Written by by Silicon Trust
When driving – or walking – from Gelsenkirchen’s Main Station to the cryptovision headquarter in the nearby science park one couldn’t miss a huge 2015 Mindshare billboard by the side of the road. A bit too much maybe? Not really. For one, it indicates that you are indeed on the right path to the event and it’s a also nice reminder of what this event is all about. The imagery with the two green open heads exchanging content is well chosen: Green because this is a corporate event, and cryptovision’s corporate colour is green. But corporate in this case includes a huge network of partners and customers that are happy to commit to their relationship and share their expertise.
The structure of the two-day event underlines the intimacy that has become a trademark of cryptovision’s approach to sharing knowledge. Two days of presentations on Enterprise IT and Government ID, intersected with a large Garden party with beer, bands, burgers and football. Many of the presentations on the first day ended with a comment along the lines of “lets discuss further questions over a beer later on”.
With cryptovision strategically pushing in to the Americas, it was no surprise to see a large contingent from South America at the event. Government representatives from Peru and Ecuador gave real insights into their eID schemes. Touching on a very important trend on developing regions through the world, Marco Smeja gave an interesting talk on the convergence of payment and ID applications. cryptovision, of course, is quite familiar with this approach through their role in the Nigerian eID project.
Much closer to home was the presentation on mobile trends in Austria. Austria, along with the UK, France, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia is amongst the most innovative when it comes to using mobile technology for economic growth. With a nearly complete contactless reader infrastructure and unclustered financial processes, Austria may take the leap from contactless to mobile payment soon. Much sooner than Germany, where even contactless payment is virtually unheard of.
Staying on the topic of Europe, this year’s Mindshare Keynotes were extremely relevant. HJP Consulting CEO Markus Hartmann took delegates through the myriad of layers that make up the eIDAS regulation and, with great insight und equal amounts of humour, pointed out the possibilities that are covered by the framework. Bernd Kowalski from the German Federal Office for Information Security explained the growing importance if IT Security Certification, a topic of tremendous relevance in the daily security business. Governments are increasingly under pressure to set guidelines for appropriate standards and third party evaluations to ensure the availability and integrity of IT-Systems and Mr. Kowalski shared his experiences with the delegates on this development.
After two days, many beers in glorious, last minute sunshine, endless games of “human soccer”, fireworks, heated business talks, insightful presentations and discussion the 2015 Mindshare Event came to a close. On the way back to the station, when passing the large billboard, the delegates would agree that, once again, it was good to open up and share.