National Digital Identity | Audrey Low

Imagine we could more seamlessly verify and authenticate our existence to  access services across various platforms. Digital Identity enables trusted communication in the increasingly digital world while preventing fraud and theft.

A conversation with the President of GCIT, Royal University of Bhutan. Audrey Low will educate listeners on the use case of Bhutan's NDI and share how she helped roll digital identity out at a national level in Bhutan. 

Transcript

Lauren Weymouth: 00:00
I'm Lauren Weymouth, spearheading Ripple's University Blockchain Research Initiative, the UBRI program that supports universities worldwide to accelerate understanding, adoption and innovation with blockchain technology.

On this podcast, All About Blockchain, we look under the hood at what academic and industry partners are building across all different types of industries,to give us a better understanding. The goal is to convey how blockchain is solving current challenges and making all different sectors more efficient. Today we're going to focus on digital identity, the digital representation of a person's identity information that can be used to verify their identity online. We're joined by Audrey Low, the president of Gyalpozhing College of Information Technology at the Royal University of Bhutan. She's an educator, who has not only been developing blockchain courses to build capacity in her premium university, but supporting students as they explore developing applications, all while working with Bhutan on a national use case of blockchain. Audrey, welcome to All About Blockchain.

Audrey Low: 01:02 Thank you very much. Hello to everybody. The way we say hello in Bhutan is Kuzuzangpo la.

Lauren Weymouth: 01:08 
Although All About Blockchain originates in the U.S., I think of this as a highly global podcast by content and by listenership. In 44 episodes, we've interviewed experts from six continents, and 49% of the downloads are outside of North America. As a representative of Bhutan, a Buddhist kingdom on the Himalayas, you are All About Blockchain's most interesting geographic guest.

I'd love to start out by better acquainting our listeners to what makes Bhutan and Bhutanese people and communities ripe for utilizing blockchain. Audrey, can you share about what makes Bhutanese people and communities ready for using blockchain?

Audrey Low: 01:38
We launched Bhutan's first sovereign cryptographic National Digital Identity, which is blockchain-based. We have a very specific reason why we actually launched this. Primarily it's due to His Majesty, the King of Bhutan's vision, where he wants to provide privacy for every citizen and every individual in Bhutan.

If you look at some of the problem statements that we have currently here in Bhutan, besides just privacy for individual citizens, we were really looking at various government services, public and private industries. But when you looked at the way the data is being ordinated, there's so much data that's actually being collected. And each of the relevant government, public, and private organizations, each time when you enroll for certain services, they require different types of data.

Although being a very, very small nation here in Bhutan, we have a population of 800,000. And probably, if you look at the bankable ones in 800,000, because some of them are in rural, we're speaking about 70 to 80% of the 800,000 population. But there are many banks, many telcos, many public and private organizations. So we are looking how to simplify the way we deal with data. Primarily looking at the way about KYC, which is now your client. We wanted a simplified KYC process that's seamless, and it needs to be digital, a one-stop portal, and blockchain is a solution. It's kind of automatic and natural for it to be the way for us to go. So that's how we first actually form the National Digital Identity blockchain base projects.

Lauren Weymouth 03:16 Can you tell us a little bit about the vibe with blockchain at the Royal University of Bhutan. I read that you had over 30 students in blockchain courses, do the students like blockchain, are they adopting to it, are they doing projects?

Audrey Low: 03:28 
When I first met you, we were building a new program on blockchain, so we are starting about 25 to 30 students. But as I speak with you now, fast-forward to a couple of years, I must really thank Ripple because we managed to build a blockchain program, because you are our backbone. We spend a lot of time downloading the XRPL, building solutions around XRPL and building our curriculum around XRPL. So we started this whole transformation of the Bachelor's of Computer Science. One of the specialization is actually blockchain software development. The idea is very straightforward. When people think of Bhutan, besides modernization in the sense of technology, we want everyone to come to Bhutan to learn about blockchain.

