Traction with nation states
Find below details of our engagement with officials or former officials of states, IGOs and INGOs - over the last few weeks, months and years - interested to join as cofounder or governance partners of the Trustless Computing Certification Body and Seevik Net Initiative, but only those who have NOT requested confidentiality of their engagement with us. A 28-page PDF with fine details of our traction with states, is downloadable at the bottom of this page.
Momentum over the last eight months
Head of Missions to the UN in Geneva or high officials of five states - from Africa, Asia and South America - have signed up to participate as prospective partners in recent joint workshops we held in Geneva and/or our 9th, 10th and 11th Edition of Free and Safe in Cyberspace, in several dates through May and June 2023. Meanwhile, we have been engaging with another twelve states on a 1-to-1 basis as per their preference. Details of of the names of states and the officials we met are confidential.
On June 28th, 2023 we were invited by the Community of Democracies, an IGO aggregating 31 democracies to foster democracy worldwide, to present our Initiative via a speech (transcript in pdf) at an event they organized in Geneva named "How to strengthen democracy and human rights protection in the AI era through multilateral cooperation" (program in pdf), within the 53rd UN Human Rights Council Annual Meeting.
Long-time Partners, Advisors and Activities
Since 2015, we have advanced TCCB and Seevik Net via R&D initiatives and academic papers, together with 35 top R&D partners and 25 top advisors, and a global conference series called Free and Safe in Cyberspace with 11 editions held on 3 continents, with over 120 exceptional speakers. In 2019, we created a spin-in startup, TRUSTLESS.AI with a top team and advisors - building initial minimalist TCCB-compliant mobile IT systems and devices - which was bound to be owned by TCCB via a “spin-in” agreement. Folded in TCA last October.
Establishment of the TCCB in 2021
Last June 2021, during the 8th Edition of our Free and Safe in Cyberspace conference series, held in Geneva - after previous editions in Brussels, Berlin, New York, Geneva and Zurich - we finalized the Trustless Computing Paradigms, and the statute of the Trustless Computing Association (TCA) and the Trustless Computing Certification Body ("TCCB") - together with World-class speakers. Among those top IT security experts, the former top cyber diplomats of the United States and Netherlands, and executives of top EU banks.
Traction with States over the years
Over recent years, months and weeks, we attracted the substantial interest of several nations via engagement with top representatives of different relevant departments and ministries, their strategic cyber-only investment entities, or their strategic low-level IT security firms.
Over the last 5 years, very extensive engagements have occurred with Germany and Italy at all levels. More recently, with France, Netherlands, and several third nations with high strategic autonomy like Switzerland, Malta and Liechtenstein. Some interest has been shown by Romania and Poland. In recent months, following meetings in DC, London, Munich, and Vaduz, we have presented a customized presentation of the opportunity for Germany, and for Liechtenstein and for Middle East nations. Details of those engagements are available on request.
Since 2015, together with global tech leaders in high-assurance open-source low-level IT and EOS (EU largest IT security industry association), the national IT certification bodies for top secret IT of Austria (A-SIT, CIO) and Italy (ISTICOM/OCSI), equivalents of the German BSI, have been among our formal governance R&D partners in our 2015-2016 EU funding proposals for TCCB and Seevik Net, to radically improve the transparency, the security levels and the mutual recognition of classified IT certifications. For each nations, we have engaged one or more of the following:
(1) their foreign affairs, security, intelligence, or IT certification departments for participation as governance partners in TCCB;
(2) their state-funded or state-controlled VCs or funding entities specialized in strategic investments in IT security for joint controlling investment in our startup spin-in;
(3) their strategic IT security firms specialized on high-assurance open-source low-level IT for technical partnership, primarily based on a few open-source derivative designs of the open-source Sel4 operating system and the open-source Risc-V CPU/SoC designs.
Nations’ Strategic Investment Entities
In addition to private western VCs, in recent years and months, we had dozens of meetings for over 30 hours with cyber-only state-funded or state-controlled VC firms to jointly invest in the association spin-in startup TRUSTLESS.AI, which is building initial TCCB-complaint IT systems and will provide initial funding for the TCCB. And maintain active interest with some from Germany (eCapital Entrepreneurial Partners), from Netherlands (Innovation Quarters), France (Cyber Impact Ventures), and the USA (Paladin Capital Group). MACH37, the US leading cybersecurity accelerator and investors, for which we were chosen among hundreds in Q4 2021, has accrued rights to 3% of the shares. In early October 2022, the Agenzia Della Cybersicurezza Nazionale of Italy announced, following program statements from the new majority, that it will also be investing in strategic cybersecurity startups, a first in Italy.
IGOs (Inter-Governmental Organizations)
On the front of IGOs (Inter-governmental Organizations) interested in joining, we recently received substantial top-level interest from UN International Computing Center to develop the TCCB and Seevik Net inside the United Nations as per this proposal for the United Nations, via a new "voluntary fund" which is being set up for critical UN IT needs. In recent weeks, we have had increasing interest in several meetings with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
On June 28th, 2023 we were invited by the Community of Democracies to present our initiative via a speech (transcript pdf) to their 40 member states and other states during an event (program pdf) that they organized named "How to strengthen democracy and human rights protection in the AI era through multilateral cooperation", within the UN Human Rights Council Annual Meeting.
United States and Israel
Over the last two years, we held over 9 meetings of intense and detailed dialogue with the former highest-ranking cyber diplomats of both the US and Israel. Following such dialogues, we wrote an all-important detailed case as to why Israel and the US should and will eventually join as governance partners of the Trustless Computing Certification Body - even though they'd need approval by an UN-like resilient, democratic body to intercept an elected official or private citizen from a friendly nation. MACH37, the McLean Virginia-based US leading cybersecurity accelerator, for which we were chosen among hundreds in Q4 2021, has accrued rights to 3% of the shares of the startup spin-in (now closed).
For more, download below a much more detailed account of our traction: