Ayra Community,
TL;DR:
- FaceTec has joined Ayra as an Associate Member, strengthening our focus on high-assurance, person-authorized digital trust.
- The Ayra Card Working Group is moving forward — get involved.
- Ayra was represented at Education House Davos 2026, continuing to bring governance-first trust infrastructure into global conversations.
- Upcoming elections for Councils and Board positions are approaching.
Hello everyone!
January was a month of real momentum for Ayra. We welcomed a significant new member: FaceTec joined Ayra; we were at Education House in Davos at the World Economic Forum’s invitation; and we have made substantial progress on the Conformance Test Suite.
These milestones reflect the growing recognition that digital trust requires a coordinated, business- and governance-first approach that Ayra is building.
As always, Ayra’s progress depends on member participation. Whether through working groups, office hours, proofs of concept, or one-on-one conversations, we encourage you to engage and help shape what comes next.
Keep being awesome!
Darrell O’Donnell
Executive Director
darrell.odonnell@ayra.forum
Workstream Updates
📇 Business Workstream
🎉 Welcome FaceTec — New Strategic Member
We are pleased to announce that FaceTec has joined Ayra as an Associate Member. FaceTec was founded in 2013, and headquartered in the US with additional staff in the UK, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, and Canada, FaceTec is the world’s leading provider of 3D face biometric Liveness and matching software, processing 3.5 billion-plus 3D Liveness Checks annualized, protecting sensitive information in high-risk, high-value environments, including banking and finance, government, major e-commerce, global social networks, digital national IDs and mobile driver licenses, and much more.
“FaceTec’s UR-code approach is a natural fit for the Ayra Card Protocol. Where high-confidence identity assurance is required, a UR-code Payload delivers exactly that—powerful, effective, and seamless verification of the person in a privacy-respecting way.” says Darrell O’Donnell, Executive Director of Ayra.
FaceTec’s expertise in biometric authentication and identity assurance aligns closely with Ayra’s mission to build a high-assurance, person-authorized digital trust infrastructure. Their participation strengthens Ayra’s member ecosystem and brings valuable technical and business perspectives to our work on the Ayra Card Protocol and trust registries.
We look forward to FaceTec’s contributions across our workstreams and welcome them to the Ayra community.
Some other key things:
🌐 DIDAS Strategic Offsite
Ayra was invited as a guest/observer at the DIDAS Strategic Offsite this month, providing an opportunity to deepen alignment with the Swiss digital identity and trust ecosystem.
🪪 Ayra Card Working Group
The Ayra Card Working Group is ready to start holding regular meetings. We have a poll set up to gather times that may work.
Members interested in contributing, whether from a technical, governance, policy, or ecosystem perspective, are encouraged to get involved and fill in a time that works for them.
We are also looking for a co-chair to join Darrell in moving the Ayra Card Working Group forward.
🎨Creator Assertions Working Group (CAWG)
Ayra was invited to brief the Creator Assertions Working Group (CAWG), a joint initiative of Trust Over IP and the Decentralized Identity Foundation. CAWG members are working to establish trust registries drawn from their extensive systems of record, which collectively represent millions of creators across music, film, press, sports, and other industries. Ayra serves in an advisory capacity, collaborating with CAWG members to determine which work is best suited for CAWG and which would be more appropriately undertaken at Ayra. The creator and talent industries represent millions of individuals and organizations, and their stakeholders recognize the need to provide trust registries and verifiable credentials capabilities for their members and the broader industries they serve.
Upcoming Business Office Hours:
- Tuesday, March 3 • 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST / 1:00 am UTC
- Wednesday, March 4 • 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC
⚖️ Governance Workstream
✍️ Collecting Member Agreements
We continue to collect the member agreements required to vote in both the 2026 General Assembly and Advisory Council elections.
Advisory Councils, which represent the member classes, nominate either two (2) or three (3) Directors to the Governing Board, which will be elected at the General Assembly. Only formal members may hold a seat on an Advisory Council and vote for the Governing Board.
To formalize membership, an individual or organization must sign a new member agreement. In addition, Business classes must pay membership dues. The signature deadline for member agreements is the end of March 2026.
Contact mer.joyce@ayra.forum or christine.martin@ayra.forum to receive a membership agreement to e-sign, or if you have any questions.
🗳 Upcoming Elections: Councils in April & Board in May
With Advisory Council elections and the Board elections coming up, members will be invited to begin campaigning soon.
Strong governance depends on our members’ active participation. Whether you’re considering standing for a role or supporting others in the community, now is the time to consider how you’d like to contribute.
We’ll continue to share updates and key dates. Help us spread the word.
🛠️ Technical Workstream
👩🏽💻TRQP — Moving Toward Formal Standard
The Trust Registry Query Protocol (TRQP) is advancing to the next stage, moving toward becoming an “approved deliverable” — a formal standard with global recognition. Some cleanup and additional requirements remain, but progress has been strong, and the work is coming along very nicely.
🧪Conformance Test Suite
Substantial progress has been made on the CTS, with great input from members (and the broader community). Holder, Verifier, and Trust Registry profiles are all working with an Ayra Business Card.
We are getting interest in the next stage for CTS – moving towards creating a full Trustmark program for our industry.
Upcoming Technical Office Hours:
- Tuesday, February 17 • 6:00 pm PST / 9:00 pm EST / 1:00 am UTC
- Wednesday, February 18 • 8:00 am PST / 11:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC
⏰ Office Hours
We encourage you to participate, bring questions, and share feedback by either filling out this form or requesting access to the agenda items and notes document (link) and adding an entry for the relevant date. You can also reach out to christine.martin@ayra.forum.
These conversations play a key role in shaping alignment across the technical workstream and supporting a collaborative, inclusive engineering culture within Ayra. As always, strengthening member connections is central to our community-building efforts. Standing office hours are available each week, and you can find all upcoming sessions in the Ayra Activity & Events Calendar.
Events & Sessions
🌍 Ayra at Education House Davos 2026
Ayra’s Executive Director attended Education House Davos 2026, joining leaders from education, technology, and policy in discussions on the future of digital trust and credentials in education. Ayra was invited by the World Economic Forum to provide perspective.
Co-convened by HundrED, JA Worldwide, and Teach For All, Education House creates space for shared responsibility and collective action — values that closely align with Ayra’s approach to building trust infrastructure through cooperation across sectors and boundaries.
Education House covered a broad range of topics, but the most relevant for Ayra Members was the recognition that digital public infrastructure (DPI) is urgently needed to support learners, particularly in this age of AI.
Ayra’s participation ensures that digital trust, governance, and interoperability remain part of these critical global conversations, particularly in education, where verifiable credentials and person-authorized data sharing can have a transformative impact.
👉 Watch the Education House Davos 2026 recap on YouTube
👥 Engaging with Ayra
If you have not yet subscribed to the Ayra Activity and Events Calendar, you can do so here. Please note that most activities at this point are Member-only and will require your registration to be approved.
We are reaching out to Members for one-on-one conversations and hope you can take some time to share any feedback and raise any questions. We look forward to engaging in discussions and thank our Members for their commitment to supporting Ayra on its journey. Please feel free to reach out to us directly at any time.
If you’re a Member and haven’t checked out the Member Portal yet, we recommend that you do so. If you haven’t seen your invite, reach out to christine.martin@ayra.forum.
If you are part of an organization that would like to apply for Ayra Membership, we invite you to reach out – on the web, or email us at memberships@ayra.forum.