The second one is a developing country, our currency is not tradable. You take away ngultrum, you come in, yes, you spend a lot of ngultrum, you have a good holiday, but when you leave, you won't take the ngultrum to an exchange with your dollar. But US dollar is great. Wherever I carry is actually a exchangeable fiat currency. So we were looking at a digital currency that will be an exchangeable digital money. So when I started this journey in 2021, I looked at the potentials of the country and I look at the faculty team. Today I have a faculty team of six plus two, actually. One director that heads up my blockchain, plus two because that includes me as the president of Gyalpozhing College of Information Technology, Royal University of Bhutan. And then the other six are my local faculty that I spend a lot of time nurturing, teaching and guiding them about blockchain software. And my students, because we have cohort from year two, year three, and year four, we have tripled the numbers.

Lauren Weymouth: 05:12
Wow, that's very impressive. Audrey, I introduced you as the President of GCIC, Royal University of Bhutan, but what is your background and how did you personally get invested and interested in blockchain?

Audrey Low: 05:23 

So I am a IT and business graduate by default, technology is always my passion. I pursue more technology than business itself. But in the field of technology, my expertise was more in database and I was very interested in artificial intelligence. But if you rewind my career in 2014, 2015, I started became very fascinated with cryptography and consensus algorithm itself. I'm 100% self-taught on blockchain, I did a lot of courses online. I spent a lot of energy and time, and then I requested to teach blockchain software development at my previous alma mater, the university that I used to teach in Singapore.

I was fascinated with Vitalik Buterin because he was such a young gentleman. 

Lauren Weymouth: 00:11 Yeah, he's an icon, understandable

Audrey Low: 06:13 yeah right, So what happened was Ethereum blockchain started around 2011, 2012. I started dabbling with the Ether, Ethereum itself, and I was looking at the consensus algorithm, which then it was a dynamic shift from Bitcoin blockchain because Bitcoin blockchain, it's really proof of works, POW. Then Ethereum comes with proof of stakes, less electricity being used, the fundamentals of blockchain is still there. But then what was amazing was smart contracts. So the word "decentralized applications" then came into form, and we could write smart contracts and we could transact with ... we don't even have to see the next party that actually that we were going to either transact or either deal with in a certain way. And so it was just a natural progression for my fascination with blockchain software development.

I spent a lot of time in the library. I've been reading nights and nights, then I started looking at the software itself and putting the whole program together. And then I just went to my director then and said, "I'm going to teach blockchain." So I started in 2015. when in 2021 I met with the Ripple ecosystem, then I restart the journey again, downloaded the whole entire XRPL, looking at the way how the interbank transactions, we're looking at your new wallet then, but I think you keep transacting as well for the Ripple's wallet. But I must say, however, in Bhutan the backbone of our curriculum, it's completely XRPL. We started the journey here in Bhutan with XRPL.

Lauren Weymouth 07:48
Well, it's definitely the technology of our choice, and we love to meet and hear of companies and entities and organizations that are building on XRPL and a part of the community. It's so inspiring to me what you just said. I think we have a lot of listeners who are just getting into blockchain, students who want to intern at blockchain companies, but they're not really sure what to put on their resume or how to learn more about it. And the fact that you yourself, before teaching blockchain at a university, were self-taught, you learned it yourself is huge. Right? I think it's going to open up the doors and minds of a lot of people to say, "Okay, I can do this too. They're going to relate to you," so thank you for saying that out loud.  
What makes this project so special?

Audrey Low: 08:27

To answer your question, Lauren, what makes this blockchain so special besides being a sovereign blockchain base? It's actually a launch at a national scale. We won many awards from this project itself. One of the first award, you can look at it in a sense of innovation wallet. We got that award primarily from Spain,  in Barcelona. It is really the recognition of the NDI's features and the capabilities, because looking at how we transact through this National Digital Identity blockchain base is through a MegaH wallet. We successfully programmed a biometrics-enabled locked-in. It's passwordless, and hence we won the Mobile Ecosystem Forum Award in Barcelona.

It actually was voted by a community of blockchain entrepreneurs, developers, users, so it's very special to us when we win this kind of innovation award.

