Life Certificate

The Life Certificate (LifeCert) provides an immediate and contactless alternative to identification. Any citizen is able to register for a LifeCert which serves as a digital identity platform to reduce friction in a way that equitably protects people’s rights and the integrity of the ID system – all while taking into account the social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure everyone's health and well-being as well as the lack of connectivity to ensure equal access to services and benefits across the archipelago.

We are committed to providing a form of ID for everyone to be inclusive, as the pandemic has shed light on the inefficiencies of the national government because of this very problem. Our approach is to tackle local communities and scale up eventually.

Accessibility to services in the Philippines is dependent on one's ability to prove his or her identity. The problem is that obtaining a valid, universally accepted form of ID in this country is a cumbersome process in itself. In order to obtain a health card, one must first register for a tax ID. In order to obtain a tax ID, one must present his or her birth certificate, and so on and so forth. It is an overly bureaucratic process that takes up time and is not applicable to everyone given that being born under unusual circumstances (usually poverty) is the norm here.

Our solution is a digital identity component which is a small part of our larger economic development framework (https://www.lab.ph/post/commun...). The idea is to create an interim solution while the National ID program is being rolled out, assisting our government by building up databases and creating a data infrastructure that they can rely on to aid them in their oversight and decision making processes. Life Certificates are privacy centric, user focused data wallets that protect sensitive information through code obfuscation algorithms with our technology partner Element and we are currently piloting the project for 5M citizens.

We have signed a memorandum of agreement with our partner company, LGUSuite, Inc. to service their existing client base which totals 5 million citizens in partnership with our local government unit counterparts.

The benefits are as follows:

1. Allows a person to register her/his life as a Member of a Community, in the absence of a Birth Certificate or Government-issued ID
2. Enables a person to store her/his documents, IDs and other essential information in a secure data wallet
3.  Alleviates the need to remember multiple  usernames and passwords by
   using her/his LifeCert to enroll for new services or connect to existing services
4. Permits a person to verify her/his identity or
   other information with a trusted service provider in a contactless manner
5. Empowers a person to share her/his personal data with a trusted service provider to qualify for its products and/or services

LifeCert enables you to store and maintain your life's data in one secure place, as your life continuously evolves.

• By combining data with the proper context and controls, Communities can take advantage of more frictionless and contactless systems with its Community leaders and trusted service providers to measure impact and promote positive change.

• When you are in control of your data, you decide what to share, who to share it with, as well as where, when and how to share it.

This is not only a personal ID, but a participatory community tool for relevant data as well.

Major platforms such as Facebook and Google, whose lifeblood is digital advertisements, have been notorious for storing multitudes of data points of individual accounts that enables very specific targeting. The major downside is that there is a high potential for misuse, as some interfacing third-party developers have created ingenious methods to collect data from users in the form of seemingly harmless applications that later on cause large scale implications (example: Cambridge Analytica) 

Life Certificates are privacy-centric digital identification data wallets that allow its users to know exactly what information is being collected by interfacing entities and what they are being used for in order to increase consumer trust. On top of this, users are able to manage their permissions with ease and may update their information in real-time. Its primary function is to consolidate verifiable information of individuals tied to their biometrics for ease of access to various services.

National and municipal data are mostly stored in silos and are difficult to connect for many reasons (standardization, errors in manual encoding, ownership of data, legacy issues, image files which are not searchable/tagged, etc). The Life Certificate consolidates citizens’ information for government agencies and other establishments with varying databases and onboarding mechanisms to utilize the LC as an overarching umbrella with complete, verifiable and up-to-date information about an individual. Citizens are incentivized to provide accurate information in order to continually gain access to government services. A verification score algorithm is implemented to pre-evaluate users and their eligibility for various requirements.

https://www.lab.ph/post/commun...

We conducted a pilot study in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan back in 2016
in which we mapped out a total population of 600,000 individuals, 69
unique industries and 59 barangays. An interesting finding was a large
gap in the Pork sector, as they are exporting roughly Php 20,000,000
worth of raw pork per year, while they are importing processed pork
goods woth Php 800,000,000 anually. This large gap gave their local
government unit insight on how they could create potentially impactful
programs and initiatives that can increase livelihood opportunities and
generate income for their citizens, and later on, drive local and
foreign investments to their area for growth. Our static data sheet can
be viewed here for that project: https://drive.google.com/file/...

This was all done without the digital ID component. We have since upgraded our methodology to reflect the use of the identity portion to create live sources of data with full transparency and full domain from owners of the data.

Life Certificates are meant to be rolled out in partnership with local government units (LGU), so we are covering one city at a time. The project is meant to be piloted first, and if found to be effective, will be subsidized by the LGU. This ensures that every citizen is entitled to create their Life Certificate and gain control over their data, assist in the efforts for reopening the economy, contribute to contact tracing efforts, and be able to have a voice by using the LC as a participatory tool that allows LGUs to gain insights on their constituents' behaviors, consumer patterns, sources of livelihood and create relevant policies and initiatives that are tailored to their idiosyncrasies (based on the data).

Having an identity in the PH is necessary to be able to access benefits, and it was proven that we need a universal system that's reliable enough. Case in point, our Department of Social Welfare launched the Social Amelioration Program, a monetary assistance benefit for the marginalized sector. The way it was rolled out was that the responsibility of identifying qualified beneficiaries would be on the shoulders of the LGU, and it was no surprise that they had a hard time doing so, being susceptible to cases of fraud because of their paper-based survey methodology. Creating a digital identity tied to one's biometrics and ensuring that they are incentivized to provide accurate data is a necessary solution that our partner LGUs have recognized.

