Post on 22-Mar-2016
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Kerosene 2.0
The question is provocative. What
is the world’s third largest coun-
try? Swiss Style is preparing a
Latin American special, so I know it
is not Brazil. Carlos Moreira has just
stepped off a plane, he has two hours
of sleep behind him, but the glint in
his eye suggests that this is a trick ques-
tion, like “How many angels can dance
on the head of a pin?” He spares me
embarrassment by saying “Facebook”.
Over 500 million people live in that vir-
tual space that depends not on oxygen,
but rather on electricity and hundreds
of whirring servers. There, individuals
interact, create their own little cat-
walks, share joys and barbs, itemize
what they had for breakfast in public,
and keep the cradle-to-grave entertain-
ment going by playing virtual games.
And they do two other important
things. The first is to attract truckloads
of advertising income for founder Mark
Zuckerberg and his company. The sec-
ond, for a man as security-conscious
as Moreira, is a little more pernicious:
“Facebook is just a smart way of collect-
ing personal identification information
on the users,” he points out with a whiff
of sarcasm in his voice. “Organisations
searching private information on peo-
ple are very happy about this because
they don’t have to go out of their way to
build up their own database, they just
search on Facebook.”
But it is going to end, Moreira be-
lieves. The fact is, our society demands
something disruptive every few months,
otherwise a risky boredom might set in
and the electronic denizen could be-
come restless. The current system can
be tweaked, but for real change to take
place will require ending legacy identi-
fication, like pin codes, paper IDs and
passwords. Today the focus is on digital
IDs for people and objects, and that is
exactly what Moreira envisioned twelve
years ago when he founded Wisekey. It
is positioned to head what might best be
called a “comm-volution”.
Evolutionary stepsWisekey began its upward trajectory al-
most in the ruins of what was called the
New (dot-com) Economy. Its portfolio
included the somewhat vaguely defined
ID management and security. A Wisekey
ID is in fact an X.509 standard-based en-
crypted digital certificate containing
personal identification information, or
PII (Personal Identifiable Information).
This is owned only by the user, as it
were, and should never be made public.
What the content and service providers
actually “see” is a profile or credential,
but never the PII part of the identity.
“It was visionary work at the begin-
ning,” he recalls, “because people were
wondering why you needed that level of
security and segregation”. Indeed, surf-
ers did not buy that much or expose
so much data on the Internet eleven
years ago. Later there was Paypal, but as
Moreira points out, that was boosted by
Ebay and furthermore it is “just a layer
on top of the credit card infrastructure,
which does not solve the problem of
your ID”. If the user loses his credit, he
will also lose the ID, which belongs to
the provider and not the user. So the
THE SWISS STYLE
WorLd EconomIc Forum SpEcIaL LaTIn amErIca ISSuE
— KEroSEnE 2.0 »»» by Marton Radkai
The alchemists of yore believed in making gold by combining the four elements in some way and, perhaps, whispering incantations over the brew. Today, companies are able to produce gold from the Internet, an entirely virtual space consisting of electrons chasing around various channels. While Google and Facebook guide and organise the travellers into advertising-friendly groups, Carlos Moreira and his company Wisekey are giving out birth certificates.
“Organisations searching private information don’t have to go out of their way to build up their own database, they just search on Facebook.” Carlos Moreira
42 43
large, growing and active market. “You
need a reason to download an ID, and
that is football,” he says, elaborating on
his strategy. “We are issuing a Rio ID
that allows users to access all existing
services in Rio and to receive premium
content during FIFA 2014 and Olympics
2016.” This, in turn, will loyalise the
user community and create a trusted
social network ecosytem amongst fans.
The outcome will be both virtual
and real. On the one hand, the apps
economy will continue to grow incre-
mentally but on a thematic basis. On
the other hand, airlines, restaurants,
shops and other potential advertis-
ers can get involved and offer special
deals enhanced by the Wisekey ID cer-
tificate, which offers geo-localisation.
The user might then be offered real-
time discounts to a restaurant five
minutes away. Or if a fan watching
a football match in the stadium sees
a better seat, he or she can check its
availability and pay the surcharge
through the mobile phone.
All aboardA visit to the company’s website reveals
that Moreira is involved in a number
of projects with a philanthropic bent.
“The company of the future will not be
judged only by their financial results
but by the good they provide,” he ex-
plains, “and this is not detrimental to
your growth”. At first glance, his prod-
ucts may not seem very appropriate to,
say, a family living off Red Cross sup-
plies in Colombia or the DRC. You can-
not eat X.509 encryption, nor wear it.
But, a Keynesian at heart, he feels it is
important to empower even poor peo-
ple to have access to the market. Of the
seven billion phones being used, only
one billion are actual consumers, he
points out. Thanks to the Wisekey ID,
however, there is no longer the old digi-
tal divide. Everyone can participate.
And so, in partnership with the
Clinton Global Initiative, the company
is now giving away one billion IDs with
free phones and cloud services. Among
the recipients are the world’s millions
of migrants, many of whom are far
from their native country and require
a wide range of services, from health
care, to language lessons. With their
ID, they can access them and enjoy
some advertising, which in turn will
supply the system with cash. “To the
advertiser,” says Carlos Moreira, “an
eyeball is an eyeball”.