The second one that we actually won, it's actually the European Identity and Cloud Conference award, specifically for the decentralized identity. We actually went to Berlin in Germany. We were recognized for this groundbreaking contributions to digital identity management in a sense of blockchain innovation. So we were very excited when we won this award, and it gives us more inspiration as a small country to further build onto this project and start sharing with different markets across universally.

And may I also share with you, at this junction, is that most recently, we are actually the first to be accepted in GAN, it's called a Global Acceptance Network, as the first ecosystem member. How it works by being in a GAN network is that once we start registering ourselves in future, we could also... maybe I give an example, which is a lot easier.

Today, if a citizen in Bhutan, we register through National Digital Identity with a driving license. So this driving license, in a typical world, you just use it with a cryptographic nature. You will use it in your local country. But with the GAN network, where countries accept this in a Global Acceptance Network,  the driver's license, because we are the first ecosystem member, if today we go to the States? Actually, US is in the GAN network as well. We don't have to go and apply for the driver's license. We can technically, with the MegaH wallet, and because we are in the Global Acceptance Network, we are now able to really transact seamlessly, and as I said earlier, a one-stop digital solution for most of the citizens in Bhutan.

Lauren Weymouth 10:54
Why is blockchain the solution for this challenge? How does decentralized identity work here?

Audrey Low: 11:00 His Majesty's vision is very straightforward: Privacy for every data, every citizens, every individual. In order to actually tackle the word privacy, and also, if you want to look at data entries, because now there's so many multiple data entries, the solution is to look at the decentralized nature. We need to go into a true Web3 environment, where the data is immutable, and we are looking at seamless automation. So it's really looking at more peer-to-peer transactions where data is not stored in a cloud, or data is not with a third service provider. Most of the databases today, they're very easily hackable. But with blockchain, it is even more unique when the data is not immutable. We are looking at a ecosystem that we require trust. So the National Digital Identity allows us to connect the government, the businesses, the public, and the private organizations in order to have this trust within this whole ecosystem. It is quite natural that blockchain technology is the solution for Bhutan National Digital Identity. And with blockchain itself, we can have trust in the decentralized network, we can have trust in the identity data of the individual Bhutanese citizens, and we will be very confident that the data will not be tampered.

Earlier, I spoke about the KYC solution, the blockchain- based cryptographic national digital identity. It is a solution for us to look at an eKYC, and therefore we started really looking at researching and building this whole application, which is the National Digital Identity for Bhutan.

Lauren Weymouth: 12:38
Well, congratulations for winning those awards. It's really something to get an international group of blockchain experts to recognize and acknowledge the work you've been doing developing this technology in your country. Let's take a step back. I'd love our listeners to actually hear the reasons why blockchain is the solution for this challenge of privacy and how decentralized identity actually works? And Audrey, what mechanism are you using to authenticate digital identity?

Audrey Low: 03:05
Thank you for this question, it's very close to my heart as a blockchain specialist as well. The decentralized identity, how it works for our National Digital Identity is first we started actually building this on a Polygon blockchain, 90% of our blockchain is actually open source. As we speak, we are actually trying to integrate actually with XRPL. the work behind the decentralized identity, it is actually based on the foundations of zero knowledge proof. most of the time we call it ZK protocols. ZK protocols, it gets a little bit complicated, but in my simple English it's as though you show, but you don't tell. Show in a sense you have been verified, you have issued, and both issuer and verified, it means either the citizens or the government is looking in the data because you have locked into my National Digital Identity, that security, the KYC that's been enabled and cleared. It clears through all this authentication through the blockchain nature. Now, the underpinnings are keen to the blockchain philosophy along with this zero knowledge protocols. We call this philosophy, self-sovereign identity. In short, it's actually called SSI. It is important to know that in blockchain, the data that we are storing in the mega Edge wallet, none of the data is actually with any third party, or some people actually thinks that it's actually on the cloud. But because of the beauty of blockchain software development, it is actually decentralized completely 100% Web3.

So SSI the, the self-sovereign identity, it replaces all the identities and all the data attributes, and it's all in the NDI mega Edge wallet. So when citizens, when the banks, the telcos, the public and the government, when they interact through this National Digital Identity project, they have the comfort zone to know that the credentials are all clear and they can actually transact seamlessly in one- stop solution as a portal.

