[MINUTES] CCG Atlantic Weekly 2026-01-13

CCG Atlantic Weekly - 2026/01/13 11:59 EST - Summary

This meeting kicked off the new year with an introduction from the new
chair, Denan Chen, and a discussion about the CCG's direction and focus for
the year ahead, including plans for increased engagement with the
Asia-Pacific region.

*Topics Covered:*

   - *Welcome and Introductions:* New chair Denan Chen was introduced and
   shared his goals for the CCG.
   - *Work Item Updates:*
      - *DID:Cell Specification:* Proposal to bring the DID:Cell
      specification into the CCG as a work item was discussed and
appears to have
      broad support. A related discussion is scheduled for Thursday with the
      DID:Web community.
      - *Issuer Verifier Registry:* Update on ongoing work within the
      incubation group, with progress being made on a unified data model.
      - *BIP 340 Crypto Suite:* Will Abramson proposed closing this work
      item due to a lack of active backing.
   - *New Chair's Vision (Denan Chen):*
      - Learn more about CCG processes and help the community grow.
      - Onboard more individuals from the Asia-Pacific region,
      understanding their needs and fostering connections.
   - *Asia-Pacific Engagement:* Discussion on strategies to increase
   participation from the APAC region, including leveraging conferences and
   potentially regional events.
   - *CCG Infrastructure and Content Accessibility:*
      - The automated system for recording, transcribing, and publishing
      minutes was highlighted.
      - A proposal to prioritize making past CCG content (11 years' worth)
      accessible via YouTube and podcast formats was discussed. This requires
      dedicated effort to extend existing archiving scripts.
   - *Breakout Sessions and Feedback:*
      - Attendees split into breakout groups to discuss what's working well
      with the CCG, areas for improvement, and future focus.
      - Key takeaways from the breakout sessions included:
         - Appreciation for the CCG calls being a "highlight of the week."
         - Interest in having speakers from the EUI and discussing
         interoperability from business and legal perspectives.
         - The need to explore tying identifiers to "carbon life forms."
         - A desire to invite people from "steady state endorsed digital
         identity" to speak.
         - Recognizing the strong existing schedule of speakers and work
         items, but identifying a need to attract more work items from diverse
         groups.
         - Suggestions for improving transparency and outreach, including
         potentially sharing GitHub analytics on work item activity
and exploring a
         LinkedIn group for broader professional appeal and event promotion.
      - *Next Steps:*
      - The DID:Cell work item will be formally adopted.
      - The BIP 340 Crypto Suite work item is likely to be closed.
      - Efforts to increase APAC engagement will continue.
      - Prioritizing the effort to make past CCG content available on
      YouTube and as podcasts.
      - The topic of a LinkedIn group for CCG will be further explored.

*Key Points Made:*

   - The CCG aims to foster an enjoyable and respectful community.
   - IPR agreements are necessary for substantive contributions.
   - DID:Cell is presented as a highly decentralized DID method attempt
   with low requirements.
   - There's a strong desire to bridge the gap and increase participation
   from the Asia-Pacific region.
   - Making historical CCG content more accessible through podcasts and
   YouTube is a priority for broader reach.
   - There's a continuous need to improve outreach and engagement with more
   individuals and groups.

Text:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-ccg-atlantic-weekly-2026-01-13.md

Video:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-ccg-atlantic-weekly-2026-01-13.mp4
*CCG Atlantic Weekly - 2026/01/13 11:59 EST - Transcript* *Attendees*

Alex Higuera, Benjamin Young, Brent Zundel, Denken Chen, Dmitri Zagidulin,
Elaine Wooton, Erica Connell, Geun-Hyung Kim, Greg Bernstein, Gregory
Natran, Harrison Tang, JeffO - HumanOS, Jennie Meier, Kaliya Identity
Woman, Kayode Ezike, Mahmoud Alkhraishi, Manu Sporny, Otto Mora, Phillip
Long, Ted Thibodeau Jr, Will Abramson
*Transcript*

Will Abramson: Hey everyone, we'll give folks a few moments to trickle in.

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Hi everyone.

Will Abramson: Okay, I think I'll get started. so hi everyone. Welcome to
the G. happy new year. Hope you all had a great relaxing break. So, before
I get into the admin, just brief review of the agenda today. So, we don't
have a speaker like we usually do. We just thought we'd kick off the new
year with an opportunity to first hear from our new chair, Denan.

