Re: Welcome Grace Rachmany as DIF ED!

Very well put, Manu. A huge +1.

=Drummond

On Thu, Dec 4, 2025 at 6:01 AM Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 3, 2025 at 10:23 AM Kim Hamilton Duffy
> <kim@identity.foundation> wrote:
> > I'm incredibly excited to announce Grace Rachmany as the new ED of DIF!
> Many of you are probably familiar with her and her work, and we are
> incredibly excited about Grace taking the reins. She will be a fantastic
> steward and leader of DIF.
> >
> > Read our announcement here:
> https://blog.identity.foundation/welcome-grace-rachmany/
>
> First, thank you Kim for your many years of leadership and service to
> the community. First to the W3C Credentials Community Group, helping
> to form and shape the vibrant community that we have today... those
> early days weren't easy and you handled the challenge with the deep
> commitment and care that was required back then (and continues to be
> needed now). Then,  for your work over the past several years to
> further align DIF with SSI and some of the principles that many of us
> still believe in and are actively fighting for. That journey as well
> has not been without its challenges and the world is better off for
> your leadership and efforts at DIF.
>
> I'm glad to hear that you'll still be engaged in the community as you
> move on to the next stage of your journey, whatever that might be.
>
> Grace, welcome to the community! :)
>
> I believe I met you at RWOT many years ago, albeit very briefly and
> remember being impressed with your commitment to doing what is right
> for individuals when it comes to their representation in an
> increasingly digital world. I read your blog post with great interest.
> One of the things I worry about is how difficult it is to find leaders
> like Kim (and others that have taken leadership roles both at CCG and
> DIF), whose values are aligned with many of the SSI principles. It
> sounds like DIF has found that in you.
>
> More recently, I've been dismayed (as have others in this community)
> about how governments are adopting and deploying some of the
> technologies and concepts we've worked so hard on over the years. The
> direction the EU has taken with "government wallets" is one example of
> this corruption of vision; centralization creep, the rush to deploy
> privacy-harming technologies as a consequence of badly thought through
> regulation, backroom dealing in closed meetings, and the rejection of
> many SSI principles, are an example of the sorts of concerns some of
> us in the community have.
>
> If there is one thing that differentiates DIF and the CCG from some of
> these other initiatives, it's the focus on empowering individuals and
> not making the individual a result of a governmental process.
>
> That is not to say that the technologies we build here are
> anti-government, quite the opposite, they can be used in ways that
> empower both individuals and governments... but we've seen what's
> happened over the past several years with digital credentials and not
> all of these initiatives are in the best interest of the individual.
> "Is this primarily serving the needs of a government, or a person
> living within that government?"... "Do you  truly have the freedom to
> opt-out without being coerced?"... "Is there true market
> competition?"... "Do you really have a choice of digital wallet?"...
> "Are you beholden to a specific software vendor?"... these are the
> questions that have uncomfortable answers today.
>
> I look forward to hearing more about your vision for DIF, and this
> community, over the coming months. Know that many of us support the
> same things you believe in. The hardest part of all of this is
> continuing to work toward a vision that empowers individuals in a
> meaningful way, that does not rely on centralization and coercion to
> do so, and that will positively impact the millions of people that use
> these technologies today, and the hundreds of millions of people these
> technologies will impact in the future.
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>
>