Bhutan’s digital transformation is honest. As a small and technologically under-developed country, it also has big aspirations to transform into a tech leader for its 787,000 citizens.
The nation’s NDI products based on Self-Sovereign Identity and Legal Entity Identifiers has provided a roadmap to getting there, diverting around poor connectivity issues and the fact that lots of citizens do not own a mobile phone.
Bhutan NDI has now become the first NDI System in the world to join Global Acceptance Network to immerse separate ecosystems.
Darrell O’Donnell, Co-Founder of TrustOverIP praised “seeing a leader like Bhutan NDI succeed in their own ecosystem and then extend into other national ID ecosystems”. He said they are creating “nation-scale ecosystems that encompass many smaller ecosystems in the countries they operate in, such as banking, telecom, utilities, and government services”.
Bhutan’s National Digital Identity workforce and Trust Over IP Foundation have published case studies in the past examining the building blocks of Bhutan’s Digital Trust Ecosystem (DTE). Leveraging the Legal Entity Identifier, Bhutan is considered a ‘trusted party’ within the ecosystem to emulate their NDI system in separate ecosystems.
“The network effect is incredible” – Darrell O’Donnell, Co-Founder, TrustOverIP
The nation’s admission into the network, which supports sharing verifiable and trusted data, was announced this week at the Bhutan Innovation Forum.
Jigme Tenzing, Secretary of Bhutan’s government technology agency said: “By joining the Global Acceptance Network, Bhutan is taking the next step towards ensuring our digital credentials are not only secure within our borders but trusted globally”.
“Our vision is to empower every Bhutanese citizen with control over their own data, while enabling seamless, verifiable exchanges with the rest of the world. GAN provides the interoperable trust network we need to build this truly interconnected and trusted digital future.”