Will Abramson: So once I've gone through the admin, I'll hand over to Denan
and he can introduce himself and say a bit about his ideas for the CCG and
then also we would love to hear from all of you on this group about the CCG
its direction what's gone well and maybe even broader the identity
community what should we as a community at the CCG and broader be focused
on this year what are our goals and directions so for that we will try and
split up into breakout groups with me, Den, and Mimmude in one of each. So,
let's split into three groups as long as's not they're not too large. so,
before all that fun, let me just review the standard spiel. So, this is a
W3C group and we follow the code of ethics and professional conduct from
the W3C.

Will Abramson: So let's continue to treat everyone with respect and build a
enjoyable community to be part of. secondly, IP note. So anyone's welcome
to participate in this calls. However, all substantiative contributions to
any CCG work items must be members of the CCG with full IPR agreement
signed. if you have any questions around that, just reach out to us and we
can help It's free to join. You have to sign the IPR group. we have an
opportunity to introduce ourselves. Anyone new to the call or just fancies
coming off mute and saying hello to the community? That would be most
welcome. just jump on the queue.
00:05:00

Will Abramson: Okay, I'm not hearing anybody. so next I have opportunity
for work items and I know mana you wanted to talk about the did sell work
item proposal so we could do that first but if anybody else has any updates
for the community about CCG work items that they are going on they're
working on or want feedback on or have any questions please jump on the
queue. so with that I'll go to D cell.

Will Abramson: So Manu raised this work item proposal a while back now or
last week but this is off the back of an extensive discussion that's
happened on the mailing list which I'm sure many of you have seen. it is to
bring the cell specification into the CCG as a work item. it seems to have
extensive support maybe some debate but seems like positive debate. and a
number of people have voiced willingness to help move this work forwards. I
don't know if Manny you want to say a few words. but if anybody has any
glaring objections or they're very opposed to this work like please speak
now otherwise I think the chairs are in mind to adopt this work item and I
think it's great.

Will Abramson: man,

Manu Sporny: Happy to. a couple of things I guess there is an upcoming
discussion on did cell. So if it has been hard to follow all the
conversation on the mailing list. so I'm putting a link into the chat
channel. The did webvh communities hosting kind of like a get to know did
sell and talk about its features and see if any of them are useful in did
webv that's happening this Thursday 9:00 a.m. Pacific 6 pm central. and the
invitation is in that link. there's also a preliminary slide deck that you
can download that kind of goes over did sell here. Otto, you asked will
there be a D cell deep dive?

Manu Sporny: I think it would be nice to do it in the CCG as well but at
the same time if the did webvh I think they're going to have the first deep
dive on this right so please attend that this week if you want to do a deep
dive and then up to the chairs in this community if you want to do another
maybe in a couple of months revision because there will be some updates
there but the high level takeaway for dead it uses a subset of features.
You can think of it as using a subset of features from did webvh that has a
pretty tight security profile that attempts to not use DNS that uses
oblivious witnesses to create historical document.

Manu Sporny: It's meant to be, useful to anybody that can connect to the
internet and the requirements for using it are incredibly low. meaning you
just need the ability to do e stuff which is you can do on a mobile phone a
desktop or laptop and then you just need a place to store files and that's
it. everything else the witnesses are oblivious and simple and that sort of
thing. So no heavy blockchain, heavy consensus, no massive IPFS like
network. you don't need any of that stuff. It's the most fully
decentralized did method attempt.

Manu Sporny: And that's kind of what we're trying to do with it.

Will Abramson: Great. Thanks,…

Will Abramson: I have a question. Would the call on Thursday be recorded?

Manu Sporny: I don't know what diff does. I think they definitely have
agendas that they update.

Will Abramson: Okay.

Manu Sporny: I remember things being recorded in the past. I don't know
what the current state is.
00:10:00

Will Abramson: Or maybe if it's recorded you could share it with …

Manu Sporny: Yeah, auto saying it's recorded.

Will Abramson: okay, so I'm not hearing any objections. I think it sounds
like a great work item. I look forward to seeing it progress. I guess this
is kind of tied up in the bid methods working group in that direction. So
it's interesting prerequisite. So I think we're reminded to adopt this.

Will Abramson: I will comment on this issue and then I think I will close
and you're okay to do the process of it's just bringing the repo over,…

Manu Sporny: Yep. Yeah,…

Will Abramson: That's all we need to do.

Manu Sporny: I can transfer the repo after that happens.

