US Homeland Security Awards $749K to Startup
Blockchain startup Evernym has received a $749,000 Small Business Innovation Reasearch (SBIR) grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The SBIR program is a competitive contract awards program designed to increase the participation of innovative and creative US small businesses in federal research and development initiatives and to increase private sector commercialization of SBIR-funded solutions.
Evernym will design and build a cryptographic key management system to help bolster online authentication and verification functions through the applicability of blockchain technology to the Privacy Respecting Identity Management project, according to DHS. The research project is being managed by the S&T Cyber Security Division’s (CSD) Identity Management project.
“A better, more secure method is needed to safeguard the identity and privacy of web-users,” said Acting DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology William N. Bryan. “Research in blockchain holds significant potential to provide a solution that will make it considerably more difficult to hack an online user’s identity.”
“Managing public and private cryptographic keys in existing public key infrastructure, as well as permissioned and permission-less blockchains, continues to be a difficult challenge,” said S&T Identity Management Program Manager Anil John. “Through this project, Evernym will push the limits of the emerging decentralized key management system technology to deliver a high level of comfort to the public and American businesses as they integrate blockchain technologies into their technology portfolio.”
