The new board will drive the OCF’s collaboration with the IoT ecosystem to deploy and evolve its ISO/IEC specifications, including the Secure IP Device Framework, its open-source reference implementation, and an industry-recognized certification program
April 12, 2022 – The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), the global, member-driven technical standards development organization, has announced its new Board of Directors. Five board seats were open, and the following candidates were elected by a member vote to serve a two-year term:
- Alex Wight – Lead PKI Architect and Principle Engineer, Cisco Systems (new)
- Betty Zhao – Standard Operation Manager, Haier (re-elected)
- Brian Bishop – CEO, Data Performance Consultancy Ltd (new)
- Brian Scriber – Distinguished Technologist and Vice President Security and Privacy Technologies, CableLabs (re-elected)
- Wouter van der Beek – Chief Operating Officer, Cascoda (re-elected)
Together, the new board will continue the OCF’s work to enable Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services to communicate through a trusted open Internet Protocol (IP) framework which dynamically aligns with baselines for IoT security and privacy regulations, offering peace of mind and enriched experiences.
Commenting on his appointment to the board, Alex Wight said, “I’ve joined the board to represent Cisco in the continued development of a flexible Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/IP-based framework for building secure IoT devices. I’d like to see the OCF become the de-facto standard for companies aiming for their IoT devices to achieve regulatory compliance and interoperability amongst disparate vendors’ products, and hope to support the OCF along the upward trajectory that it has been on for some years.”
Betty Zhao added, “The OCF is one of the most promising standards in the crowded global IoT standards landscape. Its technology has been proven to be solid. We believe that the OCF will be implemented more widely, which will benefit both vendors and end users.”
A key focus for the organization is the development of IoT regulation initiatives in the smart city sector. Newly elected member, Brian Bishop, comments, “The OCF is set to become the standard of choice for infrastructure in the smart city environment. As a collaborative ecosystem of large corporations and SMEs working together to solve the challenges of today, this model can provide trust to cities and prevent vendor lock-in. The OCF’s open standards approach enables smart cities of the future to accelerate that process through the development of new supply chains.”
Reflecting on his re-election to the board, Brian Scriber comments, “CableLabs believes strongly in the promise of secure device interoperability, and the OCF remains the only complete specification that is recognized as an international standard, with a full-stack open-source implementation, a badging program, and collection of labs ready to test device conformance. It was an easy decision to continue to support the work that came from nearly 500 contributing companies over the last seven years of intense collaboration.”
For more information about the OCF or to become a member, please visit the website.
Alex Wight, Lead PKI Architect and Principle Engineer for Cisco Systems is an Information Security Architect with over 25 years’ experience designing, developing, and operating public key infrastructure (PKI) and various applied cryptographic solutions to protect critical assets and equip businesses with the security needed to succeed in today’s digital world.
Betty Zhao, Standard Operation Manager for Haier is responsible for international IoT standards operations at Haier Group. Betty has over 15 years’ standardization experience in wireless communication and IoT industries, developing MAC layer protocol in IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.15. Betty’s expertise includes 802.11/15 MAC layer, data modeling, cloud-to-cloud communication, and ecosystem bridging.
Brian Bishop, CEO of Data Performance Consultancy Limited is also elected to the board for the first time. Brian has been researching smart cities for almost a decade, has represented the UK government on Global Expert Missions and trade missions for smart cities across the world, and is on the roster of smart city consultants for the United Nations Habitat Programme.
Brian Scriber, Distinguished Technologist and Vice President Security and Privacy Technologies at CableLabs works with wired and wireless networking leaders on security strategy and implementation using advanced technologies and techniques including PKI, blockchains, encryption, and differential privacy. Brian brings extensive experience in software, security, and cryptographic governance to both economic and technical analysis activities.
Wouter van der Beek, Chief Operating Officer, Cascoda is the main representative of Cascoda in various standards organizations. He currently chairs the OCF Technical Coordination steering committee, aligning specification, implementation and certification work. His many and various contributions in the OCF are now standardized in releases of the OCF standard and others.
About the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF)
The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) is a global, member-driven technical standards development organization. Its 500+ members are working to enable trust, interoperability, and secure communication between IP-connected IoT devices and services. It does this by fostering collaboration between stakeholders across the IoT ecosystem to deliver the freely-available ISO/IEC specifications, including the Secure IP Device Framework, its open-source reference implementation, and an industry-recognized certification program. This enables innovative new secure use cases and user experiences, reduces development costs, integration complexity and time to market, and simplifies regulatory compliance to IoT security and privacy baselines.
OCF members work across the enterprise layers of infrastructure, applications, and data. They collaborate to co-create and deploy systems in an open and standardized way, enabling devices to communicate over IP, regardless of form factor, operating system, service provider, transport technology, or ecosystem.
The vertical-agnostic technology has already seen significant adoption in the smart home sector and is now enabling the transition to secure, intelligent, Building Automation Systems (BAS) based on IP connectivity networks.
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