FlexID

FlexID aims to be the pivotal identity infrastructure across Africa. Not limited to personal credentials, FlexID's can store credentials for underage children, ownership of property, certificates for academic qualifications, etc.

Through FlexID which is a digital identity wallet, we allow virtually anybody to receive, store & share digital credentials they would have received e.g.  national ID in order to access services.

We are a multi-sided B2B business with three key stakeholders: Issuers (eg. Governments issuing drivers licenses), Verifiers (eg. Banks requiring KYC), and Holders (eg. Someone applying for a bank account).

Our research showed that the biggest problems across Africa- 400M+ unbanked citizens, 100M+ lacking govt services, <10% insurance ownership, etc. stem from a lack of basic identity. Our platform is designed for local citizens and works around problems faced in their daily life.

The core problem we are solving is reducing the cost of verification of identity. This includes financial cost, time, and security. Africa’s lack of a trusted identity infrastructure has led to 50% yearly increase in identity fraud and forgery, and also indirectly led to extremely slow processing times due to manual intervention in the verification process (eg. banks sending agents to remote villages to manually verify ownership of farm land before handing out farmer loans - which can take weeks if not months) which has hindered access to services such as loans, insurance, relief, etc.. Existing paper credentials are thus very resource-intensive to issue, manage, and verify due to ease of forgery and distrust in the organizations. 

Financial Organisations can act as both Issuers and Verifiers which makes them special. 

• They act as issuers by issuing KYC credentials, bank account credentials, bank statements, credit reports, etc. These can be used internally by the bank in the future when the user visits them again to verify who the user is. They can also be used by external verifiers who need to check bank statements or credit reports prior to offering services (eg. insurance companies)

• They act as verifiers as they require KYC before providing services, need to check credit reports before approving loans, insurance companies need proof of bank account ownership, etc

Government departments and local Ministries:

• They act as issuers by issuing farmer-specific credentials such as land certificates, farmer id’s, subsidy beneficiaries, etc. This allows external verifiers to verify land ownership and subsidy amounts that a farmer deserves.

Crop input providers and banks with agriculture divisions:

• They act as verifiers of land certificates and farmer id’s in order to provide benefits and services to the farmers

Born out of the struggle for one of the co-founders to register for a bank account in Zimbabwe, FlexID is designed with the informal African entrepreneur in mind.

Mission Billion requires service provision & access to such groups which form the bulk of commercial activity in West Africa including subsistence farmers in the region. FlexID is primarily designed to be easily accessible through various means including offline whilst being rich in the services users can harness including financial services, insurance m, healthcare, educational. We aim to turn their phones into powerful wallets which can open access across sectors.

The naive solution is digital identity, but history has proven that central data stores are high-value hacking targets and can affect millions of users in case of a leak. FlexID is a self-sovereign digital identity, which means the digital identity is fully owned and controlled by the user/thing being referred to. 

FlexID allows users to securely exchange their credentials and gain access to services without intervening third parties. Analogous to a real wallet, it contains credentials like driver’s licenses, national ID’s, land certificates, etc. 

Issuance of digital credentials is more secure, cheaper, and instantaneous than their physical counterparts which are prone to forgery, expensive to issue and manage, and take weeks if not months.

Verification of digital credentials is more trustworthy, cheaper, and instantaneous than their physical counterparts which allows verifiers to onboard more customers and expand their service offerings with less risk as digital credentials cannot be faked.

Ownership of digital credentials allows holders to access services digitally and remotely without needing to visit in-person offices which are only present in major urban centres. They are also self-sovereign and recoverable so users cannot lose or harm their credentials accidentally.

The core technology allowing us to build Self-Sovereign Identity is Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), which are essentially a data format mapping unique identifiers to a set of public keys. A Decentralized Key Management System(DKMS) on the blockchain allows us to maintain a global, shared, immutable ledger of DIDs, and associated public keys enable independent cryptographic verification of digital signatures.

