Uniris team members from left to right: Head of Partnerships Baptiste Saint-Martin, CEO Sebastien Dupont (co-founder), COO Nilesh Patankar (co-founder) and Advisory Board Member Peter Scanlon
Founded by Nilesh Patankar (COO), Sebastien Dupont (CEO), and Christophe Bruno (CSO), Uniris is a blockchain-biometric ID solution four years in the making. Beginning their research prior to the 2017-18 ICO boom, the period when a large number of projects were being introduced in the market with only flimsy white papers and hollow promises, the journey has been an exercise in both patience and transparency for the founding team.
“We have been patient and transparent in our approach,” says COO Nilesh Patankar, the former Director of Payments Technology at Barclays India, who also acted as VP of Product Development and Innovation at Mastercard India. “We have taken the time to get academic validation of our research concepts before making a foray into the market. Today we are confident about offering value to our investors.”
An integrated services platform that offers use-cases capable of replacing any current service, be it bank, contract management, marketplace, website hosting, email, voting or other utility, Uniris’ blockchain technology assets are backed by researchers and patents and currently stands in the market as the only blockchain providing native biometric authentication that is inherently GDPR-compliant.
Removing All Complexity and Insecurity from Computer Science
The aim, says Christophe Bruno, Uniris CSO (Chief Security Officer) who hails from a background in corporate legal intelligence, security, crisis management and GDPR compliance, is to remove all complexity and insecurity from computer science. The focus is to give back to humanity the control over technology and to individuals, control over their identities in a solution that is as simple and convenient as possible.
As each individual’s digital persona includes several numerous identities, technically, these infinite numbers of identities for a specific person will be derived from his/her keychain wallet and will be based on mutual crypto authentication. In a nutshell, all things will be automated to provide a completely transparent interaction whatever the endpoint (airport, google, car, house, wallet, etc.).
Uniris co-founder: CSO (Chief Security Officer) Christophe Bruno
Creating The Uniris Blockchain
In late 2015, Nilesh and Sebastien started discussing the beginnings of the project, both intrigued as it were, by the bitcoin concept and its elegant solution.
“It was so interesting to see the application of mathematics in a distributed P2P trustless ecosystem,” says Uniris CEO Sebastien Dupont. With previous senior management roles in French telecommunications giant, Orange, and technology innovation leader, Thales, Sebastien also holds 6 patents in blockchain and 5 in biometrics.
“The codifying of rules to govern systems without centralized management was almost a utopian state devoid of malice and greed,” Sebastien enthuses.
“Our first thought was to apply this concept to create a P2P decentralized marketplace,” adds Nilesh.
They started looking at possible base layers like Ethereum to provide the solution but quickly realized the shortcomings such as the Ethereum blockchain’s inability to scale over 25 transactions per second, an obvious obstacle for a transacting marketplace. The next stumbling block was adoption.
“The blockchain ecosystem is so esoteric in nature that its adoption is limited to the tech-savvy ‘nerd’ segment,” explains Sebastien.
This observation became evident when Sebastien tried explaining the concept to his grandmother, who was unable to fathom the whole private key management aspect. It led to the realization that adoption would only be possible through simplicity of use and if adoption was successful, then scalability to manage the growth was of utmost importance.
Hence, the decision to create their own Uniris blockchain, one that could provide scalability and also a biometric solution that simplified access and private key management.
POCs in Real World Scenarios
Currently the project is at an “inflection point”, with multiple proposals in the works and POCs (Proof-of-Concepts) happening early next year. So far, the team has been concentrating on research and validation of the technology.
“Now is the time to provide proof points based on real world scenarios,” all three co-founders chime in. “This augurs well for the Uniris team since these projects would further consolidate our value proposition and demonstrate our ability to live up to the industry certification for providing secure access to global mega events, such as the 2024 Paris Olympics!”
Most certainly a real world POC techies would not want to miss!
With a talented and experienced team of tech professionals, R&D, marketers and business development personnel, Uniris seems poised to create a new generation of blockchain that is sustainable, scalable, secure and inclusive.
For more information about the Uniris project please visit their official website.
You can also join their official channels to receive the latest updates.
Telegram: https://t.me/uniris_eng
Twitter: https://twitter.com/unirislife
Github: https://github.com/UNIRIS
