WISeKey moves into digital job creation

Forging a new path in China

Early in the morning at a café in a

conference centre in Dalian,

China in September, Carlos

Moreira sipped his coffee and reflected

on the challenges facing his company

and its interdependent, interconnected

and deeply recession-battered world.

The CEO of WISeKey, the Swiss

maker of high-versatile digital identity

encryption systems, had recently seen

his company named a New Champion

by the World Economic Forum, a

nomination which told the Forum’s

audience of established corporate,

academic, news media, and political

leaders that WISeKey was one of the

world’s most innovative and promising

new companies.

Security on a more personal levelThe World Economic Forum’s

faith was grand but well-placed.

WISeKey is the hottest Swiss digital

technology company in years. Founded

in Geneva in 1999, WISeKey’s first

major collaboration was with inter-

national non-government organiza-

tions, the International Organization

for Security in Electronic Transactions

(OISTE) foundation and the Interna-

tional Telecommunication Union (ITU).

The partnership yielded international

standards on cyber security and

electronic commerce solutions that

were widely embraced by governments

and leading corporations around the

world.

WISeKey made its PKI, which

stands for “Public Root Key”, the heart

of digital identity systems, devices and

services designed to protect creators

and consumers alike from the rogues

of the digital age: hackers, spies,

counterfeiters, trespassers and thieves.

Whereas giant digital security corpora-

tions, like Symantec and McAfee,

protected your computer mainly from

a constant onslaught of faraway

viruses, WISeKey’s services operated on

a more personal scale.

With WISeKey’s software on your

computer, you can secure your log-in

info, e-mails and transactions at your

convenience. If you’re a producer of

high-quality, expensively manufac-

tured goods, WISeKey can provide

digitally encrypted badges and

biometric readers to modernize your

facilities and increase the loyalty of

your customers with authentification

software.

Lastly, large-scale telecommunica-

tions projects – airports, office buil-

dings mobile networks, etc – have

become far more efficient, “green” and

ready for international business when

embedded with WISeKey’s full suite of

digital ID programs.

Living up to a straightforward vowWISeKey’s mission statement is a

straightforward vow “to facilitate and

enable the mass use of secure digital

identities in everyday life”. It hasn’t

always been easy, but the company lives

up to it.

With a corporate culture powered

by the Swiss tradition of discretion and

neutrality, WISeKey gained the trust of

the world’s great corporations early on.

It partnered with Microsoft, Rolex, and

HP. Those collaborations helped those

companies become greener bureau-

cracies, more secure product deve-

lopers and better supporters of small

businesses’ clients needs for secure and

efficient electronic transactions.

WISeKey soon moved from being a

promoter of digital certifications and

secure e-transaction systems to being

an implementer and service provider

in this fast growing field.

According to market research by

Gartner, the security software market

increased 19% per year in recent years.

WISeKey rode that market to the »»»

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TELECOM SPECIAL t

WISEKEY MOVES INTO DIGITAL JOB CREATION »»» by Raymond Langley

Carlos MoreiraCEO,WISeKey

“WISeKey is becoming a bit likeGoogle … our digital identityencryption systems are becomingplatforms people andorganizations customize and useto manage their lives.They oftendo it in creative ways we hadn’teven imagined. I find thatrewarding. It feels good toempower people to shape theirown fortunes.”

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tune of millions of euros in billings

and a sterling reputation among

people who think deeply and creatively

about the role advanced technology

plays in international development.

Governments, both federal and

municipal, regularly hired WISeKey to

help increase the safety and effective-

ness of their internet services.

Corporations in industries as varied as

retail and high-speed sailboats praised

WISeKey’s customized and original

digital transaction systems for helping

them stay a step ahead of counterfeiters

of their products and data thieves.

Furthermore, WISeKey stayed true

to its public service spirit and conti-

nued to collaborate with a few non-

profit organizations. At the 2009

Clinton Global Initiative, Moreira

announced plans for WISeKey to create

digital identity solutions for mobile

phones to help the world’s immigrants,

both legal and illegal. Few companies

can pull off these projects, for they

require that WISeKey be skilled and

trusted enough to play the role of

honest broker, coordinator and service

provider to a country’s often com-

peting key stakeholders: government

ministers, business operators, the news

media, corruption watchdog groups

and, last but far from least, consumers.

