# Bringing a Billion People to Web3: Starts in Argentina | Diego Fernandez - Government of Argentina

- Speakers: [Diego Fernandez](https://streameth.org/speakers/diego-fernandez)
- Channel: [Ethereum Denver](https://streameth.org/ethereum-denver)
- Date: 2024-10-09
- Duration: 20:32
- Topics: blockchain, web3, ethereum, Entertainment
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-nK99SElAGfU
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK99SElAGfU

## Description

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## Transcript

so Jenifer it is so oh I'm so proud to hear that well just in case you missed the introduction I am joined by the Secretary of innovation for the city of Buenos eras Diego Fernandez yes and I am Jen sassie I'm a reporter at coindesk and we're going to be talking about some very exciting news digital identity in Buenos Aros so before we get into it Deo lay out the challenge for me here what's the challenge that the folks in bueras are facing when it comes to Identity and how did you first become aware of it well honestly I think that the challenge with identity is not from buenos ciris but it's a human challenge I mean everybody in the world today is dealing on how to identify themselves in an in a in equivocal way in the digital realm and today we're using systems which are basically lousy I mean our way of identifying ourself with an user and a password or eventually with these new aggregators let's say meta Google uh LinkedIn or whatsoever that at the end of the day they control they they became the power of state that which issue digital identities and we need to come up with a new reality in which we users not governments the users control their identity their attestations and more importantly who they share it with and that is the thing that buenos ciris and several other countries in the world are looking forward to you know I mced an event earlier this week uh where we talked all about zero knowledge and one of the to the topics that came up was it's absolutely insane that to verify our identity these days we have to take a picture of a physical document and upload that to to some online portal and that's the only way we have to verify ourselves uh talk to me about how you are innovating on that archaic process well I mean when somebody requests something of me just to give an example say hey are you an Argentinian to my daughter when she goes out and want wants to buy a beer in a bar and the people say then the bartender says hey are you over to anyone nobody asks my ID anymore but I mean to my daughter they do and the only thing that she needs to prove is that she is 22 years old the bartender doesn't need to know her name she does he doesn't need to know her address her day of birth or whatever other information is contained within her Identity or driver's licensing credential we are used to spread out our data everywhere and that is wrong that is wrong and why is that is wrong and it's very dangerous why because 15 years ago 10 10 years ago we were not so digitalized today if somebody steals your identity they will steal your data your money even maybe your physical assets it's crazy we need to become more conscious about the value that data has hence Zer knowledge proof has a crucial role there why because instead of giving out data we just give a proof that we comply with the conditions that the verifier is requesting hey I am authorized to drive hey I am older than 1 years old hey I am whatsoever but you don't care or you don't need to know anything else about my identity and in that matter I mean we worked almost a year to identify the solid partner in order to provide us with this technology and the guys from model Labs have been great and and we are using their zero knowledge technology which is amazing I think the Skeptics among us might say but doesn't the government want want all of that extra data isn't there some kind of incentive for government for the systems to remain the way they are talk to me about the conversations that you're having within government is everyone on board or did it take some convincing well the answer is of course not uh not everyone is on board I mean people in government usually I mean they have this sort of a status quo way which is normal I mean government is slow by definition and it should be slow we don't want a government that behaves like I don't know like a tech company innovating and making mistakes all the time we have tech companies for that government should be kind of slow but uh I think that we we are today both in the public sector and in the private sector specifically in the blockchain sector we have this huge movement towards self- Sovereign identity decentralized identity towards building digital trust Frameworks I was just minutes ago in the in a side event I don't remember its name I think it's infra infra web fre or whatever chatting with a friend of mine which is Evan McMullan from disco XYZ and we were sharing that we were both really impressed that in the last three years I don't know three years ago in the decom and ethereum decom and and and the crypto events you had zero zero boots or companies speaking about identity take a look around here today we have several different companies and projects dealing with identity and I think that's wonderful because I mean having privacy and having anom anonymity is an aspect of our identity but there are certain occasions in which we need to attest that we are we and we want to do that without any mistakes if I'm signning a contract with you I need to be sure that you are you and you need to be sure that I am who I say who I say I am and I think that we are all Building Together the primaries for digital identity and that is something amazing that we need as a as a race not as a city not as a country but as a race