Will Abramson: Okay, great. thanks. And I'm not hearing anyone else talk
about work items. I mean, I think that's one thing that maybe we can
consider as we go into our breakout rooms, how the CCG handles work items.
Maybe there are some changes we could have there. So, Phil

Phillip Long: Yeah. Can someone summarize the current status of issuer
verifier registry work within W3C? I'm just not clear if there is an active
work group work building something or whether we're sticking with what we
had before in terms of that approach or what. Thanks.

Will Abramson: Good. Thanks, Phil. Mano,…

Will Abramson: hopefully you got

Manu Sporny: Yeah. Yeah.

Manu Sporny: They're regular meetings, Phil, every week, Thursday at 10:00
a.m. Eastern. it's the incubation group that work is being handled in. the
invitations are on the CCG calendar. we will be having a meeting this
Thursday where we will be progressing with that work item. There has been a
lot of discussion and refinement and we're getting closer and closer to
kind of consensus on the path forward.

Manu Sporny: A lot of work has been focused on the data model over the past
couple of months and I think we're getting closer and closer to a unified
data model that is going to work for the variety of different use cases for
education and the European approach to the verifier lists as well as a
couple of other use cases.

Manu Sporny: That's

Phillip Long: Thanks, Better.

Will Abramson: Great. …

Will Abramson: maybe I have one other thing on the work item since I'm just
looking at these issues. the group voted a while back to adopt this work
item on BIP 340 crypto suite but I no longer work with DCD and I don't
think DCD has much appetite for doing this CCG work so I'm in mind to close
this issue I mean probably we should have already closed it but we never
moved it we never really did the process of adopting this work item so
unless there are folks on this call

Will Abramson: who, want to put some time to move this across. it is a
shame. I see that sad face. I'm also sad, but I just think it lacks the
backing. I mean, the spec is still there and could be used if there is a
time in the future when people want to see this crypto suite have more
rigor behind it.

Will Abramson: yes and I do believe DCD are still using it. Maybe before I
close it I'll reach out to you just to check but it was really me pushing
for that while I was with that I think I'll hand over to our new chair
Denin and just say welcome Denin to the CCG. I'm delighted to have you. I
think we all are. So maybe you can say hello and introduce yourself folks.

Denken Chen: So I'm Denan n. I'm come from Taiwan in Asia. So I have been
doing software development for the past decade and this is my first job
with working with the Taiwanese government on the digital identity in my
country and due to the affiliation with the Chinese government ministry of
digital affairs Moda. so I got a chance to meet many of you in person for
the last two W3CT pack and other activities or international meeting stuff
so thanks for your support for getting me onto this chair of the CCG. So my
main goal here is twofold.
00:15:00

Denken Chen: The first thing is I would like to learn more and help the
community to grow. And so firstly I need to demo more about the whole
process for example we do have the work item here in CCG and move some
items onto the date working group or VC working group. Yeah I would like to
learn more about the process. And the second things is my main focus here
is trying to on boarding more Asian people onto CCG. it's pretty late here
in my time zone it's 1:00 a.m. I believe we have another person in Korea
that will be 2:00 a.m. It's pretty late.

Denken Chen: so I think we previously in started from that working group
there was an early tries with APEC friendly time it didn't work out very
well and then we tried it on CCG doing some APC series yeah so we invited
some people in Asia and trying to do some promotions so I would like to
lead that effort on boarding more Asian people trying to understand their
needs because during my work I know there has been many of them in APAC
region doing digital identity works. but from my understanding Asian people
needs to be connected then to invited so they will go out rather than just
doing things on their own. Yeah.

Denken Chen: So that's my main focus here and hopefully in the future we
will not just sing full of CCG weekly speeches lectures we will see more
people from the Asia to share their experiences and…

Denken Chen: that's it. Thank you.

Will Abramson: Thanks, Den.

Will Abramson: Does anybody have any questions go for

Manu Sporny: Yeah. Denin, that's awesome. that's great. And I think, the
best way to build, the Asia-Pacific region is with folks like you that are
in the AsPacific region. I wanted to point out that there are a couple of
upcoming conferences that could help. And Kalia, I'm going to be looking to
you to point out all the ones that I miss, but specifically MOS Connect is
coming up. I know it's short, it's a month from now, February in Morocco.
but and I know Denin, you've chatted with them.

