At the Global Digital Collaboration Summit held in Geneva from July 1-2, Ayra’s Executive Director, Darrell O’Donnell, along with members GLEIF and Umazi, contributed to sessions that explored how organizational credentials and identity infrastructure can better enable organizations to build toward formal identity systems without overwhelming administrative burden.
Panelists discussed that addressing the gap in identity infrastructure for the world’s smallest businesses in a way that meets market needs requires design choices that enable lightweight, scalable, and inclusive approaches to organizational identity. The importance of recognizing how informal businesses are already deeply embedded across economies was highlighted, with the vast majority of the estimated 300 million businesses globally operating informally. Trust-building mechanisms must reflect their realities and provide incentives, resources, or support to engage with traditional registration and identity systems. A few insights that emerged:
- The pathway from informal to formal is not linear or binary. Many businesses begin informally and evolve based on market needs, not regulation.
- Incentives matter. Businesses are more likely to formalize when it leads to tangible benefits such as increased consumer trust, access to capital, or participation in supply chains.
- Mandates have not been effective in driving formalization. Instead, simplifying processes and reducing friction has led to greater adoption, such as in India, where the number of registered businesses grew from 5 million to 75 million, aided by systems like Aadhaar and UPI.
- Rather than requiring full formal registration upfront, systems can enable businesses to build trust gradually through layered or stepping-stone credentials without facing an all-or-nothing threshold.
The discussion emphasized that formal identity systems need to be designed for inclusion, offering stepping stones for small enterprises to grow into the digital economy. Organizational identity should not be a gate, but a bridge. From formal LEIs to incremental digital credentials, the future lies in incentive-aligned systems that scale trust without excluding those not yet ready or able to register formally.
As digital public infrastructure grows globally, these conversations signal a broader commitment to designing identity systems that are interoperable, human-centered, and built for real-world impact.
Session Details:
Day 1 Keynote: Framing Organisational Credentials – From Wallets to Impact
Speakers: Ivan Mortimer-Schutts (GLEIF), Darrell O’Donnell (Ayra), Vasily Suvorov (Accelerate)
Co-organizers: GLEIF & World Bank Group
Day 2 Session: Bridging the Organizational Identity Gap – From Nano-Businesses to Global Commerce
Speakers: Ivan Mortimer-Schutts (GLEIF), Darrell O’Donnell (Ayra), Pramod Varma (CDPI), Goran Vranic (World Bank), David Porteous, Cindy van Niekerk (Umazi)
Co-organizers: CDPI, Ayra, World Bank Group
Ayra is a co-organizer of the Global Digital Collaboration event that took place from July 1-2, 2025, in Geneva, Switzerland.