Lauren Weymouth 15:16
And for the citizen, are they using their fingerprint or their eyeballs, or how are they verifying themselves?

Audrey Low: 15:23 So at the moment, for this biometric, we wanted to make sure that it meets a certain standard, it's approved by the National Institute of Standards of Technology, in short it's NIST. So the biometrics algorithm, it's actually on a hand base, it's thumb base. Eyeball, sometimes it gets a little bit tricky to capture so we just make it simple with the hands and the thumb. So that's how it's actually being enabled in a mega Edge wallet. So when citizens or any of the users actually logged in today to the application, it's biometrics-enabled. You don't even need to key in a password.

Lauren Weymouth: 16:00 That's amazing. So with my thumbprint, I can log in and access my digital credential, my digital ID to prove myself anywhere I go. That makes it really easy. I love that. I often find myself forgetting identification, so that would be really great. All right. I've been standing over here listening to you and thinking, at the very beginning, how did this project get created? Did you know of His Holiness, the King's concern around his people's privacy and come up with solution and bring it to him? Or did he come to you and say, "Hey, Audrey or Audrey's team, we have this problem and we want you to solve it?" How did it come about? What was the origin of creating digital identity at a national level?

Audrey Low: 16:41  I think there is more to His Majesty's vision than the whole of the question of how the regime actually comes out with this solution. Bhutan is in a very unique position in today's context. We are really looking at modernization. Everything we do right now here in Bhutan, the conversation is always about technology. We celebrate National Day every year in December 17, since 2020 all the way in the last four to five years. In every December 17 of his Majesty's speech, he always advocates the usage of technology, but particularly he always speaks about emerging technologies.

If you look at a small country like Bhutan the currency ngultrum, it's not a tradable currency. Because it's not a tradable currency, we need to look at a digital currency or digital money. So in order to embark and onboard of this, the blockchain technology solution automatically comes on board with us. So it's been years of thoughts and thinking from His Majesty. In a way it's driven by the nation's needs as well. We really want the world to think of today, if you think of Bhutan more than just the gross national happiness index, we would love the world to actually come to Bhutan and think about us as the first adopters of blockchain and any other emerging technologies, even if it's generative AI.

I think the key point here is that blockchain, like you have put a flag in the moon and say, "Who and who went to the moon first." We would like to put a flag on blockchain to say that Bhutan is the first and anything got to do with blockchain projects, we will be the first because no country has actually assumed the authority, the position. We are working towards that direction right now as we speak. So it is something that we've been thinking for a very long time. It's a natural progression from the vision to the development of the National Digital Identity and many more other blockchain projects that we are speaking about as I'm having this conversation with you right now as well.

Lauren Weymouth: 18:42 Well, you're definitely pioneers. I'm wondering, is the king pleased with this project and the outcomes so far? After a year in production, is this real sovereign use case going well? How's the project going?

Audrey Low: 18:53 Yeah. So if you look at the onboarding, we almost have one third of the population already onboarded. I think the first early adoption and the hard work that's required, it's a lot of communication, marketing, education,  building the awareness of what the National Digital Identity, this mega Edge wallet could actually help the citizens with. We have come to a point that we will continue building our roadmap, to build additional services on top of the National Digital Identity, even to the extent of actually bringing this across to neighboring countries and various partners around the world to actually please come and explore our National Digital Identity, because we could even look at partnering,  and you can take it as a wholesale or you can franchise our National Digital Identity. If any partners, they don't want to actually just start from scratch and build the blockchain from scratch, we have the solution. So NDI is our blockchain solution for the privacy and self-sovereign identity itself.

The country is very proud of it. We are so excited about the capabilities and the capacities and sharing knowledge and resources with the blockchain community. If you don't mind, if I can give you an example right now.

Let's say if a citizen has just graduated from the university in blockchain software course, he got a job in GovTech in Bhutan. In a natural sense, without National Digital Identity, before the employment actually commences, the employee actually needs to go into many institutions to get all the records, get the information and the records, and it can be quite cumbersome.  Bhutan has a strict bureaucracy, you might not even get employed.

