Peter Sidenius, EDC Managing Director based in London met with Irra Ariella Khi, CEO of VChain, a cutting-edge Blockchain based identity-as-a-service platform.‍

What will VChain do and can you describe the company to us briefly?

‍VChain is an award-winning software, named by IBM Security as GDPR compliant identity-as-a-service in the Blockchain report in April 2018. VChain also has royal support from Duke of York, the Queen's second son - as part of winning the Pitch at Palace challenge on big data, intelligence and the future of security. The underlying technology is based on half a decade of R+D and 4 proprietary patents written by my co-founder Alex and myself. First client - IAG, third largest airline group in the world (owner of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus). VChain is currently helping airlines monetise and leverage customer identification process, and starting to work with financial services providers and MNOs on customer validation, authentication, and identity.

‍Do you think blockchain as a technology holds great promise in risk and identity management?

‍Blockchain is a great tool for managing complex big data sets, particularly those in silos. It is not a tool for either risk nor identity management per se - but, if used effectively, the underlying capability of a blockchain can enhance both the trustworthiness and immutability of a data set. When asserting identity data, it is important that all data points can be trusted and their provenance traceable. That is just one of the reasons that we use blockchain as one of the many tools and combination of approaches which form the proprietary processes at VChain.

‍What is your view on cryptocurrencies? For or against?

‍I am long on cryptocurrencies, but with a caveat: only buy in if you have researched 1) the team behind the project 2) the applicable use case 3) the strategy as well as their track record in taking steps towards achieving their big vision so far. The model of ICOs is flipping traditional fundraising on its head, which is both great and fraught with danger: in the absence of critical technical as well as business case analysis, it is easy to buy into the hype of a cryptocurrency, and in my view it is as easy to lose money as it is to make money on them. I am much more excited about the public chain cryptos than I am about niche tokens, but I am hodl-ing positions of both types (using the 1-2-3 assessment above).

‍What do you do in your spare time? What are your hobbies?

‍My main hobby is maximising performance and wellbeing through experiments with nutrition, supplements, exercise, sleep etc - not 'biohacking' per se, but I do focus a lot on the cutting edge science of extending life and optimising wellness in a demanding environment. I believe that we are human first and everything else second - and I want to feel fantastic both in my role as a CEO doing 12-18hr days, but also feel full of energy in my role at home - as a partner, a mother of 1, and stepmother of 2. With all kids under 7, I really value family time and being able to give 100% of myself in each role :)