Overview

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As governments modernize their digital services, they face growing challenges around trust, security, and citizen experience. Traditional identity and credential verification processes are often slow, costly, and vulnerable to fraud. Verifiable Credentials offer a new way forward—delivering secure, trusted connections that empower citizens while streamlining government operations.

Join Government Technology and Portage CyberTech to explore how governments can issue, manage, and verify digital credentials at scale, creating trusted interactions between agencies, citizens, and third parties. Attendees will gain practical insight into how this technology enhances efficiency, protects privacy, and fosters interoperability across jurisdictions.

Key topics we cover include:

  • Verifiable Credentials 101: What they are and why they matter for governments.
  • Citizen-Centric Control: How citizens can store, manage, and selectively share their credentials with confidence.
  • Cross-Government Interoperability: How verifiable credentials enable secure verification across departments, municipalities, and even across borders.
  • Fraud Prevention: How instant, cryptographic verification reduces risk and strengthens trust.
  • Privacy by Design: How verifiable credentials improve privacy by bringing to life selective disclosure that ensures only the minimum data required is shared.
  • Real-World Example: A look at how governments could issue verifiable credentials and how citizens can use them to seamlessly access services.

Discover how verifiable credentials can help your government deliver faster, safer, and more citizen-friendly services—while building a trusted foundation for the future.

Speakers

 

Joni Brennan

President of the Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada

As President of the Digital ID & Authentication Council of Canada (DIACC), Joni builds on 20 years of experience in digital identity innovations, frameworks, standards, policy, and business development. She helps DIACC fulfill its vision of unlocking the interoperability of public and private sector capabilities by establishing a trust assurance and risk management framework that will grow Canada's economy. Joni builds impactful relationships and formalizes strategic partnerships between and across public and private sector organizations. Joni is honored to serve as an individual representative of Canada in the G7 Digital Governance Task Force. She also serves as co-Chair of CANARIE's Trust and Identity Advisory Committee. Joni previously served as co-Chair of Working Group 1 of the Standards Council of Canada's Data Governance Standardization Collaboration. She has participated in committees and initiatives worldwide, including OECD-ITAC, ISOC, IEEE, OASIS-SSTC, and ISO SC27 WG5, and testified before the US Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Security and Privacy (ONC HITSP). Joni is recognized as One World IIdentity'stop 100 global influencers of Identity. Before joining DIACC, Joni was Kantara Initiative's Executive Director, driving business, legal, and technology interoperability programs to connect entities and individuals in a more trustworthy environment. Joni led Kantara Initiative as the United States' premiere trust framework provider delivering value to multiple industry sectors. Joni helped to ensure the Kantara Initiative program is aligned with multiple eGovernment strategies from economic regions, including Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Joni Brennan previously served as the first-ever IEEE-SA Technology Evangelist for Internet Identity and Trust, focusing on governance, policy, and technology development issues that touch digital Identity, personally identifiable information, and trust services. When not connecting the digital identity world for the better, Joni can be found creating future-thinking musical collaborations. She can also be found skiing in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

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Bob Besharat

Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer, Portage CyberTech

Bob Besharat is a seasoned technology executive and strategic innovator with over 30 years of leadership experience in cybersecurity, enterprise architecture, and digital transformation. Throughout his career, he has held senior executive roles guiding global organizations through complex technology initiatives and large-scale operational change. Currently serving as Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Portage CyberTech, Bob has led transformative programs that have delivered scalable solutions and generated over $400 million in revenue. His leadership is defined by a deep understanding of emerging technologies, business-driven architecture, and operational excellence—empowering organizations to accelerate innovation, reduce risk, and achieve measurable outcomes across diverse industries including finance, healthcare, higher education, and government. In addition to his executive leadership, Bob is deeply committed to advancing education and industry collaboration. He is an adjunct faculty member at Lambton College and Concordia University. Bob holds an Honours degree in Computer Science from Carleton University and has completed a graduate-level Executive Leadership program from Cornell University. He also maintains professional certifications such as TOGAF, CISSP, ITIL Foundation, SABSA, and Six Sigma Green Belt.

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Andrew Whitehead

Distinguished Engineer, Portage CyberTech

Andrew is a senior architect, developer, and team leader with 20+ years experience in designing and building software solutions. He likes to be in the trenches writing code, particularly Rust, Python, and TypeScript. Andrew also contributes to multiple international standards related to Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identity. Often working on behalf of the province of British Columbia, Andrew makes regular contributions to open-source cryptographic support libraries within Hyperledger AnonCreds, the OpenWallet Foundation, the Decentralized Identity Foundation and other communities.

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Nancy Rainosek — Moderator

Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government

Nancy is the former Chief Information Security Officer for the State of Texas. She has over four decades of IT experience in Texas state government and the private sector. Additionally, she served on the Executive Committee of the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Nancy has been recognized on many occasions both at the state and national levels, including the prestigious Thomas M Jarrett State Cybersecurity Leadership Award from the National Association of State Chief Information Officers, for her tremendous contributions.