Our core team
and our trusted advisors
Director of Research Institute for Crypto Economics, Vienna University of Economics & Business
It all started during my time with Lufthansa…
“From my naive perspective this was kind of crazy…valuable information existed throughout the company, tons of it. But to actually get access to it was almost impossible. In 2002 I started Jolocom as a project to help people in companies to better communicate and share information…which would lead to a better alignment towards the overlying goals and strengthen the company itself. Presenting this idea to companies quickly gave me harsh feedback.”
Today we are a team of 9, collaborating with 20+ partners, supported by the European Commission, and moving closer to establishing new models of data ownership in the world.
Company timeline
Company founded
Jolocom founded in Berlin based on the original idea from 2002.
Proof of concept
Deployed the first version of the SOLID (GOLD) server for our first identity PoC.
First prototype
Technical framework and interface presented at hackathon during GETD#2 Summit in San Francisco.
Partnership: AGILE, European Commission H2020 Research & Innovation Project
Jolocom becomes a grant recipient and partner company within the AGILE consortium as part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program, the biggest EU Research and Innovation initiative aimed to secure Europe’s global competitiveness. Along with around twenty other teams Jolocom built an IoT gateway that facilitated processes and interactions between autonomous machines in IoT environments.
Specifications for IoT gateway data sharing via Jolocom WebID proxy
Delivered specs for machine identity interactions via a proxy service within particular IoT environments as part of our work with the AGILE consortium project.
First AGILE IoT gateway proof of concept
Co-developed the architecture for identity integration for data sharing on the AGILE IoT gateway in first PoC.
Research partnership with Fraunhofer FOKUS
Conducted research on decentralized identity systems based on a personal server approach on top of blockchains utilizing the WebID of SOLID and the Ethereum public network.
Became a purpose company
Adopted a new legal structure for Jolocom GmbH according to the purpose model of ownership, manifesting our commitment and dedication to build a self-sovereign organization.
Blockchain Bundesverband established
Joachim Lohkamp co-founded the federal German blockchain association. The Blockchain Bundesverband is convinced that blockchain and similar decentralized technologies based on cryptography are the basic infrastructural innovations to make a digital economy on democratic structures in Germany a reality.
Jolocom Identity Gateway presented at Ethereum DevCon3
We presented our collaboration on a backend-agnostic identity gateway that serves as an oracle to use data stored in BigchainDB in an Ethereum smart contract.
Partnership: T-Labs – Telekom Innovation Laboratories (Deutsche Telekom)
Joined the blockchain working group along with BigchainDB, IOTA, and RIDDLE&CODE to build an operating stack service for developers to easily implement decentralized storage, identity management, smart contracts, and payments in their work. The service enables enterprises and developers alike to utilize the features of blockchain technology without having to worry about the underlying complexity.
Major update to system architecture
Drawing on our experience with decentralized identity solutions for both IoT devices and humans in combination with our focus on usability, we overhauled our technical architecture to enable a universal identity layer for all types of identities in one protocol.
Winner: Bosch Connected World 2018 logistics challenge
Presented a prototype operating stack service from the T-Labs blockchain working group at the Bosch Connected World 2018 conference and hackathon where it won the logistics challenge. The service was created to simplify the decision-making process for developers wondering which blockchain technology to use in their projects. The prototype allows for basic storage of data and hashes on a DLT of choice. Subsequent phases of development would include advanced storage options, identity management and modeling of ownership structures, smart contracts, and decentralized payments.
Technical whitepaper released
Reflecting our architecture update from December 2017 and focus on open standards, we published our technical whitepaper describing the blockchain agnostic self-sovereign identity protocol that will replace prevailing centralized identity solutions with a highly modular approach built on open and interoperable standards.
Membership: Decentralized Identity Foundation
As part of our commitment to open standards and collaboration in the identity space, we joined the Decentralized Identity Foundation to coordinate with other companies on topics such as decentralized identifiers, protocols, and standards.
Alpha version of SmartWallet released
Published the first alpha of the Jolocom SmartWallet application for Android devices in the Google Play Store running on the decentralized identity protocol built by Jolocom.
Membership: Open Innovation Platform (BMWi)
The “Open Innovation Plattform” from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy listed Jolocom on their register of projects and visions which innovate for the public sector using blockchain technologies.
First phase of rebranding concluded
With a new visual language, fresh Android app interface, and complete redesign of our website, the overall brand identity was comprehensively refreshed and revitalized to fully reflect changes to our architecture and conceptual framework over the past year.