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February 2008 • Volume 13 Number 2
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Executive Director's Letter
Welcome to another edition of the monthly Smart Card Talk newsletter. This month, I want to share with you a significant new value-driven program we have implemented at the Smart Card Alliance as well as focus attention on how the Alliance is driving an organizational agenda that embraces smart cards in different vertical markets. This effort culminates with our 2008 Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference now conjoined with CTST2008 – The Americas Conference in Orlando this May – which brings together all of these vertical markets and smart card innovations in one major event. To promote additional interest in the CTST2008/Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference, we’ve added our annual OSCA (Outstanding Smart Card Achievement) Award presentations to the event. Nominations will be accepted up until March 21st, so make sure you get your favorite organization or individual award nominee submitted in time. All of these programs have common goals – to raise the awareness of smart card technology and improve our market understanding and to constantly increase the value of the Alliance for our supporting commercial and government member organizations and the people who work for them. Finding the time to keep up with industry news and information is critical to everyone’s business day. So, I am excited about the recent launch of our new daily Smart Card Alliance Industry News Summary for our members. This daily news service replaces the weekly news summary we have been providing. It has a much more powerful search engine for filtering only the industry news that each of us needs to know, and it includes tools for presenting it is an organized way. Each day’s news will be presented by industry categories so you can quickly find the news that most interests you, whether it is mobile payments, security, payments, healthcare, transportation or other topics. The news search engine has lots of changeable settings and filters, so it might take me awhile to fine-tune the news summary, but I think you are going to be very pleased with the service. This type of service would cost individuals or organizations from $5000 to $15,000 per year, but the Alliance can offer it free to our members by leveraging the buying power and shared resources of our members. Supplying news and information about different markets is part of the value-driven efforts we are engaged in, but bringing people together with conferences and meetings is where the real value of the Alliance begins. This week, we have two important industry gatherings happening. The first involves the healthcare industry, with the Healthcare Council holding an in-person meeting with 30 invited healthcare professionals at the HIMSS08 – Healthcare IT Conference & Exhibition, the huge annual healthcare event in Orlando, FL. Paul Contino, the newly elected chair of the Healthcare Council, will be leading a 2-hour roundtable discussion with healthcare providers, insurers and technology providers to determine what issues could be addressed with smart card technology. In the same week, more than 100 Alliance members will gather in Salt Lake City for the first Smart Card Alliance Payments Councils Summit, a joint meeting of the Transportation Council and the Contactless Payments Council. The Councils will meet collectively and in separate sessions to continue to explore the opportunities for convergence in the payments and transportation markets, and introduce new mobile and NFC industry representatives into the discussion. This unique event has united Alliance members from the transportation, financial, and mobile industries to share ideas and network together on future convergence issues. The 2-day meeting will be held on February 27-28th followed by an optional tour on the 29th of the Utah Transit Authority operations center and its new system-wide open banking fare payment platform. This members-only meeting is free for all attendees, thanks in part to the generous sponsorship of MasterCard Worldwide, the gold sponsor, and additional sponsors ERG Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, First Data Corporation, Giesecke & Devrient, INSIDE Contactless, Scheidt & Bachmann, and USA Technologies. In addition to our own Smart Card Alliance meetings, we have three additional conference events scheduled in the month of April to showcase smart card technology to new potential end users and integrators. First in line is ISC West, the huge security event, where the Smart Card Alliance will host several companies demonstrating an end-to-end FIPS 201 smart card ID badge solution. Next is RSA Conference 2008, where the Smart Card Pavilion will host 12 exhibitors, each showing a range of technology solutions to the largely IT security audience. The last event is the Cards 2008 Brazil event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where six Latin American technology providers will occupy the Smart Card Pavilion at this important Brazilian conference. Exhibit space is still available if anyone is interested in these exhibit opportunities. All of these events are great in and of themselves, but they really only set the stage for the big event, the 2008 Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference and CTST 2008 – The Americas Conference in Orlando, FL on May 12 -15, 2008. You can read all about this new and improved conference and exhibition on the event web site. The program brings together the best content and exhibitors from financial payments, identity, transportation, security, healthcare, mobile and NFC industries from 15 countries. The Smart Card Alliance will be at the center of it all, with our usual outstanding program content, networking events, award presentations, and educational workshops. There are still exhibit and sponsorship opportunities available. Plus, don’t forget to mention you are a Smart Card Alliance member to get a discount for your conference pass, exhibit space, or sponsorship. Until next month, good health and good business. Randy Vanderhoof
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