication: [IN DEVELOPMENT]

The team is constantly engaged in all Self Sovereign Identity Cardano activities such as Atala Prism Astros, Atala Prism Pioneer Program, Prism+SSI After Town Hall break rooms, and meeting periodically with partners or related Catalyst projects with the aim of collaboration and help adoption and growth of Cardano in the Identity world.

Additionally, the team participates actively in the worldwide SSI community by attending and collaborating on several working groups in the Decentralized Identity Foundation, the Hyperledger foundation, and the Trust over IP foundation.

This project in particular will be worked by Lance Byrd:

Lance Byrd:

His background includes a BS in Computer Science (UMBC) and MS in Information Assurance (Capitol College) and more than 22 years of software development as a consultant. He has developed massive scale data analytics and visualizations, machine learning analysis pipelines, and worked with University researchers to bring their work to market. He has also built and taught technical certification courses for several different topics in data analysis, big data, and compliance.

He is an expert Cardano/Catalyst/Atala Prism SSI mobile developer. He is one of the founders of RootsID which has been building a Cardano-based open source identity ecosystem including a mobile identity wallet called RootsWallet. He is advised by expert UX designers from IOG, identity experts like Darrell O'Donnel and Tony Rose and is a regular at Trust Over IP, Decentralized Identity Foundation, and Hyperledger foundation meetings.

For this Fund 9, RootsId is presenting the following proposals:

• F9: RootsWallet - iPhone version
• F9: RootsWallet - Aries JS
• F9: KERI bridge for Cardano
• F9: RootsId Verifiable Credentials
• F9: Discord Social Credential
• F9: RootsWallet - User Feedback Updates 
• F9: WAL-CLI Issue Credential Protocol
• F9: WAL-API Identity Wallet Service
• F9: Cardano SSI Contributors - Season 2 (this one)
• F9: ATALA Prism ZKP + Hyperledger Aries (collaboration with Snapbrillia)

Since we are participating in 10 proposals, we carefully planned time allocation for each of us. We defined our individual commitment per week as if all of the proposals are funded including extra activities. Based on that, we defined the allocation per proposal for each of us needed to deliver the proposal in time. Take in account that we design our proposals to have a duration no longer than 12-14 weeks in order to match funding rounds, that means that our pending F8 proposals will be concluded before the F9 execution phase starts. For your reference we provide this time allocation spreadsheet that can help you validate that our commitments are feasible.

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

This proposal is a follow-on to our Fund 8 proposal which was funded:

Cardano SSI Contributors

If funded, this project as defined will conclude in this round. It does not depend on further funding to be impactful. However, since interoperability is an ongoing process we may present future projects in future funding rounds with the same spirit of continuing to grow the Cardano and SSI communities.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

To track our daily activity we will:

1. Log each meeting attended here, with notes of what specs, tools, and communities were discussed.
2. Produce a nearly weekly blog/vlog and post it to the Rootsid SSI Report YouTube playlist, discord server (rootsid), and website rootsid.com
3. All SSI features that impact our roadmap will be added to our feature timeline for RootsWallet and/or tracked in our Github repo.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success includes:

• Increased awareness of Cardano/Prism/Catalyst among ToIP, DIF, and HL through repeated attendance and participation (the 'Cardano People') at ToIP, DIF, and HL working groups.
• Contributions to specs/tools/discussions that foster interopability, portability, security, etc. features within the SSI open source community.
• Raising awareness of SSI standards through the publication of a nearly weekly blog/vlog giving the Cardano/Catalyst communities an easy connection to benefit from these specs/tools/communities.
• Adoption/use of ToIP, DIF, and HL specs/tools in RootsID and Cardano/Prism/Catalyst software by our growing list of partners.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This proposal is a follow-on to our Fund 8 proposal which was funded:

Cardano SSI Contributors

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

We are grateful to be able to discuss and consider how our identity software might impact our grass roots users and their communities. By giving each individual control over their own cryptographically verifiable digital identity, we hope to empower their ability to choose to be remembered and/or forgotten in nuanced and fulfilling ways that improves every area of their life and community. We would especially like to see improvements in the following ways:

SDG goals:

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

SDG subgoals:

10.7 Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies

16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels

17.17 Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships

9.b Support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries, including by ensuring a conducive policy environment for, inter alia, industrial diversification and value addition to commodities