One World Identity Celebrates Successful K(NO)W Identity Conference

WASHINGTON - May 18, 2017 - PRLog -- Riding the success of this week's inaugural K(NO)W Identity Conference,  One World Identity (https://oneworldidentity.com/) is announcing plans to bring the event back to Washington D.C. early next year.  The conference wrapped yesterday, May 17^th at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Center with over 800 business leaders and experts in attendance.  Kicking off with keynote speaker Edward Snowden—whistleblower and former NSA contractor, the three-day event boasted a lineup of 150+ notable speakers including Jai Arun of IBM, David Birch of Consult Hyperion, Pascal Bouvier of Santander Innoventures, Carmi Gillon of Cytegic Cybersecurity and many more. Leading sponsors included BBVA, IBM, Trulioo and Trusona.

The K(NO)W Identity Conference provided a forum for identity experts across all industries to be at the nexus of ideas and policies that will fundamentally change identity around the world.  Attendees dove into critical topics such as biometrics, blockchain, identity access management, fraud prevention and identity verification.

"As new technologies appear and mature every day, IBM is committed to helping organizations explore how they can use them to innovate and transform business applications," said Jai Arun, Program Director, Blockchain and Identity Solutions, IBM. "At the K(NO)W Identity Conference, we saw how some of the leading minds in the identity verification space are applying innovations such as blockchain for highly secure, trusted and consumer-friendly solutions that have the potential to shape how we manage and verify identity moving forward."

The fully immersive event, featured the world's best event technology connecting attendees both digitally and physically. BBVA held the finals for the identity category of the Open Talent Competition at the conference, giving dozens of startups the opportunity to compete for funding and valuable mentorship from the global Spanish bank.

"Identity is a hot topic in financial services, and we see it as one of the keys of our own digital transformation," said BBVA Head of Open Innovation Marisol Menendez. "K(NO)W Identity brings together an active and engaged audience that understands the power of identity. Combining that influential audience and the BBVA Open Talent Identity competition was an opportunity we could not pass up."

The BBVA Open Talent Competition sought for innovative identity companies that would help BBVA achieve the goal of transforming the world of banking. Amongst ten startups, this year's winner was SnapSwap, a Luxembourg based startup offering fully automated remote customer onboarding for financial institutions. SnapSwap brought home 30,000 euros and an invite to the Open Talent Global Summit and Immersion Week held in October 2017 at the BBVA Group headquarters in Madrid. BBVA Open Talent has grown to offer more fintech startups around the world the chance to compete and win competitions focused in seven key areas.

"We are very grateful to the BBVA team for the invitation, and the chance to showcase our product and be on stage with all of the other great startups here," added Denis Kiselev, CEO of SnapSwap.

On Tuesday, the K(NO)W Nodes Awards recognized and celebrated the most compelling startups, individuals, and identity innovations of the year.

This year's winners included:

Individual Categories:

• Identity Leadership – Timothy Ruff (Evernym)
• Identity Government Leadership – Niall McCann (United Nations Development Program)
• Rising Innovator – Robin Tombs (Yoti Ltd.)
• CEO of the Year - Emma Lindley (Innovate Identity)
• Investor of the Year - Liron Gitig (FTV Capital)

Organizational Categories:

• Greatest Social Impact Through Identity  - Onfido
• Greatest Social Impact Through Identity Non-Profit - OpenID Foundation
• Best New Startup - Civic
• Overall Startup - Confirm.io
• Trailblazer - ID.Me

The K(NO)W Identity Conference came on the heels of a global ransomware cyber-attack, discussed by Snowden in his keynote speech. The attack highlighted the need for increased immediacy in spurring innovation and enacting change within the space.

"We created the K(NO)W Identity Conference with the goal of creating dialog that we didn't see happening between the pioneers solving today's identity challenges " said Travis Jarae, Co-Founder and CEO of One World Identity. "We could not be more thrilled with the result of this year's event, and look forward to topping it next year."

About the K(NO)W Identity Conference

The premier global event for the identity industry, the K(NO)W Identity Conference brings together the innovators, regulators and policy-makers shaping the future ofidentity. From payments, biometrics and FinTech to access management and anti-fraud,the identity industry is at the core of conducting business in the internet era. The 2017K(NO)W Identity Conference was held May 15-17, 2017 at the Ronald Reagan Buildingand International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. featuring 150+ speakers, 300+companies and over 1,500 attendees.

About One World Identity

The hub for all things identity, One World Identity aims to foster communication, open standards and innovation among the companies and professionals of the identity industry.

Visit us at www.oneworldidentity.com for the latest in identity news, events, opinion and research coverage.