Manu Sporny: I think it would be great to use some of those venues to try
and convey that CCG is here we are working on technologies that are being
used in all these different countries and so we'd love participation and
then a huge plus one to an APAC friendly time it's no matter what we pick
it's painful for Apac. so just some thoughts there. I don't know if there
are other kind of Asia Pacific or kind of subsaharan Africa related
conferences. Kalia I think I know DICE is happening and that's closer. just
some thoughts there, Duncan, on places to meet up with

Denken Chen: Yes, Thank you. And thanks to Manuel, I got to connect with
MOSIP as well. And then we are also starting to do some early
interoperability test between MOSIP components and Taiwan's digital
identity w components because we are both fully open source projects and we
also build our own testing environment. So I think that will be pretty
easier to test all of the interpretability through the issuer wit and
verify. So that's one thing I've been working with then through a monthly
meeting and hopefully we will have some findings and experience to share in
this group. Yeah. Thank you and Kadia.
00:20:00

Denken Chen: Yeah, nice to see you here.

Kaliya Identity Woman: Yeah, I mean we do have DICE happening, the digital
identity unconference Europe in June. but I'm also thinking about if does
it make sense to do an AP pack regional event again? so the IW team's open
trying to help that happen.

Denken Chen: I'm interested in the last try. I remember there was some Asia
on the W Asia part. in what year or what information I could search for to
understand the connection at that time? got it in Singapore.

Kaliya Identity Woman: Yeah, I think it was 2023. I don't know. Anyways, it
was a few years ago.

Denken Chen: Okay, I will find some connection here.

Kaliya Identity Woman: No, it was in Thailand.

Denken Chen: I found the wrong one. Okay, thank you.

Will Abramson: Yes. Thanks.

Will Abramson: And I think I will ask for everyone on this call, if folks
doing interesting stuff in the Asia-Pacific region, do connect them to us
and really to an. if Denan's going to spearhead this effort, Harrison did a
fantastic job of making the CCG's job easy, We have this wonderful
spreadsheet with interesting speakers lined up in advance. And I know there
is lots of interesting stuff going on in the AP pack. Even when I just
tried to do that at Den connect me to a bunch of interesting speakers, but
I think that's part of the job, Finding people that are interesting, then
just finding a time that we can swap them in and kind of starting to build
a rhythm. I think with Den in the Asia Pacific region,

Will Abramson: that should hopefully start to pick up some momentum. which
is great. Anybody else have any questions for Den? I can go for it.

Denken Chen: Yeah, one thing to add …

Denken Chen: since I've been in Asia time, so I will not be able to attend
every single CCG weekly. Im sorry about that. probably I will attend once
per month. but for example in the previous years I've been watching CCG
weekly recordings regularly and it really helps me to understand the whole
picture of this area. So I think it will be the same for Asian people.

Denken Chen: we will try to get them onto the CCG meetings to talk about
their works but on the other hand we will continue to use the recording to
let them understand what's happening in this region because CCG is one of
the community I've seen so vibrant so full of speeches yeah it's very rare
I think in many of the fields yeah thank

Will Abramson: Thanks. M

Manu Sporny: I think that's true Den and vice versa as well. I mean, if
you're able to hold, regular Apac meetings, the minutes and transcription
summary do come over and I read those with great interest, I can't make the
meetings, but I love to read the top level summary of what was discussed
primarily to learn about kind of new projects in the APAC region. in fact
that's how I initially found out about some of the projects that MOSEP was
also working on was through one of those meetings. So I think that's great.
I think the recordings definitely help people that can't make to it just
read a summary of kind of what happened to get a general idea and then you
can watch or listen to the recordings as well.

Manu Sporny: about that. so the infrastructure is already set up for You
can call a meeting any time at the APAC time slot and it'll record and
transcribe and autopublish the minutes. we just got some new automation
around that. to make it fully automated a couple of weeks ago. and if there
are any special calls that anyone would like to set up, we can set that up
easily with the Inu infrastructure. Right. so it's to the point now where
the infrastructure kind of runs itself and does all the transcription and
auto summary and the other thing we've been really wanting to do for a
while now has been lish to YouTube, publish to a podcast style, thing. We
can do that automated processing now.
00:25:00

Manu Sporny: I would love for us to prioritize that this year because we
have a huge backlog of content, right? I mean, we have content going back
11 years now, that we could put out there, as a podcast series. and then,
we could also put it out there as video. I have been very surprised the
number of people that have said that they listen to just the audio on their
drives into work or…

Manu Sporny: back. I wouldn't do that but other people do. So I think
that's great a way for us to kind of reach communities that are not
currently reaching. That's it.

