 This is Yoho Sapna Bharti on behalf of the Linux Foundation, and we have three guests with us today. Brian Bellendorf, General Manager for Blockchain, Health Care, and Identity at the Linux Foundation. Joan Jerkovic, Senior Vice President of Operations at American Associations of Insurance Services, and Truman Esmond, Vice President of Membership and Solutions at American Association of Insurance Services. It's great to have you all on the show today. Thank you. It's great to be here. Thanks. Happy to be here. Thank you. Today's topic is the Open Insurance Data Link Platform and Project. Brian, can you tell us what is it all about? Well, as you know, the use of blockchain technology by enterprises has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years, and it's touched all sorts of different domains, including ones that are very regulatory-intensive, such as insurance, such as banking, obviously, such as supply chain traceability, all sorts of others. And this is a project that AAIS started a couple of years ago, actually, to help harmonize the reporting and the sharing of data in the insurance industry for the management of risk. They'll tell you a lot about it. But what they chose was to use hyperledger fabric as the way to build out a data sharing network, using some governance principles that align very nicely with the kinds of things that we saw as limitations in many of the deployments out there of blockchain technology for enterprise purposes, where it was really hard to figure out what's the governance model, what's the way to actually come to an agreement on how to run a network like this. And so we decided we would like to help in this space of blockchain governance. We had been talking with AAIS for the last year on how a project like this might work. And so this is really the Linux Foundation's first step into being a consortium focused on delivering a set of use cases in this particular field, but using an underlying distributed ledger to serve those use cases. So we're really excited about this. I would like to know a bit more about the history and origin of OpenID project and platform. AAIS is an advisory organization in the United States. And the reason we were formed is that insurance is regulated at the state level, but there needed to be an organization that looked at the national level of insurance, kind of providing a common set of forms and then also collecting data for the regulators to report on a regional and a national basis. So we've been doing that for about 80 years. But what we're learning now is that we need more data than we collected in the past. It needs to be broader and at the same time more granular. But with the concerns around data security, it was becoming increasingly difficult to work with the carriers to get the data that we needed and for the regulators to get the data that they needed. So we've held some design thinking sessions to bring the regulators and the carriers and AAIS and others together to talk about this problem. And we came to the conclusion that it is the security and privacy of data and the transparency in how that data is used. And looking for a solution to provide a new platform to the industry, we looked at Blockchain and found that that is a technology that brings that security privacy and transparency to the exchange of information, not necessarily data in the way we've done it in the past, but how we might use smart contracts to exchange information on top of this network. So with that, we started the OpenIDL. You mentioned collecting a large amount of data thanks to the purification of IoT devices, smart phones. So we are not only collecting a lot of data, we are also collecting different kind of data. Can you talk about how has what we collect changed over years and how companies are using it to offer better premium, for example, in the insurance space or better services to their customers? Yes, absolutely. And our member companies, the insurance carriers in the United States are all looking at the ways that they're going to use the smart devices, the information that is there, not only to monitor risks that they cover, but also to pay claims. And this is where with these smart devices, IoT devices, it becomes important to have a Blockchain network in place. The carriers, AIS, we don't wanna collect all of that data that is being collected by these sensors, but we do need an immutable record so that if a water sensor checks and sees that something did fail at a certain time and an insured files a claim, we can simplify the claims process by having that information written on a Blockchain. Now, we're not there yet with the OpenIDL, that's not really the first use case that we're working on, but we do believe that with the extension of OpenIDL and other networks, that the data that is collected by these IoT devices really will benefit the insurance industry without them having to collect large volumes of data. You mentioned a risk factor there. Can you talk about other use cases that you are looking at with this platform and project? Well, let me cover just briefly the first use case that we tackled, but to be really clear, it's not the only use case. It is the one that we started with to prove the concept, prove that it works. And it also is integrated with our mission as an advisory organization. Today in the United States, there are stat agents that collect data from insurance carriers. We aggregate that data and we anonymize it and we send reports to regulators. Now, that data isn't meeting the need of the regulators anymore. And we've learned that there are, there's over a thousand reports that get run on an annual basis where data is requested directly from a regulator, the regulator requests it from a carrier. That data gets sent in and additional reports are being produced because the stat data that we've traditionally collected is no longer sufficient. So we tackled that problem is how can we improve regulatory reporting? And at the heart of that, let's not transfer large volumes of data anymore. So inherent in the design of OpenIDL is a data store. We call it the Harmonized Data Store and it has some standards for how data is held in