DID’s on a blockchain are an essential but small piece of the platform, with various proprietary API’s and SDK’s abstracting away the complexities of SSI so that Issuers and Verifiers with no SSI background can get started with issuing/verifying digital credentials easily.

Our research showed that the biggest problems across Africa- 400M+ unbanked citizens, 100M+ lacking govt services, <10% insurance ownership, etc. stem from a lack of basic identity. Our platform is designed for local citizens and works around problems faced in their daily life.

Identity & most importantly Verifiable Identity creates Access, whether its to financial services which can uplift people out of poverty, healthcare services which can prolong life & overall quality of living, government/ civic services such as voting which solidifies basic human rights activities enshrined in standard constitutions. A lack of identity robs society of valuable participants whom could create & add value to the overall GDP of a nation. 

FlexID removes the need for siloed expensive solutions by building infrastructure directly for the individuals by empowering them with access to their credentials. 

With users able to quickly store their identification credentials from multiple organisations they interact with, they can begin to use them to access critical services. That mobile money account they registered can now be used to open a bank account or apply for a microloan whilst being completely verifiable.

• Issuance of digital credentials is more secure, cheaper, and instantaneous than their physical counterparts which are prone to forgery, expensive to issue and manage, and take weeks if not months. This will be through SDKs & API provided to identity & Credential  providers e.g. government, banks. 

• Verification of digital credentials is more trustworthy, cheaper, and instantaneous than their physical counterparts which allows verifiers to onboard more customers and expand their service offerings with less risk as digital credentials cannot be faked. Verifiers receive a Verification API which allow them to authenticate a digital credential. 

• Ownership of digital credentials allows holders to access services digitally and remotely without needing to visit in-person offices which are only present in major urban centres. They are also self-sovereign and recoverable so users cannot lose or harm their credentials accidentally

The Flex Network runs on a decentralized network which allows Issuing authorities to run their own nodes through simple API integrations. No change is required on traditional systems except a new layer for digital issuance of existing credentials & other new ones.

Banks or Microfinance companies simply need the Verifier API to quest for digital credentials through their websites or other mediums.

W3C & DIF open standards for interoperability. Credentials issued on FlexID can be transferred to other platforms globally with ease at the user's will.

No vendor lock in is possible owing to decentralized infrastructure.

WhatsApp: Most popular form of internet access & communication in Africa, we use a chatbot which can be in many languages in order to be accessible to most users.

USSD: For offline functionality through feature phones.

QR Codes: Another offline custodial solution. 

N/A

In 12 months: Finish (scheduled) pilot & provide FlexIDs to over 100 000 farmers in Zimbabwe. 

Integrate 10 Issuing Authorities through network effects.

In 5 years: Be in at least 10 countries across Sub-Sahara Africa through strategic partnership with local financial & government institutions.

Marketplace Business: We require multiple stakeholders in order to have a viable network.

We sort out the Supply Side first i.e  Onboard Issuing Organisations. Demonstrate capacity through trials & integrations with institutions.

Full Time: 2

Victor Mapunga: Cofounder & CEO 

Haardik Haardik: Cofounder & CTO

Part Time: 2

We met at Yale University in 2016, attending an Entrepreneurship summer program for called Yale Young Global Scholars. Coincidentally, we met again the next year at King’s College London attending a program on Philosophy, Rationality, and Emerging Technologies. Fast forward to 2018, Victor messaged Haardik explaining the first-hand problems he faced in the process of opening a bank account due to lack of identity. Haardik came up with a Hyperledger Fabric based proof of concept which could alleviate those problems over the next week. Looking into it more, we realized the problem goes much deeper and in early 2019 we incorporated the company in Zimbabwe and have been working on it since.

Haardik Haardik:

• Been programming since 11, first paid freelance project at 14

• Got into bitcoin and blockchain in 2014

• Fully focused on L1 and L2 blockchain dev since 2017

• Wide network in the Algorand and Ethereum communities

• Heavily versed with decentralized identity standards and organizations with a wide network in the space

• Contributed to Hyperledger Fabric and Hyperledger Aries open-source development 

• Built the entire SSI architecture and tech stack till date including but not limited to a L2 network on top of Algorand, zero knowledge proof based verifiable credentials, mobile app, web platforms, devops workflows, cloud infrastructure

Victor Mapunga:

• First start-up at 13

• Worked in elearning, E-Commerce & finance industry. 

