40     41

Kerosene 2.0

The question is provocative. What

is the world’s third largest coun-

try? Swiss Style is preparing a

Latin American special, so I know it

is not Brazil. Carlos Moreira has just

stepped off a plane, he has two hours

of sleep behind him, but the glint in

his eye suggests that this is a trick ques-

tion, like “How many angels can dance

on the head of a pin?” He spares me

embarrassment by saying “Facebook”.

Over 500 million people live in that vir-

tual space that depends not on oxygen,

but rather on electricity and hundreds

of whirring servers. There, individuals

interact, create their own little cat-

walks, share joys and barbs, itemize

what they had for breakfast in public,

and keep the cradle-to-grave entertain-

ment going by playing virtual games.

And they do two other important

things. The first is to attract truckloads

of advertising income for founder Mark

Zuckerberg and his company. The sec-

ond, for a man as security-conscious

as Moreira, is a little more pernicious:

“Facebook is just a smart way of collect-

ing personal identification information

on the users,” he points out with a whiff

of sarcasm in his voice. “Organisations

searching private information on peo-

ple are very happy about this because

they don’t have to go out of their way to

build up their own database, they just

search on Facebook.”

But it is going to end, Moreira be-

lieves. The fact is, our society demands

something disruptive every few months,

otherwise a risky boredom might set in

and the electronic denizen could be-

come restless. The current system can

be tweaked, but for real change to take

place will require ending legacy identi-

fication, like pin codes, paper IDs and

passwords. Today the focus is on digital

IDs for people and objects, and that is

exactly what Moreira envisioned twelve

years ago when he founded Wisekey. It

is positioned to head what might best be

called a “comm-volution”.

Evolutionary stepsWisekey began its upward trajectory al-

most in the ruins of what was called the

New (dot-com) Economy. Its portfolio

included the somewhat vaguely defined

ID management and security. A Wisekey

ID is in fact an X.509 standard-based en-

crypted digital certificate containing

personal identification information, or

PII (Personal Identifiable Information).

This is owned only by the user, as it

were, and should never be made public.

What the content and service providers

actually “see” is a profile or credential,

but never the PII part of the identity.

“It was visionary work at the begin-

ning,” he recalls, “because people were

wondering why you needed that level of

security and segregation”. Indeed, surf-

ers did not buy that much or expose

so much data on the Internet eleven

years ago. Later there was Paypal, but as

Moreira points out, that was boosted by

Ebay and furthermore it is “just a layer

on top of the credit card infrastructure,

which does not solve the problem of

your ID”. If the user loses his credit, he

will also lose the ID, which belongs to

the provider and not the user. So the

THE SWISS STYLE

WorLd EconomIc Forum SpEcIaL LaTIn amErIca ISSuE

— KEroSEnE 2.0 »»» by Marton Radkai

The alchemists of yore believed in making gold by combining the four elements in some way and, perhaps, whispering incantations over the brew. Today, companies are able to produce gold from the Internet, an entirely virtual space consisting of electrons chasing around various channels. While Google and Facebook guide and organise the travellers into advertising-friendly groups, Carlos Moreira and his company Wisekey are giving out birth certificates.

“Organisations searching private information don’t have to go out of their way to build up their own database, they just search on Facebook.” Carlos Moreira

42     43

large, growing and active market. “You

need a reason to download an ID, and

that is football,” he says, elaborating on

his strategy. “We are issuing a Rio ID

that allows users to access all existing

services in Rio and to receive premium

content during FIFA 2014 and Olympics

2016.” This, in turn, will loyalise the

user community and create a trusted

social network ecosytem amongst fans.

The outcome will be both virtual

and real. On the one hand, the apps

economy will continue to grow incre-

mentally but on a thematic basis. On

the other hand, airlines, restaurants,

shops and other potential advertis-

ers can get involved and offer special

deals enhanced by the Wisekey ID cer-

tificate, which offers geo-localisation.

The user might then be offered real-

time discounts to a restaurant five

minutes away. Or if a fan watching

a football match in the stadium sees

a better seat, he or she can check its

availability and pay the surcharge

through the mobile phone.

All aboardA visit to the company’s website reveals

that Moreira is involved in a number

of projects with a philanthropic bent.

“The company of the future will not be

judged only by their financial results

but by the good they provide,” he ex-

plains, “and this is not detrimental to

your growth”. At first glance, his prod-

ucts may not seem very appropriate to,

say, a family living off Red Cross sup-

plies in Colombia or the DRC. You can-

not eat X.509 encryption, nor wear it.

But, a Keynesian at heart, he feels it is

important to empower even poor peo-

ple to have access to the market. Of the

seven billion phones being used, only

one billion are actual consumers, he

points out. Thanks to the Wisekey ID,

however, there is no longer the old digi-

tal divide. Everyone can participate.

And so, in partnership with the

Clinton Global Initiative, the company

is now giving away one billion IDs with

free phones and cloud services. Among

the recipients are the world’s millions

of migrants, many of whom are far

from their native country and require

a wide range of services, from health

care, to language lessons. With their

ID, they can access them and enjoy

some advertising, which in turn will

supply the system with cash. “To the

advertiser,” says Carlos Moreira, “an

eyeball is an eyeball”.

