I have not been to an identity trade show in years, and sadly I won’t be in Washington DC next week for connect:ID…although I’ll be thinking about it.
I’ve only been to connect:ID once, in 2015. Back in those days I was a strategic marketer with MorphoTrak, and we were demonstrating the MorphoWay. No, not the Morpho Way; the MorphoWay.
Perhaps you’ve seen the video.
As an aside, you’ll notice how big MorphoWay is…which renders it impractical for use in U.S. airports, since space is valuable and therefore security features need a minimum footprint. MorphoWay has a maximum footprint…just ask the tradespeople who were responsible for getting it on and off the trade show floor.
I still remember several other things from this conference. For example, in those days one of Safran’s biometric competitors was 3M. Of course both Safran and 3M have exited the biometric industry, but at the time they were competing against each other. Companies always make a point of checking out the other companies at these conferences, but when I went to 3M’s booth, the one person I knew best (Teresa Wu) was not at the booth. Later that year, Teresa would leave 3M and (re)join Safran, where she remains to this day.
Yes, there is a lot of movement of people between firms. Looking over the companies in the connect:ID 2021 Exhibitor Directory, I know people at a number of these firms. Obviously people from IDEMIA, of course (IDEMIA was the company that bought Safran’s identity business), but I also know people at other companies, all of whom who were former coworkers at IDEMIA or one of its predecessor companies:
- Aware.
- Clearview AI.
- GET Group North America.
- HID Global.
- Integrated Biometrics.
- iProov.
- NEC.
- Paravision.
- Rank One Computing.
- SAFR/RealNetworks.
- Thales.
- Probably some others that I missed.
And I know people at some of the other companies, organizations, and governmental entities that are at connect:ID this year.
Some of these entities didn’t even exist when I was at connect:ID six years ago, and some of these entities (such as Thales) have entered the identity market due to acquisitions (in Thales’ case, the acquisition of Gemalto, which had acquired 3M’s biometric business).
So while I’m not crossing the country next week, I’m obviously thinking of everything that will be going on there.
Incidentally, this is one of the last events of the trade show season, which is starting to wind down for the year. But it will ramp up again next spring (for you Northern Hemisphere folks).
Regardless of where you are, hopefully the upcoming trade show season will not be adversely impacted by the pandemic.
Bredemarket 
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