But with the National Digital Identity, is various ministries, various governments, various services, they don't have to speak to another, but just because of the National Digital Identity, today the new recruit, the new employee who doesn't need to run around different ministries, you could issue and show, don't tell. And through the National Digital Identity, they can actually get all the transactions. It's going to be very seamless,  get all the records and whatever the employer actually requests through the digital identity, through the wallet, you can give access to get your employment to be completed. If I really were to answer this question where we are and how happy we are, I think we are a gross national happiness country, happiness is in our DNA.

Lauren Weymouth: 21:32 Now, Gross National Happiness, that was something developed back in the 70s?

Audrey Low: 21:37 Yes, yes. The current reigning king is the fifth king, the previous king is the fourth king, in the '70s he actually introduced this philosophy of gross national happiness that is greater than GDP itself. It's amazing philosophy.

Lauren Weymouth: 21:52 I love it. Our joy is more important than our money. It's great.

Audrey Low: 21:55 Yeah, absolutely. But it's a lot about mindfulness, whatever you have, you're able to enjoy economic prosperity as well. And there is a belief in that spirituality because 90 over percent of them are Buddhism. So it's just really having mindfulness, spirituality, the economics and things. This philosophy, that's how it drives the people's thoughts and behavior. So we are very happy with our National Digital Identity, but moreso we are very excited. 

Lauren Weymouth: 22:26  I think it's amazing what you just described as the example that a person could go to different entities and their identity is shared and there's a common knowledge. I find it really frustrating even within one single bank, when you have to keep entering your information over and over again, that one company or organization doesn't have that knowledge and that instant memory of who you are. So I can imagine how seamless it would be and how much easier it would be for our lives if multiple entities and organizations and governments share our data and have it readily available for us, as long as we prove who we are with a fingerprint and that we own that digital identity. Okay. Now, entering your second year of this project, I'm wondering are there any partnerships that you're engaging on that are bringing about growth and development in this project that you want to share with us?

Audrey Low: 24:11 Thank you, actually, Lauren, for asking this question. I think earlier when I shared about the awards that we have won, the innovation award, including in Germany, the security award, and then now we are accepted into the general acceptance network. Because of that leverage and the PR that has actually gone out to many markets and countries, Papa New Guinea has actually approached Bhutan very recently. They were in the same situation with us. They were looking at privacy in a sense of protecting individuals and their citizens' data, but they didn't want to build their blockchain from scratch and they didn't want to use a Polygon blockchain as well. They were looking at different types of platforms, different types of engines and ways to be a little bit different from Bhutan.

So we actually did some technology consultation, we presented to them the National Digital Identity, we did some knowledge sharing. We signed a contract with them, actually. They were going to franchise our National Digital Identity, use about the same platform, but we would change a little bit of the blockchain engine. So I spoke a lot about our Polygon blockchain, but I also mentioned that 90% of our blockchain software development, 90% of them are open source. That's the beauty about blockchain. You can actually look at different types of blockchain engine and the request for me from now it's looking at XRPL.

So if markets actually come to us and say, "We don't want to use Ethereum blockchain, we don't want to use Polygon blockchain, we want the level one layer of the engine platform to be XRPL," give us a couple of weeks, we will dabble with the development behind, and I'm pretty sure we will be able to integrate this, because it's open source. That's the beauty of how the blockchain ecosystem is like.

Papua New Guinea requested a specific blockchain engine, and there is a little bit of profit sharing. So I'm very happy to share is that for every identity that's actually being registered, we do get a certain volume of their currency that's actually given to us, and we base it on every individual that's actually being registered over there.

But there are many models that we can look at. It could be just knowledge sharing, technology resource consultation, or it could just be franchising or taking it wholesale of our National Digital Identity so that our partners do not need to go through the problems and the headache of building it from scratch, because building it from scratch takes a lot of energy, a lot of time and lot of resources.

