To celebrate Canada’s upcoming 150^th birthday (on July 1^st), I interviewed Canadian Blockchain entrepreneur Greg Wolfond.

Greg is the CEO & Founder of SecureKey – an identity and authentication provider.

He’s also a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years in FinTech, security and mobile solutions. Here are some of his accolades:

· Founded Footprint Software – a financial software company that he sold to IBM

· Founded 724 Solutions – a wireless infrastructure software provider he took public

· Entrepreneur of the Year

· Canada’s Top 40 Under 40

· Named 100 Top Leaders in Identity

In this episode, Greg and I discuss why Blockchain was a logical choice in building SecureKey’s digital identity network, the future of digital identities, and how two of Greg’s friends got their identities hacked and had mortgages put on their homes!

SHOW NOTES

[00:58] – Who is Greg Wolfond? Introduction and overview

[03:37] – The identity and authentication network SecureKey is developing with IBM and Canada’s biggest banks

[09:35] – How Greg discovered Blockchain

[12:22] – How SecureKey met NIST’s (National Institute of Standards & Technology) identity requirements using Hyperledger

[12:55] – US Homeland Security awards a grant to SecureKey

[14:04] – Growing an ecosystem and developing partnership via an open-source approach

[15:30] – Will SecureKey bring digital identity to developing countries?

[18:32] – 1,100 privacy breaches?

[20:13] – Greg Wolfond’s advice to Blockchain entrepreneurs

[22:24] – Areas that have the highest potential for disruption using Blockchain

[25:41] – When is SecureKey’s national digital identity network going live?

[26:05] – How to get in touch with Greg

[26:21] – Conclusion

RESOURCES DISCUSSED

–CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency)

– TD Bank

– Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

– Bank of Montreal

– Canada’s major banks announce $27 million investment into SecureKey

– Hyperledger

– Rogers (Canadian phone company)

– Triple blind identification (original science-related definition provided)

– NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology) identity standards

– Concierge (SecureKey’s identity brokerage)

– Baby monitor denial of service (DDoS) attacks

– Data “honeypots”

CONTACT INFORMATION

– SecureKey website

– greg [at] securekey.com