What the world needs now Our economic and social progress is being held back by the limitations of today’s digital wallets, especially the lack of interoperability. Meanwhile, many countries and groups are rushing ahead to create their own bespoke digital wallets. That’s why we need an open, secure digital wallet engine that anyone can use on any device, with any operating system, for any app or service, with any currency, in any language, anytime, anywhere. And we need it now. People from all over the world who share the same vision of a truly portable, secure, privacy-preserving, standards-based, multi- function digital wallet must design this wallet engine. Hundreds of people who share this vision have come together to start the OWF, a project of the Linux Foundation. The OWF’s mission is to create an open source wallet engine—a set of foundational software components that any developer can use to create a wallet without the cost and risk of reinventing the wheel. The OWF will also research, develop, and promote best practices for building digital wallets. There’s a precedent in the standards developed by the W3C that helped the web to grow and flourish. But we need your help to turn this dream into reality. “If you’re interested in payments, in digital ID, and you hope for a future where a lot of wallets blossom, we want to hear from you,” says Daniel Goldscheider, convenor of the OWF Roundtable in Dublin that attracted interest from more than 350 entities.22 You can be part of this historic movement: go to https://openwallet. foundation/ and sign up. WHY THE WORLD NEEDS AN OPEN SOURCE DIGITAL WALLET RIGHT NOW 11