It's as simple as signing up for a social media platform like Facebook. The UX we're building out is intuitive enough for our wide general demographic to understand, and we have both tagalog and english versions planned out.

The LC's allow a user control over the following:

- What information they want to share with whom

- Provide only what is needed and not more

- Revoke access to their data at any time

- Change the frequency upon which this information is collected

- Update information in real-time across any and all gov't databases

We have planned three main API's that make our platform more of a middleware data wallet than an actual app:

- Social Login API allows users to sign up to platforms using their Life Certificate. Entities like banks can use this as a trusted mechanism for their KYC. This also removes the hassle of having to fill up forms again and again between registering to different government agencies/databases.

- Permission API allows users to grant access to bits of their information depending on who they're interfacing with (For ex: Local Government Units might want to run surveys to create relevant initiatives and will ask for some information)

- Authentication API is tied to the user's biometrics. Every transaction that occurs may be authenticated using their Life Certificates and shall be reflected there.

This allows us to work with multiple third party developers with no plans for exclusivity as our framework is accessible for everyone. The system works offline as well, and works on over 150+ mobile device types using only their common front facing camera.

Individuals who do not own mobile phones are still entitled to creating a Life Certificate, of which they can take note of their ID numbers to use for transactions, authenticated by their facial recognition data. This is a technology present in Unionbank's EON app.

How does this work? Well, we have a community division called the 'baranggay' which is the most basic cluster. Each baranggay has what we called a designated captain who is in charge of the well being of the individuals within the districts of their jurisdiction. They are the designated people to create Life Certs for citizens in the case wherein they have no means to do it themselves. These accounts are secured and not even the baranggay captain can access their data without the user logging in with their facial recognition credentials.

Authentication works offline and data is updated/transmitted when there is a connection available.

Our current MOA with our partner states that the product is to be rolled out to five million (5M) citizens with various local government unit partners. We expect to scale up to about 20-30M users within the next 2 years, and 60-70M within 5 years depending on the turnout of the project.

Our goal is to be able to fully implement the Community OS Development Framework, with Life Certificates being the first stepping stone as the data gathering and analysis component. We seek to empower citizens by letting them know that their data is important and will make their lives much easier.

For a very detailed explanation of our vision, this is a highly recommended, insightful read that will tell you why we do what we do: https://www.lab.ph/post/commun...

Our main barrier to entry is resistance to change from citizens, from personal interests of our government leaders and inefficient implementation as we scale.

Our Chairman is the former Chief Economist of the PH, Dr. Sixto K. Roxas (SKR). He is the chairman emeritus of the Development Academy of the Philippines (2000+ employees nationwide, government owned) and was the first president of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), a renowned MBA institute in Asia. SKR is also the founding father of our Department of Science and Technology (then called the National Research Council of the Philippines or NRCP).

Our resources will be enough to create sound, tailor-fit implementation plans with our local government unit partners.

Our team consists of 5 full-time management staff, and the entire
Development Academy of the Philippines (our company's chairman Dr. Roxas
is also chairman emeritus of the academy) under our wing, about 2,000
employees nationwide.

Our team is comprised of experienced, well connected experts in various fields. Chairman Dr. Sixto K. Roxas is a former VP of American Express in London and New York, was an undersecretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs, and was the country's Chief Economist in the 60's and 70's.

CEO Mel Songco was the former head of global distribution at Blizzard, and head of marketing at EA and Activision about 20 years ago.

COO Vinci Roxas is on the board of investments at CIMB-Bancom II, a joint venture between Bancom capital corporation and CIMB, Malaysia's largest commercial bank.

CSO Russ Malangen is a prominent entrepreneur in the Philippines with experience in running international accelerator programs for startups, Venture Capital, business advisory and strategy. He is a 2018 recipient of the Connected World Magazine Top 10 IoT Pioneers Under 40 award.

CMO Miguel Santos is currently a director for research at the Presidential
Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and has experience in closing
large deals for broadcast (one which includes the SEA Games)

Our combined experience in government processes, private sector interfacing and on-the-ground  initiatives makes us the perfect team to cover all bases.

Our understanding of the Community OS framework is thorough and we have been trained by Dr. Roxas for years.

LGUSuite - https://www.bworldonline.com/s...

Development Academy of the Philippines, Department of Agriculture,
Department of Agrarian Reform, Mindanao Development Authority, The
Roxas-Kalaw Foundation for the Eradication of Poverty , Chicago
University Hong Kong, Asian Institute of Management, Good City
Foundation (HK).

These are some of the key entities that we are partnered with to roll out and execute the program.

For us it's straightforward. We interface with Local Government Units that pay or subsidize for the use of Life Certificates (roughly $1/user/year).

Once our ecosystem is built out, we can start doing tiered API calls pricing for large transaction bases.

Our framework in itself is sustainable. It creates jobs, facilitates investments and reveals various industry gaps which can be capitalized on. A discussion with the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has solidified our stance and they have agreed to lend a hand in identifying viable projects within an area.

For the full coverage of our program, please refer to this document: https://drive.google.com/file/...

We are in the pilot stage therefore we are not generating revenue yet.
We hope to raise funds in the form of grants or investments to further
our development process.

We are looking to raise funds for the initial implementation, worth roughly $300,000 initially for manpower and initial
services such as community organization, software development and
refining of our existing tools. We are open to any form of financing,
but would prioritize grants as this is an immediate, large scale issue
that we believe we can resolve.

$300K to cover rollout and marketing expenses, as well as further development.