that Harmonized Data Store. With that, a carrier could put the data in the Harmonized Data Store and prove that they've met the regulatory requirements, that the data is there. Then a regulator, when they have a new question, can use the OpenIDL network to ask a question of the carriers. We would like to create a report with this information in it. Are you willing to participate? Again, going towards collaboration unless of a requirement. And the carriers can say, yes, we'd love to participate in that. We're going to run some processes here internally. We're going to run some smart contracts. We're going to deliver information back in an aggregated and anonymized way. We're not going to transfer huge volumes of files to the regulators. We're just going to answer the question. A good example of this is when there's a catastrophe in the United States, the regulators may ask the carriers in a state or region to send a large volume of data because they want to know what the total insured value is for homes in that area. They don't really need to transfer all that data. They just need a response from each of the carriers. What is the total insured value that you have in this area? One number. And so this is where we're trying to improve regulatory reporting by using the Harmonized Data Store, holding it as a secure and private data store, using the network to then validate that the data is there, validate the questions that are asked of the data. That's what's actually stored on chain in the network. Now, let's talk about the Linux Foundation in this project. Why and when did you decide to move the project into the Linux Foundation? Well, for us, OpenIDL was called OpenIDL from the very beginning because we believe in open source solutions. We were always hopeful that we could eventually move our project to the Linux Foundation. We are trying to change the way the industry shares information and to do that in a very open platform. We wanted the technology to be open, the data standards to be open, and to encourage the industry to participate in this network. We heard repeatedly from our member carriers that they're concerned about any organization that is forming one of these networks. One is they're concerned about proprietary solutions. They were concerned about investing in a technology and a network and then being locked in and then having few options, if any at all, in terms of the technology that they would like to use and then the pricing model would be locked in. So being open was a high priority for us. We formed a not-for-profit around this organization, but again, we heard from our members. Any not-for-profit can eventually become a for-profit, again, locking them in to this technology platform. So this is why it was so important for us to be with the Linux Foundation, an organization with a global base of participants that really understand what open source means to provide that common infrastructure to an industry and that there isn't a risk that when our members invest in the open IDL, that it will become a proprietary or a closed network. By working with the Linux Foundation, we are confident that it will remain open and available to grow. Brand, Linux Foundation is now home to a lot of different kind of projects. Can you talk about the structure and governance of this project? There's a very set structure and governance model. The Linux Foundation, our core has been open source software. I think we've cracked the nut, so to speak, on how to get companies large and small, even fierce competitors to work together on common software when they have common challenges. And really it's a, the case is on not just freedom and not just agency and having the ability for these companies to bend the software to meet their needs, but also on cost cutting, on ways to do the things together that you have to do to be in an industry, especially when it comes to something like regulatory reporting. No one differentiates their business on regulatory reporting, right? So on open source software, we know that and obviously the development of the software is a big part of this project. We have a code base that has been built by AIS working with some of the partners coming in to bootstrap this. It is still early days of the project, but there is running code in that classic rough consensus and running code, kind of IETF frame, right? But it's about more than code. It's also about the specifications, making sure that there's ways to plug that software in into the backend systems of the insurance carriers. It's also about more than just the insurance carriers. We have several partners involved who are technology infrastructure partners. These are ones who are there to work with the carriers, but also potentially work with other types of organizations who might plug into this network. So it's software, it's specifications, but it's also an open network. And this is what's kind of new for us. When you talk about open networks, I think everyone has different ideas in their head of what that means or what that looks like. When I think about the governance of an open network, I think about things like the domain name system. How did we get to a working global DNS system without it becoming a function of the UN or a function of some other like international body? But how do we get it through ICANN, right? And that was by practicing kind of minimum viable governance at the center of a set of legal relationships that bind certain anchors in that trust ecosystem. In the case of the domain name system, those are the domain name registrars, right? In the case of something like this, it'll be the carriers and some of the other participants in the network acting as these trust anchors running nodes on this network, keeping it decentralized, but decentralized within the bounds of a community. And the governance model we've set up is a pretty straightforward one. It's how we do governance on open source projects, which is it's transparent, the door is open. You will have to be a member of OpenIDL in order to stand up a node on the OpenIDL network. But we think that's appropriate because that's a way to bind the participants to a set of things