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Carlos Cover Page at Swiss Style Article
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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 »»»
8
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.”
9
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
10
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.” «««
11
“WISeKey is very excited about the prospect of helping China deploy digital ID security technologies and solutions on a large scale”