Technology, of course, is not stand-
ing still. Wisekey is also securing
the luxury companies with its brand
protection technology associating
digital IDs with objects. Several lead-
ing brands such as Dior and Hublot
are already using this technology for
their luxury watches. One of the next
steps is Near Field Communication
(NFC), which will allow even greater
f lexibility in mobile payments, letting
Moreira muse on the idea of buying a
banking license for Wisekey. And giv-
en rising economic tides, at some time
even the formerly penurious users
will begin buying services or goods,
thus completing transactions with
their phones. The model is reminis-
cent of the kerosene lamps distributed
by John D. Rockefeller. The lamp was a
gift, the kerosene cost, but the light it
gave off also allowed for longer work-
ing hours. In five years, Moreira sees
up to eight billion phones being used,
with four billion consumers. And all
those connected to the grid will have
the opportunity to earn in some way,
to be part of this huge ecosystem.
“Digital IDs are the molecules,” he re-
f lects, “the Internet is the brain”. So
that is where it went… «««
Wisekey was created as a kind of “birth
certificate” for the Internet, one that
gives you IP portability for an ubiqui-
tous web access, whether you are among
the haves or the have-absolutely-nots.
Moreira did not plan to grow fast.
Astonishing for someone who seems to
live with one foot in a plane and the oth-
er on slippery ground. He remarks on
this “Swiss” quality of his strategy. He
took the long view and slowly built up
a reputation and a following. One real
coup for the company came in 2002,
when he became a member of a steering
committee to contribute to developing
an e-voting project for Geneva, Swit-
zerland, with Wisekey becoming the
technological leader. The project was
implemented a year later with success
and turned out to be a world premiere.
Digital connectingMoreira’s vision extended beyond just
glorified passwords and secure access.
“The centre of gravity of the Internet
is shifting, it was on ‘search’ for many
years and Google became huge, then it
shifted to social networking,” he points
out easily. “Now it’s shifting to digital
IDs and that is where a company like
Wisekey will become huge!” It is not
just hyperbole from a man who speaks
easily in millions and billions: The
World Economic Forum appointed the
company as Global Growth Company
(GGC), which means it has the potential
to become tomorrow’s industry leader
and a driving force of economic and so-
cial change.
What does this look like in reality?
Wisekey is realising a project with lead-
ing sports support clubs, which has no
fewer than 500 million fans combined.
A total of 80 million of them are already
on their Facebook page, and another 17
million are digitally and diligently fol-
lowing their idols on other pages. None
but Facebook are earning from the great
mass of people, however. So sport fran-
chises are now giving away Wisekey IDs
that allow the fans to access content and
adding a service or content to that. The
IDs are monetised through advertisers,
which is where Wisekey and the club
earn their money at USD 3 to 17 per user.
As for the fans, they get an ID and a free
app allowing them to access premium
content, like a match. This would nor-
mally cost, but if they are willing to look
at, or listen to, an ad, they get it for free.
“Monetising eyeballs,” he calls this.
Another countryA second game changer emerged that
enhanced the need for a distinct user-
focused ID key, namely the rapid evolu-
tion of “The Cloud,” that strange, laby-
rinthine, amorphous world of cloud
computing with multiple entry points,
from television sets and PCs, to a wide
range of handheld devices. The Cloud
is the repository of all sorts of shared
services and applications, but they can
only be found and used given a clear ID.
The person without that ID will stay on
the outside looking in like the Savages
in Brave New World.
Moreira aims to change all that and
his focus is on Portuguese and Spanish
speakers in general and Latin America
in particular, an “ecosystem” involving
about 250 million Portuguese speakers
and 600 million Spanish speakers for
whom nothing has been really done.
The Cloud, Moreira notes, is driven by
language and by the powerful new com-
puting smartphones. Given an ID, the
user can “federate apps according to lan-
guage, so content and service providers
now have a reason to translate their of-
fers into another language, for example,
Portuguese”. Getting ahead of the eight
ball, Wisekey is already partnering with
publishing groups to develop new con-
tent in Portuguese. And in a partnership
with MIT’s Media Lab, Moreira is making
700 million IDs available for free.
Rio and Brazil, which are gearing
up for a sportive double whammy, are
both the big prize and the gateway to a
THE SWISS STYLE
WorLd EconomIc Forum SpEcIaL LaTIn amErIca ISSuE
— KEroSEnE 2.0 »»»
A straight-line career
Carlos Moreira, born in 1958, hails from
Cadiz, Spain and he is now Swiss citizen.
After completing an MBA, he went to
work for the UN and other agencies, in-
cluding the European Free Trade Associ-
ation, International Labour Office, Inter-
national Trade Center and UNCTAD. His
work involved security and consultation
on new technologies mainly in Geneva,
Switzerland. He then went to the Mel-
bourne Institute of Technology for three
years joining as Adjunct Professor to
lead a research lab on e-commerce and
digital security. In 1999, he ploughed
all his experience and knowledge into
founding Wisekey, avoiding the pitfalls
of venture capital by associating with
other companies and using mainly his
own capital to start the company with
other backers including UBS.
“To the advertiser, aneyeball is an eyeball.” Carlos Moreira