“WISeKey is becoming a bit like

Google,” Moreira says. “Our digital

identity encryption systems are

becoming platforms people and

organizations customize and use to

manage their lives. They often do it in

creative ways we hadn’t even imagined.

I find that rewarding. It feels good to

empower people to shape their own

fortunes.”

All in all, WISeKey kept a very busy

slate. The small firm was contributing

digital identity solutions to the world’s

greatest challenges, from sustainable

development to security in electronic

transactions to immigration. In 2010,

WISeKey would consider a public

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TELECOM SPECIAL t

WISEKEY MOVES INTO DIGITAL JOB CREATION »»»

Carlos Moreira,WISeKey CEO, with Peter Liu, Chairman of the WI Harper Group, and JohnBéguin, Swiss Style Chairman and Publisher, at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of theNew Champions, Dalian, China, September 2009

offering of shares in the company, so

its management could invest and move

quickly into mass market digital

identity protection for electronic

transactions. It would sell digital ID

products directly to consumers.

According to Scot Wingo, chief

executive of ChannelAdvisor, an eBay-

backed company that helps stores like

Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney sell online,

e-commerce was set to grow to 15% of

overall retail in the next decade from

around 7%. Since e-security concerns

would grow along with e-lifestyles,

WISeKey’s business would flourish.

Moreira thought he had all the bases

covered.

A fateful meeting for a new pathThen Moreira met Peter Liu. A

mutual friend introduced them to each

other in the conference centre in

Dalian. Liu was chairman of the WI

Harper Group, one of the world’s most

successful venture capital firms. With

offices in Beijing, Taipei and San

Francisco, and special insights on the

Chinese technology markets, WI

Harper Group was big time. Founded

in 1996, WI Harper’s portfolio included

companies like Sirf, a San Jose,

California-based provider of GPS

chipsets and Shanghai-based Medical

System, a clinical information system

provider.

Moreira and Liu hit it off. A 15-

minute chat stretched to three hours.

Shared passion for international

development and smart digital busi-

ness eventually led the two men to

discover a new path for WISeKey’s

business: job creation.

It wouldn’t be easy. The job of

creating jobs anywhere in the world

seemed practically impossible during

the recession. This fall, the Organisa-

tion for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD), a Paris-based

think tank that does intense research

on the challenges of 30 member

countries (which happen to be most of

the world’s most-developed countries),

reported that unemployment would

remain terrible in 2010. It would rise

to nearly 10% by the end of 2010, from

5.6% in 2007, and above its previous

post-1979 peak of 7.5% in 1993.

The OECD report said that govern-

ment spending programmes on the

labour market – retraining pro-

grammes, for example – could be better

focused. While programmes to put

workers on reduced hours have

sustained the incomes of many jobless

people, coverage of such benefits is

weak in some OECD countries.

Peter Liu and Carlos Moreira

decided on the spot that investing their

considerable resources and talents in a

digital identity technology hub in

China would be good business and

good for a large society with a highly

mobile labour force. WISeKey and WI

Harper signed a letter of intent to

collaborate on developing business

opportunities for WISeKey in China.

The agreement is aimed at

creating convergence in the electronic

identity ecosystem in China by offering

WISeKey’s expertise in value-added

services and products to the growing

user community of digital identifi-

cation for electronic identity cards,

electronic tokens, biometric devices,

mobile operators and SIM identifica-

tion. In short, they will facilitate the

growing demand for digital authenti-

cation products, and the two com-

panies will open physical centres to

employ locals and distribute WISeKey’s

entire suite of digital ID encryption

services to telecommunications and e-

commerce companies and ministries.

Needless to say, both men were

excited about their epiphany. “WISeKey

is very excited about the prospect of

helping China deploy digital ID

security technologies and solutions on

a large scale,” Moreira said. “We will

draw heavily on WISeKey's experience

in working with small and large

businesses, consumers and regulators

to help make our partnership with WI

Harper a great success.”

Peter Liu, chairman of WI Harper,

said WISeKey's leadership role in the

growing digital security market,

knowledge of all stakeholder concerns

and ability to navigate the politics of a

strong but still developing economic

context were the key attractions. “We

are very happy to work with a New

Champion of the World Economic

Forum in helping their technology to

be deployed in China,” Liu said. “We

believe WISeKey’s experience in the

area of digital security will have a

significant impact in China when it is

combined with the local manu-

facturing and electronics industry.” «««

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“WISeKey is very excited about the prospect of helping China deploy digital ID security technologies and solutions on a large scale”