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Introducing digital transformation and technological developments in business processes is helping thousands of businesses to flourish and reach remote markets. Having a trusted platform as a partner to guide companies forward in establishing identities assures success. NextgenID is one such trusted platform that provides end-to-end solutions to both government and commercial sectors. In an exclusive interview with Michael Harris, CTO of NextgenID, we ask him a few questions to gain a deeper insight into his role in the company, responsibilities, and inspirations.
NextgenID specializes in providing Trusted Identity Proofing and enrollment solutions for individuals and organizations. The NextgenID Trusted Identity Platform is built on proprietary hardware and software that allows identity operators to run highly configurable identity workflows that reduce organizational costs, increase efficiency, and centralize functions while maintaining security and privacy.
NextgenID's industry-neutral solutions revolve around patented "Supervised Remote In-Person Proofing" to automatically, securely, and "remotely" perform all high-assurance proofing & enrollment for its customers. The industry is taking notice as the company is working with some of the largest agencies in the U.S. Civilian, Defense, and Intelligence markets, State/Local Government, International Governments, and global, commercial, cross-vertical organizations throughout the world.
With over 30 years of identity and strong authentication experience, Michael has developed broad and deep knowledge in biometrics, smart cards, mobile devices, and credentialling. His career spans several international executives and C-suite positions within the technology, sales, marketing, and product management operations for market-leading global identity providers.
He has worked with the U.S. (DOS, NASA, IRS, DHS, FAA, DOD, NIST, etc.) and foreign governments, Apple, Verizon, Bloomberg, and system integrators delivering AFIS, National Identity, endpoint, and authentication solutions.
As the Chief Technology Officer at NextgenID, Michael applies his technical and commercial insights to define and execute corporate strategies to capitalize on emerging market trends and incubate game-changing technologies. He is responsible for aligning the strategic technology roadmap and revenue generation while overseeing the design-build operations.
Michael studied Computer Science and Biology at Moravian College and continues with a focused executive education in strategy at the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton School. He holds an MBA from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
For Michael, a successful CTO can be described as a confident and humble mentor and shepherd that listens, assembles, integrates, and shares the distilled knowledge and value introduced by new technologies.
Often being among the youngest of the leadership teams and fully loaded with emerging technologies, the greatest lesson that he learned early was to listen first to what is needed and then to curate those technology assets for purposeful impact.
"I might love AI and Robotics, but does it add value to have an intelligent toaster serve and butter your toasted muffin? Instead, what if we applied technology to automatically match an individual to their ID that saves time and improves data accuracy during an enrollment?," he asserts.
Technologies are tools but listening and learning from people to understand their perspectives and knowing how and where to leverage those tools is what makes a technology leader a successful CTO.
Michael began working with NextgenID amid the pandemic, which was a surreal experience. The entire onboarding process, meeting his team and clients, reviewing the products, all were done remotely.
With the "new normal" and people working from home, creating motivation to get employees out of bed in the morning is a whole new game for business leaders. Building a self-motivated, self-managed team that can work and function securely and autonomously from home is an issue he had to deal with at NextgenID.
The company implemented Microsoft Teams as a tool for collaboration and social interaction. Having daily scrums, using chat and video calls has helped the company overcome the remote work challenge, retain momentum and motivation.
Understanding technology is less than half the job of a technology leader. The equal, if not greater, share of the role is to understand the market and clients so that the company may apply the right technologies to solve the clients' problems.
It is easy to get lost in new technology for the sake of the technology, but what appeals to the clients is applying those technologies to help them solve problems. NextgenID aims to use AI or machine learning, for example, to save time and resources on a specific onboarding process, or to utilize edge computing and IoT to assist with remote monitoring and security.
Michael's influence as a technology leader comes from understanding and sharing the client's pain points. He maintains a regular cadence of discovery calls with partners and customers, to visit with them at their places of work, and to walk through their use cases and daily operations.
Innovation is happening at ever-increasing rates as technology spans the globe and reaches more diverse contributors. Cloud computing, internet connectivity, and mobile technologies among others are enabling collaboration on a massively parallel scale thereby increasing the revolution of new ideas and technologies.
Technology leaders must strive to recognize these monumental shifts in how ideas germinate, and how new technologies are incubated. The ability to masterfully shepherd and leverage the introduction of these efforts is what will separate the great technology leaders of the future.
NextgenID believes that identity is a right and requirement, not a privilege. Individuals have the right to identify as themselves and know the identity of entities with which they interact, whether people, organizations or devices. High assurance identities are rapidly becoming a requirement for daily interactions in our post-COVID, socially networked society.
Already today, many individuals require a trusted identity to access their remote work assets, office buildings, cars, finances, and even their smart homes. With Identity Starts, the company stands at innovating the way identities are created, stored, and consumed.
His team of subject matter experts is actively designing the next generation of identities. They are integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning, cloud, and blockchain into remote proofing of high assurance identities, creating new methods for identity providers to run their programs, proof enrollees, and issue their credentials.
The company is also working actively with the channel partners to create a distributed public identity infrastructure where multiple entities can operate as tenants of this infrastructure to deliver enrollment and proofing services.
Through this distributed network, citizens will benefit from shared identity and credentialing service offerings including national identity programs, driver's licenses, visa and passport programs, notary services, healthcare, corporate, financial, and academic identities, to name a few.
Once enrolled, citizens may be issued a high assurance mobile credential to store securely on their digital wallets for convenient authentication. By blending mobile wireless technologies and high assurance identities, citizens can share identities conveniently and securely.
As the CTO, one of the most valuable attributes, according to Michael, is the ability to separate noise from value regarding new technologies. Each week, he is asked to remark on emerging technologies, buzzwords that are in the news, like crypto, AI, blockchain, quantum computing, LIDAR, augmented reality, Internet of Things (IoT), etc.
Technology can be a tremendous tool when applied judiciously to the overall solution to introduce capabilities of value that make sense to the company and market.
The key for a successful CTO is to distill the understanding of these new technologies to the broader audience and introduce and integrate these capabilities and toolsets into products only when they make a valid and valued contribution.
He states, "One of the things that helped me throughout my career is recognizing, It is ok to be different and to embrace our individuality and uniqueness. You can do this both as an individual and as an organization."
The bold, the unique, the individual is where the magic comes from. To capitalize on this as an organization, the leaders must build a challenging yet rewarding environment based on the company's unique personality.
NextgenID embraces being different, working, and operating in unique ways that honor and reward diversity. The team is enabled to run with their ideas, take ownership, and differentiate between strategic and tactical objectives.
This freedom gives them the ability to self-drive and motivate, and the company has witnessed wild productivity gains. NextgenID started about a year ago, during the height of social distancing, and the inclusion of diversity keeps their spirits alive and reminds the team that everyone adds value and perspective.