Lauren Weymouth: 25:47 I think it's really smart that you're sharing your technical know-how and your process and procedures that you've successfully created for your own country with other nations, and then even creating a new revenue source for yourselves on it ... That's great. And I love that you're thinking along the lines [00:18:00] of multiple blockchains. Right? We really do believe that it's a multi-chain universe, that blockchains need to be interoperable, that there's many different use cases for different blockchains and as they're all open source, they all need to connect with each other. So it's great that you're working on this as well. 
Are there any unexpected surprises that are risen or maybe even benefits out of operating a national digital identity program that you now have onboarded about 12% of the population that you hadn't thought about when you started this program?

Audrey Low: 26:31 

 In order to use our National Digital Identity, you need a smartphone, because you need to have the smart capabilities. We initially developed this most of the time because we think very urban, but now we need to go backwards a little bit, how to bank the unbank, and bank the rural community. So we did what is right in the initial setup for any users that has 3G and above their mobile phones, they could actually install the mega Edge wallet. But anything less than 3G, that 1G and 2G, there is a little bit of challenge definitely because of the technology keeps evolving even in the telecommunications. So we are now doing a little bit of reverse engineering as well in the sense of reverse blockchain software development, and now we are trying to onboard most of the rural and give them the entitlement to have privacy and the data as well.

So we are looking at in a sense of a QR code, it's still biometrics, they can scan and we can still get access through this National Digital Identity registration. And even the small little kids, children of the Bhutan, we have actually passed a law, part of the NDI law, that allows guardianship. What it means is that for the little child who probably only is eight or nine years old, they still deserve a citizen's right to actually the National Digital Identity, but the way they transact, they probably need a little bit of the guardianship. So the parents or their family members who they give them authority could actually help them to take care of their wallet itself.

So I wouldn't say it's an unexpected surprises. I think it's just a modernization of the word that when we develop solutions, we build things, we assume that everybody is mobile-savvy. Being a developing country is also not different, because we live in Thimphu, Thimphu is the capital, so therefore we serve the citizens in the capital. And that works really well, but I think it's the phases that we are going through, we keep improving the services, and I think that's how blockchain is so beautiful. It allows us to keep building new microservices and solutions on top of it to serve many different parts of the communities and requirements of the citizens as well. So I hope that explains some of the unexpected surprises.

Lauren Weymouth: 28:57 

 Yeah. Well, well it shows that you hit a little bit of a roadblock with adoption, but you thought through it well, and you created... There's even a law on guardianship now. That's amazing. At what age does the guardianship go up to? Is it 12, 16, 18?

Audrey Low: 29:10
 The moment they finish grade 12, so that's about 16, 17 most of the age, they like to make decisions on their own. So that's where they change, so they have access via mega Edge wallet. They can go in to toggle and change the rights to the ownership of the mega Edge wallet itself.

Lauren Weymouth: 29:27 Got it. So up through high school, and then when they graduate, they get to take ownership for themselves. That's awesome. So how do listeners find out more about your work?

Audrey Low: 29:36 We do have a website, gcit.edu.bt. It has comprehensive information of the things I've done, even as the president I have a note on the website. But if they would like to have further conversation with me, Lauren, you have my email address, I'm sure they will contact you. I'll be very happy for you to do that connection. I think that's how the ecosystem works. You know me, I know you, you believe, and we don't even need a wallet to transact.

Lauren Weymouth: 30:02 Yeah, I will definitely put your web address, the GCIT, on the podcast page. And yeah, it's great to know that people can reach out and get in contact with you through me. Audrey, this has been so refreshing, talking about blockchain use cases with a female leader in this space. Thank you for onboarding so many people with such a meaningful project. Thank you for educating the next generation in this space, which provides much need of workforce development. And thank you for sharing your project in this episode of All About Blockchain to help our listeners better understand how countries are using blockchain for national projects.

Audrey Low: 30:36 Yes. Thank you Lauren for this wonderful interview and conversation and sharing. If I may leave, with every audience, we do have a tagline. So the tagline for our National Digital Identity is that we have the capability to empower anyone through digital trust and seamless services.

Lauren Weymouth: 30:52
Thank you. Awesome. To our listeners and subscribers, thank you for your ears, and for your feedback to my ubri@ripple.com, email. If you have any questions about this episode or ideas for future episodes, please reach out. Until next time.