Technology, of course, is not stand-

ing still. Wisekey is also securing

the luxury companies with its brand

protection technology associating

digital IDs with objects. Several lead-

ing brands such as Dior and Hublot

are already using this technology for

their luxury watches. One of the next

steps is Near Field Communication

(NFC), which will allow even greater

f lexibility in mobile payments, letting

Moreira muse on the idea of buying a

banking license for Wisekey. And giv-

en rising economic tides, at some time

even the formerly penurious users

will begin buying services or goods,

thus completing transactions with

their phones. The model is reminis-

cent of the kerosene lamps distributed

by John D. Rockefeller. The lamp was a

gift, the kerosene cost, but the light it

gave off also allowed for longer work-

ing hours. In five years, Moreira sees

up to eight billion phones being used,

with four billion consumers. And all

those connected to the grid will have

the opportunity to earn in some way,

to be part of this huge ecosystem.

“Digital IDs are the molecules,” he re-

f lects, “the Internet is the brain”. So

that is where it went… «««

Wisekey was created as a kind of “birth

certificate” for the Internet, one that

gives you IP portability for an ubiqui-

tous web access, whether you are among

the haves or the have-absolutely-nots.

Moreira did not plan to grow fast.

Astonishing for someone who seems to

live with one foot in a plane and the oth-

er on slippery ground. He remarks on

this “Swiss” quality of his strategy. He

took the long view and slowly built up

a reputation and a following. One real

coup for the company came in 2002,

when he became a member of a steering

committee to contribute to developing

an e-voting project for Geneva, Swit-

zerland, with Wisekey becoming the

technological leader. The project was

implemented a year later with success

and turned out to be a world premiere.

Digital connectingMoreira’s vision extended beyond just

glorified passwords and secure access.

“The centre of gravity of the Internet

is shifting, it was on ‘search’ for many

years and Google became huge, then it

shifted to social networking,” he points

out easily. “Now it’s shifting to digital

IDs and that is where a company like

Wisekey will become huge!” It is not

just hyperbole from a man who speaks

easily in millions and billions: The

World Economic Forum appointed the

company as Global Growth Company

(GGC), which means it has the potential

to become tomorrow’s industry leader

and a driving force of economic and so-

cial change.

What does this look like in reality?

Wisekey is realising a project with lead-

ing sports support clubs, which has no

fewer than 500 million fans combined.

A total of 80 million of them are already

on their Facebook page, and another 17

million are digitally and diligently fol-

lowing their idols on other pages. None

but Facebook are earning from the great

mass of people, however. So sport fran-

chises are now giving away Wisekey IDs

that allow the fans to access content and

adding a service or content to that. The

IDs are monetised through advertisers,

which is where Wisekey and the club

earn their money at USD 3 to 17 per user.

As for the fans, they get an ID and a free

app allowing them to access premium

content, like a match. This would nor-

mally cost, but if they are willing to look

at, or listen to, an ad, they get it for free.

“Monetising eyeballs,” he calls this.

Another countryA second game changer emerged that

enhanced the need for a distinct user-

focused ID key, namely the rapid evolu-

tion of “The Cloud,” that strange, laby-

rinthine, amorphous world of cloud

computing with multiple entry points,

from television sets and PCs, to a wide

range of handheld devices. The Cloud

is the repository of all sorts of shared

services and applications, but they can

only be found and used given a clear ID.

The person without that ID will stay on

the outside looking in like the Savages

in Brave New World.

Moreira aims to change all that and

his focus is on Portuguese and Spanish

speakers in general and Latin America

in particular, an “ecosystem” involving

about 250 million Portuguese speakers

and 600 million Spanish speakers for

whom nothing has been really done.

The Cloud, Moreira notes, is driven by

language and by the powerful new com-

puting smartphones. Given an ID, the

user can “federate apps according to lan-

guage, so content and service providers

now have a reason to translate their of-

fers into another language, for example,

Portuguese”. Getting ahead of the eight

ball, Wisekey is already partnering with

publishing groups to develop new con-

tent in Portuguese. And in a partnership

with MIT’s Media Lab, Moreira is making

700 million IDs available for free.

Rio and Brazil, which are gearing

up for a sportive double whammy, are

both the big prize and the gateway to a

THE SWISS STYLE

WorLd EconomIc Forum SpEcIaL LaTIn amErIca ISSuE

— KEroSEnE 2.0 »»»

A straight-line career

Carlos Moreira, born in 1958, hails from

Cadiz, Spain and he is now Swiss citizen.

After completing an MBA, he went to

work for the UN and other agencies, in-

cluding the European Free Trade Associ-

ation, International Labour Office, Inter-

national Trade Center and UNCTAD. His

work involved security and consultation

on new technologies mainly in Geneva,

Switzerland. He then went to the Mel-

bourne Institute of Technology for three

years joining as Adjunct Professor to

lead a research lab on e-commerce and

digital security. In 1999, he ploughed

all his experience and knowledge into

founding Wisekey, avoiding the pitfalls

of venture capital by associating with

other companies and using mainly his

own capital to start the company with

other backers including UBS.

“To the advertiser, aneyeball is an eyeball.” Carlos Moreira