The Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), the global, member-driven technical standards development organisation, has announced its new Board of Directors. Five board seats were open, and the following candidates were elected by a member vote to serve a two-year term:
- Alex Wight – Lead PKI Architect and Principle Engineer, Cisco Systems (new)
- Betty Zhao – Standard Operation Manager, Haier (re-elected)
- Brian Bishop – CEO, Data Performance Consultancy Ltd (new)
- Brian Scriber – Distinguished Technologist and Vice President Security and Privacy Technologies, CableLabs (re-elected)
- Wouter van der Beek – Chief Operating Officer, Cascoda (re-elected)
Together, the new board will continue the OCF’s work to enable Internet of Things (IoT) devices and services to communicate through a trusted open Internet Protocol (IP) framework which dynamically aligns with baselines for IoT security and privacy regulations, offering peace of mind and enriched experiences.
Commenting on his appointment to the board, Alex Wight said, “I’ve joined the board to represent Cisco in the continued development of a flexible Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/IP-based framework for building secure IoT devices. I’d like to see the OCF become the de-facto standard for companies aiming for their IoT devices to achieve regulatory compliance and interoperability amongst disparate vendors’ products, and hope to support the OCF along the upward trajectory that it has been on for some years.”
Betty Zhao added, “The OCF is one of the most promising standards in the crowded global IoT standards landscape. Its technology has been proven to be solid. We believe that the OCF will be implemented more widely, which will benefit both vendors and end users.”
A key focus for the organisation is the development of IoT regulation initiatives in the smart city sector. Newly elected member, Brian Bishop, commented, “The OCF is set to become the standard of choice for infrastructure in the smart city environment. As a collaborative ecosystem of large corporations and SMEs working together to solve the challenges of today, this model can provide trust to cities and prevent vendor lock-in. The OCF’s open standards approach enables smart cities of the future to accelerate that process through the development of new supply chains.”
Reflecting on his re-election to the board, Brian Scriber commented “CableLabs believes strongly in the promise of secure device interoperability, and the OCF remains the only complete specification that is recognised as an international standard, with a full-stack open-source implementation, a badging program, and collection of labs ready to test device conformance. It was an easy decision to continue to support the work that came from nearly 500 contributing companies over the last seven years of intense collaboration.”
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