• M.I.T. Sandbox alum (Motapa)

• Experience with the local African market 

• Got into blockchain in 2017 at King's College in London.

Algorand: Technical partner from Turing Award Winner & MIT professor Silvio Micali.

Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF): FlexID is the first African start-up to be a part of the organisation. We have contributed code for Zero Knowledge Proofs & Verifiable Credentials standards for interoperability globally. 

Imagine Alice, looking to register a bank account. She registers for a National ID through the FlexID mobile app, where she needs to provide her information which is matched against the government database, and a digital National ID is issued to her. Once she has that in her FlexID wallet, she visits a bank website (or in-person) and opens the form to register an account. The bank needs to do KYC before processing her application. Alice scans a QR code which prompts the FlexID app to share her National ID credential with the bank. Alice approves the request, and the bank receives a cryptographically verifiable credential. The bank is satisfied after being able to independently verify that the credential was issued to her by the government, and her application is processed. A few hours later she gets a confirmation that her bank account has been created.

Issuers are onboarded case-by-case to join the FlexID network. They may have custom requirements that users need to fulfil (by presenting previously owned credentials, or some external process) to give them new credentials. In the above example, the bank acts as both a Verifier and an Issuer.

Holders are end users who use the FlexID mobile app/chatbots to receive, store, and share digital credentials with Verifiers (eg. Alice)

Verifiers can utilize our SDK to easily verify credentials presented to them. Requests to share credentials can be presented to the user in different formats which our mobile app/chatbots can understand and respond to.

Analogous to VISA, we charge both sides of the marketplace (Issuers and Verifiers) minimal fees per issuance/verification of credentials. Issuers are charged a small fee per credential that they issue on the network. Verifiers are free to choose which Issuers they deem trustworthy and accept credentials issued by them. Verifiers also pay a small fees per credential verification. Part of that fees will be shared with the Issuing authority of that specific credential which provides an opportunity and incentive for issuers to act truthfully and produce trustworthy credentials, and also assist in building the network further. We anticipate many more verifications than issuances of credentials which is where we will get the majority of our revenue, and as long as issuers act honestly they can make back the money they spend on issuing credentials.

Algorand Foundation: Received Equity free grant of 50 000 Algos ($15K+ at time market price).

Bootstrap: We've seld funded from inception & exempted ourselves from salaries.

Hoping to raise $500K by Q2 end 2021 in order to fund expansion across the region to carry out pilots. 

$300K: Hiring of Developers & Key personnel in expansion drive:

$200K: Technical Infrastructure cost. 

The Mission Billion Challenge can allow us to rapidly deploy much needed affordable digital identity infrastructure to informal markets across Africa by leveraging World Bank partner organisations, financial institutions & government departments to act as Issuers across our network.

With Africa's median age being 18-20, young adults (mostly in the informal  sector) are embracing technology more openly. FlexID aims to be ready for Africa's internet revolution, provide self-sovereignty to all, and enable the 500 million unbanked citizens of Africa by building easily accessible platforms for users to gain access. Finally, it wants to eliminate months- long processes of getting access to healthcare, finance, insurance, and agriculture services through paper credentials.

Product & Service Distribution: Engage with banks, government, healthcare & insurance firms to create a sustainable network of offerings for users.

Funding & Revenue Model: Raise capital to perform pilots across selected countries & determine best model for deployment.

Legal & Regulatory: Navigation across different African markets & the relationship of identity & governance.

Marketing: Establish relationships with relevant organisations & government entities to schedule pilots & demos.

ID4D, ID4Africa, Smart Africa: Stakeholder engagement across African markets they operate in. Work in tangent to deploy rapid pilots.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Ecosystem engagement for healthcare credentials, Funding. 

Government Civic Registeries

Local Banks, Insurance Companies