let's talk about the solution now so the decentralized digital identity protocol that you're rolling out cork ID is built on zync era a zync era rollup talk to us about implementing that technology um and how you plan to roll it out to the folks in Bonas well we started something like two years ago we may we have in Buenos Ares and and please let me advertise this we have this amazing City that's if any one of you that haven't got yet you should amazing wine amazing beef go to Buenos AES I'm sold I'm sold you're more than invited but most important than that we have this strong really strong crypto Community many of the big projects today are from Argentina open saing build in Argentina uh Lambda a great developing company build from Argentina iob extremium coindesk I mean we have coin this not Co this you guys coin banks we have several different initiatives in Argentina so we made a public call say hey guys we want to build this you helped us and we were pretty successful I mean the guys from extrema who are sitting over here they made a great great deal of effort and they perhaps became the the the leading they took the leading role in this but we have several different other argentin companies involved Argentine and worldwi companies involved in developing this this sort of technological system or protocol that we need to use in buenosaires and I'm happy to say that uh last Thursday after two years of work uh we were we managed to to make it open source and we published it in GitHub and and in docusaurus and when we started thinking about this a few months after the the conception we started to sort of scout in which which were the potential distributed ledgers that we could use and we made quite a shopping around say hey I don't want to get names out but uh we met with uh I had the opportunity of meeting with most of the CEOs of several we decided that we're going to do it on a roll about in ethereum right and eventually we were sort of willing for it to be ebm compatible so we had I mean a bigger resource developer resource and I met with several rollups and at the end of the day we took the decision with the team to go to move forward with the CKC and M Labs because they have a very sound technology they have a huge user base and and we made a great partnership we have been working together for more than a year and um we are dreaming of this together we're building this together this is just the beginning we have I don't know version 1.0 in the market but uh we are really excited we have gained a big momentum several different cities provinces and countries from the Latin American region and from the world getting interested in what's happening over here and I think that it's a it's a this is a beautiful trip and we it's just starting have any other governments or regions reached out to you to find out how how the development's gone to maybe implemented in their own cities yeah we are already working with uh two different provinces in Argentina that be Sala and some other Province we are working with uh the government of monter which is a city in Mexico and NOA Leon in Mexico as well we are doing a pilot project in Bogota we are in conversations with Peru uh because I mean they interesting hey hey what are you guys developing we are a big city uh we are in where our next step is in July August and I think have my technical leader over there July August and that's a com that's a commitment from you guy he is responsible for making this happen which is we are integrating the Quark ID technology which this has his open source wallet that is a standalone product we are integrating Quark ID within the web two application that we have in Buenos Iris hence we will on board something like 3 to 5 million users in a 12 month period and that is great and that is great and and we're looking forward to it because bootstrapping this type of systems is is perhaps the most difficult thing that I mean everyone in the in the crypto industry is and we are dealing with that and I think that as a government we have the chance of doing that in our vision the way to get people bootstrapped in web free Technologies is without they knowing what they are doing people don't need to get technical people don't need to know which blockchain are you using people don't need to know which chain do you need to use for this or that that is extremely technical stuff we guys love it and we love to speak about hey the gas fees and blah blah blah blah regular folks don't my 84 yearold mother the only thing she cares is having an application that serves her needs she gives I mean zero interest to the underlying technology that we use of course we experts love to speak in our Ling Go stuff and then weird words but any anybody outside of this conference believe me they don't understand 20% of over speaking so what we're looking forward is to we have now a in our humble perspective sound technology we have open sources so that everyone and I invite you guys to do so everyone can go hack it test it try it and see how it works and we will be putting that in in our citizens platform and citizens will have the benefit of controlling their information any citizen who wants to know how these things work will have all the documentation as as they have it now available and anyone who doesn't care about how things work they can just use it they have the benefits they don't know how that benefits occur that's fine with us 3 to five million people I think a lot of folks who are building here at this conference would love to on board 3 to 5 million people people but it's not so easy how are you thinking about onboarding uh people to the cork ID how how are you incentivizing them to get the wallet and I don't think we've told the audience yet this is going to allow folks in buenus Aras to put marriage certificates and