Solid World: September 2025

How to join the event

• This event is hosted on Zoom, and you can access it here

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83101368672?pwd=ub0XGAinjpP6Y0mV19symNeucl1gaa.1

Passcode:170265

• Make sure you can access Zoom on the device you'll use to watch the webinar.
• If you would like to be sent reminders, or join the Solid mailing list please book a ticket below.

We’re excited to be back with Solid World! New to the ODI or Solid? Visit here to learn more.

Agenda

• Update on the ODI stewardship of Solid
• Highlights of progress made in the Solid Community
• Highlights of work in the Solid Practitioners group - including the Solid Catalog
• Updates on progress in the Linked Web Storage Working Group
• Presentation - Ben Peachey
• Presentation - Wilfred Pinfold

About the presentations

Wilfred Pinfold, President of OpenCommons

At Solid World, we will demonstrate PASS, an open-source digital wallet built on Solid Pods that empowers people experiencing homelessness to securely store and share vital records. PASS is designed to integrate directly into existing service workflows, such as Clarity HMIS, streamlining case management while giving clients control over their data. Our demonstration will show how individuals manage documents in PASS and selectively grant access through APIs, reducing administrative overhead and improving trust. This approach highlights PASS as a practical example of Solid’s potential to deliver real-world, human-centered digital public infrastructure.

Speakers

Presentation: Wilfred Pinfold is the President of OpenCommons, a non-profit company that provides open source digital public infrastructure. In partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology OpenCommons launched and manages data for the Global Community Technology Consortium. Before leading OpenCommons he had a 23 year career at Intel where he led research and development programs in Extreme Scale Computing, Internet of Things and Smart Cities. He is a Research Professor in Computer Science at Portland state University, teaches an MBA class in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and has more than 30 years of experience in computational and data science. Dr Pinfold is the UK Honorary Consul for Oregon, a member of the City of Portland Technology Oversight committee, and holds multiple board positions. He received his Ph.D. in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and attended the Stanford Executive Program.

Solid Practitioners Group update: Jeff Zucker has been a close to full time volunteer with Solid since fall of 2018; has created a dozen Solid apps and libraries; served as co-author of the WebID Profile specification, moderator of the Solid Forum, moderator and admin of the Solid chat rooms, and founder and current co-chair of the Solid Practitioners Group. He previously served on the Solid Team as a Creator and as a co-chair of the DEI task group. Jeff's training is as a cultural anthropologist and prior to Solid he worked for many years as a consultant on combined IT/social issue projects with UNICEF, UNESCO, four other U.N. agencies and close to 40 NGOs involved in human rights and environmental protection work. He was an early adopter of the first web and created ten of the first few thousand websites.

Community Group update: elf Pavlik is co-chair of W3C Solid Community Group, CG representative to Solid-ODI AC, co-editor, and co-author of various CG reports, and maintainer of https://sai.js.org. Before focusing on Solid, he participated in various other W3C Community Groups, including RDF/JS and Hydra API. Between 2014 and 2015 he participated as an invited expert in W3C Social Web Working Group. Pavlik focuses on application interoperability, authorization, notifications, and develops sample implementations in typescript. For TPAC 2024 he prepared a three-part video mini-series explaining selected aspects of Solid, it is available at the official event website.

ODI stewardship update: Louise Burke is the ODI’s Chief Executive Officer and leads the team to deliver on the organisation’s mission and vision. Having joined the ODI in 2012 Louise previously held roles as chief finance officer and chief operating officer. She has expertise in data governance, data literacy, data institutions, data assurance and innovation, as well as a professional background in accountancy and finance. She was named one of the 100 Top Influencers across the UK’s open technology communities in 2021.

With a career that has involved building many businesses from the ground-up, and expertise in fundraising, mergers and acquisitions, and scaling, Louise has commercial acumen along with a commitment to deliver on the ODI’s vision.

As an accountancy professional, she has lectured in the UK and overseas for the ACCA and CIMA and has authored academic books, study systems and business articles.

Chair: Jesse Wright is a passionate advocate for a Web that empowers individuals by giving them control over their own data. With a commitment to open-source and community-driven technology, Jesse has contributed significantly to the development and deployment of Solid.Jesse’s work on Solid spans several years, encompassing both volunteer and professional contributions to the project. He has developed and maintained a variety of libraries essential to the Semantic Web and Solid ecosystems, including eye-js, shaclcjs, N3.js, LDflex, and Comunica. Professionally, Jesse’s industry experience includes deploying Solid Pods for Indigenous health use cases at the Software Innovation Institute, as well as building foundational Solid infrastructure at Inrupt.As an academic, Jesse is a DPhil researcher at the University of Oxford’s EWADA group, led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt. His research revolves around designing architectures that enable decentralized agents to autonomously negotiate and make decisions, thereby establishing a logical framework for Solid. Through his academic work, Jesse has contributed to numerous W3C standards.

Definitions

Solid Practitioners Group (PG)

The Solid Practitioners Group (PG) was launched in 2023 as a hub for those putting the Solid vision into practice as consists of people actively working on projects aimed at specific real-world products using Solid. You can join the practitioners group here.

Solid Community Group (CG)

The Solid Community Group (CG) was launched in 2018 to incubate the Solid Specifications. With the Linked Web Storage Working Group (LWS) now taking on the responsibility of maturing the server specifications - the CG is working on topics around application interoperability. You can join the community group here.

Linked Web Storage Group (LWS)

The Linked Web Storage Working Group (LWS WG) was launched in 2024 to enable the development of web applications where data storage, entity authentication, access control, and application provider are all loosely coupled. This group will output official W3C Recommendations - with the same level of authority as specifications such as HTML, CSS and Verifiable Credentials.