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The subsequent message comes from Ethereum Foundation Fellow Chuy Cepeda.
Our identities possess tremendous influence. In an era when individuals take significant pride in adopting various pseudonyms or personas, we frequently contemplate how to represent ourselves. I define myself as a native of Monterrey, Mexico, a Latin-American, a son, a brother, a father, a husband, an engineer, a Ph.D., an entrepreneur, a dog aficionado, a hitchhiker, and a firm believer that democracies are struggling.
Reflecting upon the time I began to engage with people from diverse nations and broadened my insight into their access to public services, I vividly remember recognizing how distant this reality was for Mexicans. I understood that as my hometown expanded, numerous government decisions were either poorly planned or colluded. I discovered that my home country of Mexico ranked among the least favorable nations as per Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. I realized these issues are not confined to my personal experience and my homeland, but impact individuals universally.
I now possess a deep sense of empathy for those unable to look to the government for improved transportation, adequate education, and healthcare services. Meanwhile, I observe technology making increasingly significant contributions to the daily lives of people throughout Latin America and beyond. Take a moment to consider this: while individuals are becoming more digital and expect personalized and real-time services, public institutions are struggling to fulfil those expectations.
Citizens confront inefficiencies, a shortage of transparency and bureaucratic obstacles, and a dreadful experience when engaging with their governments. This represents a worldwide crisis of institutional responsiveness and trust, undermining opportunities for progress, and it’s the reason Democracy as an ideal is faltering.
Thus, I opted to embrace a new aspect of my identity: I co-founded OS City to enhance the landscape of governmental services in today’s world, fundamentally by integrating public institutions into the web3 paradigm. In simpler terms, to utilize blockchains to digitize governmental services and provide citizens with their decentralized digital identity.
The OS City team
Modernizing Bureaucracy
From birth certificates to driving permits and academic records, when we are prompted to describe who we are as citizens, it pertains to sharing our personal data or credentials, typically notarized by the local government. Depending on the locale, those records may exist in an advanced networked database (as is the case for Estonian nationals), but more likely what we require when seeking an ‘official identity’ actually lies within the specialized passport printers of an austere government facility, or scattered across filing cabinets in various state bank branches, or perhaps it doesn’t exist at all!
When we “utilize” these representations of our identity, we are essentially facilitating the interoperability of distinct bureaucratic systems. If the visa stamps from one customs office in Country A fit into the passport pages of Country B, that’s deemed ‘acceptable’ in most instances. However, when that essential interoperability has stringent requirements, or when it fails, we encounter difficulties. Office A demands an original stamped document from Office B, which closes after 3pm, and requires a notarized letter from Department C, situated in another part of the city and needing prior approval from Office A… many of us are too familiar with being ensnared in this type of bureaucratic maze. This is where collusion and corruption originate, where we initiate the snowball effect that culminates in a dreadful response to social distress, economic development, and climate change.
The fundamental issue is that every individual must possess an identity, but it is simply not the case that everyone has an interoperable representation of identity. That’s the area where I believe we can enhance. It won’t be straightforward, and it certainly won’t occur all at once, but if we initiate progress in the correct direction, we may ultimately reach a destination we aspire to be in. Part of our efforts to address these challenges led us to create an application-specific wallet known as Soberana, intended to hold and manage digital identities.
Blockchains are inherently structured from interoperable and standardized elements that can merge and integrate in various manners. Any blockchain designed to be Ethereum or EVM-compatible adheres to the same set of standards. So at Soberana, that is our foundational principle. Unfortunately, we operate within a design framework that must permit some degree of centralization, i.e., a government authority must endorse a record or identity.
Nonetheless, we commence with a small core of identity that remains compatible with the open, permissionless systems of the web3 domain. Beginning from that compatibility simplifies the process of enhancing and constructing increasingly intricate systems around it over time – a network economy of digital services, both centralized and decentralized. The objective here is to achieve maximum compatibility for a digital identity: whether you’re utilizing it for a centralized government notary, a proprietary banking transaction, or a public NFT registry, your ID should transition seamlessly and securely between those frameworks.
As we integrate more functionalities, we will be equipped to verify, migrate, and share that identity through a comprehensive suite of governmental services that all interconnect. From weddings to home loans, all documentation requiring identity could be streamlined and simplified by leveraging the right infrastructure. By initiating from a smaller scale with this initial aspect of the puzzle, we carve a path toward extensive institutional reforms, employing technology judiciously to bolster the legitimacy of the public sector as a whole.
Over the past year, we have concentrated on implementing an official digital identity for citizens through an online government-operated portal, where citizens acquire a wallet that functions as their digital identity.
“`and electronic document-holder. Citizens can transfer and utilize official documents within their digital wallets, along with the ability to share and renew these documents.
Currently, these documents are restricted to business permits, construction permits, municipal inspector credentials, taxpayer declarations, among other items; however, we are striving to broaden and include as many documents as feasible to be compatible with local administrations in Mexico and Argentina.
The Long Perspective
I recognize now that bureaucracies represent mere inertial inefficiencies of governments that have lost their zeal for innovation. This is why I am convinced that blockchains possess significant potential to guide us into a new chapter of transparency and collaboration that helps to bolster the credibility of the public sector. With the aid and backing of public sector leaders, we can implement substantial transformation in the governmental arena, potentially turning it into a thriving environment for business, encouraging the digital, economic, and social advancements of our nations.
My short-term aspiration is to provide citizens the opportunity to possess their official records, to eliminate redundant efforts in government processes, to render governmental transactions traceable and clear, and to promote the first government standard for blockchain-verifiable credentials. This will ideally demonstrate to the international public sector that interoperability can thrive when we position citizens at the forefront, when innovation fosters regulation instead of the reverse.
In the long run, I wish for all of us to unite in reimagining governance and identity. We are commencing by reconsidering and reinventing the manner in which governments, individuals, and companies engage with one another; in a decentralized digital landscape, interactions are not centered on the state or market, but rather on community and citizen engagement. This entails a new ecosystemic perspective where the government, startups, academia, and civil organizations collaboratively investigate public issues, find (and transmit) fitting solutions, and learn from their experiences. It is not the state procuring suppliers, but the state interacting with various stakeholders to address society’s most urgent concerns. I believe that a new digital identity is a crucial step that will enable governments, citizens, and communities to maximize the benefits of blockchain technology, promoting prosperity through a network of citizen-focused digital services.
For additional information regarding the Ethereum Foundation Fellowship Program, check out this blog post.