birth certificates correct that is that is true today uh I have my Quark ID application I have my birth certificates for me and for my free daughters within my wallet and that is legal documentation that is our reality today of of course what what we cannot do what I cannot do as as Secretary of innovation of the city of for service is force people to have two applications today what I need to do in order to have my credential quk ID is I need to have the Bonos applications why because and this is very important about the protocol the protocol is an it's in a deeper layer than the the implementation that the buos city government does for example today here in the booth we were issuing credentials similar in concept to a poop in which you okay hey you have been at the eth Denver conference at the Quark ID Booth CK s book amazing we didn't care who you are you just scan the QR and we me your credential because we don't care who you are but in the case of the W city government we do need to know who you are are and you need and we need to do to know who you are unequivocally why because we're giving out sensible documentation hence when you want to claim your credentials for birth certificates we request you to go through a biometric identification process against your identity issued by the national government today that is possible using two applications the W City application and the Quark ID wallet in July you can you you will be able of doing that with either two applications I will keep my Quark ID wallet or you will be able of doing that with just the Buenos city government application which will have the quar ID technology eded embeded in it the nice thing about is is that if if you have any doubts about how we are dealing with documentation you could go if you're a technical people you're a programmer you know your way around code you can go and check that code and see how we dealing with documentation that is the First Advantage and the second Advantage is that we live today in this crazy Digital World in which each organization each company force you to have their wallet in order to give you their documentation so if you need the documentation for your bank you download your bank's application so you have your I don't know whatever documentation your bank issu if you I was chatting this morning with a guy who showed me his my Colorado application where he has his driver license you have your national government application you have your I don't know uh gym application every organization that needs to provide you with documentation for a way of or of identifying you they give you their digital wallet being an application in the next 3 to four years that will be a reality of the past we will have a a wallet as we do in the physical world we will have a digital wallet with all of our verifi credentials regardless of who in them embedded in that wallet and we will be able of changing wallets and we do in the physical world I don't like my wallet I change it for a new wallet and that is the new reality why because we will all rely on the same trust framework and that trust framework won't be owned by any government because is an open- Source protocol everybody could use it without asking for permission because it's based on a permissionless blockchain and as we follow an international standard that being dids digital identifiers and verify credential from the w3c we will be able of cross verifying documentation regardless of who me them or where it was in which country was emitted of course the thing that you will will be able to verify in is that the organization that says that minted that credential is that organization that doesn't force you to trust it that is a personal organizational decision I mean I can check and I can verify that a driver's license was minted by the government of Rome and the government of Buenos Cirus or the government of Denver may decide if they trust or or not in that organization and in that license the digital trust framework ensures you that the other party is who they say they are now I have to ask you you might not have an answer for this and it's okay we'll move on if you don't uh you mentioned other Latin American cities and Central American cities that are looking into this why do you think in North America the government has been so slow to adopt Solutions like this well I mean the government today is is working today we have several initiatives all around the world the daak in Canada the pan Canadian trust framework we have Adas I don't know if that's pronounced that way sorry I speak English as a second language the European ID the theid alliance the sing pass initiative uk.gov is also moving forward in that directions you guys have the Sovereign protocol and Homeland Security is starting to work in an initiative which is called bring your Ro the ID you are moving forward there you guys are the the you guys have two of the big Tech Giants here which are Apple and Google who of course they have big stakes in the game they own the devices they push forward the mobile driver license but I think that eventually we will I mean Society will move in that direction we need to move out from I love big tech companies I am an Apple fan and I use every Google product but uh we can rely our identity in in any given company in any given government we need to have a decentralized a free world and that is a must Diego it's been such a pleasure chatting with you about this news we have 49 seconds so just quickly before we wrap tell everyone what we can expect next with cork ID well our next next stage as I mentioned before is I would love to have uh by December this year at least a couple of million users user using Quark ID the CK era technology on a daily basis that would be an amazing dream thank you so much thank you thank you thank you okay