that go beyond what open source software does. And there's more information about this at the OpenIDL website. And we've also done some writing on what these kinds of open governance networks should look like, but it really is inspired by trying to understand what has made open source software work as a governance mechanism, what has made open standards and specifications work as a process. And trying to say, look, we build the most value for everybody, the more people we can bring into this network and the more public we can be about it. You just have to balance that with the operations of a blockchain network, which are very different from the operations of publishing open source code. And recognizing that we exist in a regulated space with insurance and so many of these other use cases. And so another, a final big part of this is how do we involve the regulators? How do we involve other types of government agencies as first class participants in this network, not to let them dictate the roadmap or dictate the direction, but to make them feel like they can perform the role that they need to perform in the industry and everybody needs them to perform in the industry to help manage the risks and make sure that everybody's a good actor in the ecosystem. Can you talk a bit about, I don't want you to get into the technical details of the software stack, but what kind of roadmap you have for the release of the software? And since you are heading a couple of projects at the Linux Foundation, what kind of cross-polidization do you see within the foundation which will help this project because it will be leveraging not only a lot of software, a lot of code, but a lot of networking capability and also infrastructure that has been created by other projects. The software stack at OpenIDL, it does include hyperledger fabric, fortuitously. There is no requirement that they run hyperledger technologies or that any Linux Foundation-hosted project like OpenIDL decide to use hyperledger fabric or any other hyperledger project. It really is up to that community, the OpenIDL technical community, to decide what the rest of their stack is, but it is a combination of fabric and some chain code written specifically for that along with interface code to be able to connect it to backend systems and query it, but also components like MongoDB and others to implement this harmonized data store. So it is a stack of technologies and with OpenIDL in the Linux Foundation ecosystem, we do plan to connect it to the different events that happen, the hyperledger global forum coming up in June, for example, is one event OpenIDL will be presenting at, there's other open source summits and other face-to-face events, as well as channels from social media point of view and PR points of view and like as well as other related projects. We don't have any other insurance related projects in the Linux Foundation, but as you mentioned with AgStack and some of the other more recent projects in energy, for example, and in the financial sector, I certainly see bridges, opportunities to build bridges for those organizations. Talk about common technologies. I mean, there's a lot of this stack that is inside OpenIDL is not actually specific to insurance and the ability to use it, perhaps for information sharing in other industries in climate, for example, could be really powerful. So we're certainly gonna be looking at how do we get some synergy going with other projects under the LF banner or even beyond? Excellent, thanks, Truman. If you can just talk about, of course, there is already a kind of community around the project, but as part of the Linux Foundation project, what kind of community or ecosystem we can expect around OpenIDL as the project grows? Absolutely. So it starts really from the core data elements which are the policies and claims that are in the distributed data network supported by OpenIDL. So each participating carrier is a data owner, has this information in their data store according to the rules of the harmonized data structures, harmonized data store, which is not just structure, but how it got there and that data that exists is trusted for a particular purpose. So we've got monthly policy and claim data coming into the store that is good enough for regulatory reporting. Then at that point, it's how we can use it. So it's the initial case is the annual regulatory reporting as well as all the data calls. There are over 1600 that Joan mentioned that our member carriers are subject to and we're gonna basically be automating those to allow the regulators of the ability to get better insights to what's happening in their market so they can write better policies so we can build better insurance products and take care of other risk situations. Where the network will expand and where it's going right away now is you mentioned IOT devices which is definitely coming on the radar but the first one, the first other data owners that are joining the network are the regulators and then as well as the catastrophe models and the intellectual property folks that have either data aggregation around geospatial information or models for intelligently mapping different risks, flood, crime, as well as how those relate to other data stores like weather so as the storm approaches who's in danger and this is a question like Joan said where is the risk out there and then as the storm gets closer what can they do to mitigate and then as the past is what they do to clean up and how do they help make sure their communities are solved. So that's the real use case but we're starting to bring in more people into the network as Brian mentioned first year participants actually in the network not just connecting via APIs but actually having their proprietary information be it an algorithm or an aggregated data store connected as a harmonized data store to the broader network. So that's where the power really comes in so now those third party data stores can not only be accountable but they also can be incorporated into a very dynamic parametric and timely experience for the ultimate business of risk transfer. Talking about bringing in more members of course this one is specific to