Will Abramson: I think that's a great idea,…

Will Abramson: I guess my ask is…

Will Abramson: what's the next step? if we were prioritizing that? What
would we do?

Manu Sporny: We need somebody to spearhead that effort.

Manu Sporny: We need somebody that we have this script that uploads and
downloads video and does things to it. we would need to extend that script
to convert it to audio and we'd need it to attach to a YouTube or podcast,
whatever we decide that we're going to advertise it through and just
automate it. So it just all happens without any of us having to do
anything, we're so close if I could find two days to do it, it would be
done in two days, But I can't. so it's a weekend project maybe or…

Manu Sporny: if you can convince your employer to take some time I will be
done in a month easy. That's it.

Will Abramson: Cool. …

Will Abramson: and the script is here. The CG archiver, right? Okay.

Manu Sporny: Yep. That's right. That's it.

Will Abramson: Maybe I'll take a little pass at least, just try and
understand, see what's needed. But, I think you're right. It would be great
to make this content a bit more accessible. currently it's kind of hidden
where it lives, once it's not linked to from the email. I think with that
we will move into these breakouts. So, first before we do that, since
there's 20 of us, Harrison, we wondered if maybe you would be okay to lead
a breakout and then we can have groups of five.

Will Abramson: and Harrison the aim is really just to have an open
discussion with folks in a smaller group around what's working well with
the CCG to change what should we be focusing on just what whatever people
are interested in want to bring to the group I think it is that okay
Harrison wonderful thanks we appreciate that so Mammud could you start the
breakouts I think You set those up.

Harrison Tang: Yeah, sounds good.
00:55:00

Phillip Long: Benjamin, you were caught off in midsp speech.

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Sorry about that,…

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: I hoped that the notification would go off and let
people know. but I just know we have four minutes left on the call. Were
there any really big ideas somebody wanted to share with the group? I know
us as chairs have heard a bunch of stuff and we'll have a conversation
about it. Was there anything? Please, go ahead.

Denken Chen: Yeah, we talk about how to stay connected. So, Kalia has a
suggestion that we created LinkedIn group. actually, I'm not familiar with
LinkedIn So, whether that would be a good idea to move forward to posting
similar things besides our mailing list.

Kaliya Identity Woman: just as a way very specifically the group could post
what's coming up next week and…

Kaliya Identity Woman: for speakers and broaden the appeal not just
generically to CCG but to come and hear who's coming to speak reach a wider
professional audience

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Mh All right.

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: We had a lot of conversations about how we can improve
our outreach and I think that's an important thing that we will be talking
about a lot more in the CCG. and we'll be hopefully sharing updates on that
soon. did you or Harrison want to update the group on anything?

Will Abramson: Yeah, I mean we had a great discussion. Someone said it was
the highlight of their week these calls. That was great to hear. one thing
that stood out me was trying to get some folks from the EUI maybe to talk
to us. We talked about interoperability from a higher level than just the
technical but the business legal which was interesting. And then also Bill
mentioned a big conversation is that maybe we need to have or instigate is
the question of how do we tie identifiers to carbon life forms or how do we
think through that problem a little bit more hopefully I guess and also
steady maybe we can bring on the steady state endorsed digital identity
people to talk to us. yeah it was a really great conversation.

Will Abramson: Thanks everyone.

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Uh-huh.

Harrison Tang: Yeah, in my group I think we talk about …

Harrison Tang: how we have a great schedule of presentations and speakers
monthly advanced. I think we have a good list of work items now too. but I
think the next challenge or room for improvements is how do we get more
items from more groups and then I think one ideas that we have is sharing
maybe there's some analytics right our work items are all hosted in GitHub
so maybe GitHub some analytics in regards to work item activities or maybe
number of new work items we get a quarter those kind of things and then
report out these analytics and then also figure out how do we not just
increasing more transparency but then doing more outreach to get more
people and more group involved.

Will Abramson: I think that's it right unless anyone wants to have the last
word. I think we can close the meeting, but really appreciate you all
coming Happy New Year again and welcome Denan. It's great to have you on
board. I really look forward to…

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Thanks.

Will Abramson: what you do in the AP pack angle.

Denken Chen: Yeah. Thanks everyone.

Will Abramson: And we'll see you next week and the call. I think we have
Doug. what do we have on next week? I can't remember. Drummond is coming on
to talk to us about first person AI agents.

Mahmoud Alkhraishi: Yes, thank you everyone.

Will Abramson: So, hopefully see you there. Cheers. Bye.
Meeting ended after 00:59:35 👋

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