Americanization but most of the Linux Foundation projects are global. Will the scope of this project be limited to the US or North America or what about Europe or other countries can they also benefit? But the thing is regulatory requirements are different there. I mean Europe is very, very strict when it comes to privacy and data. So can you talk about the scope regional scope of this project? Absolutely and that's one of the governance committees we have under OpenIDL is the Applications Governance Committee because this is the what AEIS the American Association of Insurance Services which has a specific scope property casualty in the United States. That's what we're using it for but the underlying technology and what our members are using it for as you look down inside the enterprise and most of them are multinational organizations also part of large re-insurers and they're looking at incorporating this into other initiatives globally because the pattern when you boil it down is data ownership and transparency without you can keep the data private and get the information to the people that need it in a timely fashion in a trusted way according to whatever the trust level it is that you need to do it you might need to be hired to pay a commission or move large amounts of money but if you're just gonna send somebody a notification maybe to batten down the hatches maybe that's a little you'd have to trust it quite as far. So that's where it's going from a fundamental standpoint internationally we're already looking at many use cases that are not just beyond the regulatory part of PNC insurance but expand into it and certainly as we look at as we built open IDL one of the big concerns that we were looking to address was GDPR certainly that's a challenge when you look at ledger solutions and data on chains we had to get around that and we think we are not get around it but work within the context of that and we think we've got really an ideal privacy solution that can be applied to the fundamental technology and connection of networks through the open governance of the Linux Foundation for the purposes of different levels of trust and the technology being open can follow our model and in fact can really replicate exactly what we've done as AIS for PNC regulatory structures and you can apply or pivot it either into neighboring countries or other communities however you define that. Yeah, well the international question is I think a really relevant one I mean right now the use cases have been driven by a set of needs from the US regulators and carriers focused on the US markets but insurance is a global phenomenon that the need to share data to manage risk and build better models is a global concept. There are global standards in this domain that people are operating against and I think actually shared open source software around meeting regulatory requirements might actually be a way to help harmonize some of those regulatory requirements might be a way to bring us closer together to a safer world. So the idealist in me says, sure the door is open the pragmatist says, you know we need to also be engaging the regulators and but also just like demonstrating that there's value in this core approach before getting too, too broad about it but I'm always an under promise and over deliver kind of guy. So I'm secretly very optimistic that this can be a key force for the global insurance industry. One quick point, something that we get asked a lot is what makes open IDL different from other consortia and blockchain networks and we kind of touched on it but it's really a couple of very key things is that one thing that we mentioned is the regulators are first tier citizens first tier participants in this network and they trust it to use for existing regulatory infrastructure which has required one common refrain we hear across really blockchain networks of all kinds that regulators are the challenge when we see a cryptocurrency we see it in financial transactions and all kinds of other things there. In this case is the regulators have been involved in the development and are again part of the community and the network it wasn't developed solely by insurers and then the regulators were invited to participate after the fact they were involved in there from the beginning so they can trust it how it works from a transparent perspective and then the other part of it is the framework within which it operates is already regulatory acceptable and that's our role and we're disintermediating ourselves so that as Joan mentioned our purpose can move much faster and really solve the goal of the industry and those two things make it unique being open from the bottom up having the regulators as an infrastructure that ties it to a regulatory accepted framework and then the other thing is that actually it's connected to real property where we're talking about actual buildings actual businesses, actual homes, actual cars actual things that are real with real experience that can be trusted for again an increasing variety of purposes and the data sources that relate to those things can be increasingly distributed because if you're aggregating data then you're going to be less timely as well as a target which was fundamentally our situation where we didn't want to be a big aggregation of data but we needed information from the aggregate fashion You know these are early days for the project still especially in its incarnation as a Linux Foundation project as an open source project the door is wide open to all sorts of different directions we can head in like any open source project history is made by those who show up so if this is a domain of interest for you even if it's really just understanding how might an open blockchain network like this work I really invite all of you to come to openideal.org register your interest, join a mailing list and get to know us better Awesome Brian, Joan, Truman, thank you so much for taking time out today and talk about this project I look forward to talk to you again because I'm sure there will be a lot of updates about the project so thanks for your time today Thank you Swapnail Thanks, happy to be here Thank you