On 7 July 2026, over 120 digital identity practitioners from around the world joined Biometric Update's webinar, Beyond the Platform: Understanding the Growing MOSIP Ecosystem, for a conversation on the experiences, partnerships, and technologies behind MOSIP implementations globally.
The session built on the findings from Understanding MOSIP: What the Modular Open-Source Identity Platform Is and How It Is Used, Biometric Update's recently published report on MOSIP's evolution, governance model, and growing country footprint.
Featuring experts from across the MOSIP community, the panel included government, biometric technology providers, ecosystem partners, and standards representatives working on MOSIP-based deployments and integrations:
Yodahe Zemichael – Executive Director, NIDP Ethiopia
Sanjith Sundaram – VP and Head of Partner Ecosystem, MOSIP
Ted Dunstone – Chair, MOSIP’s Biometric Working Group and CEO, Biometix
Andrew Wise – Director of Quality and Lead Product Architect, Integrated Biometrics
Jozef Drgona – Solutions Manager, Innovatrics
Chris Burt – Managing Editor, Biometric Update (moderator)
Opening the discussion, Sanjith Sundaram reflected on the challenges countries have historically faced while implementing digital identity systems, and how MOSIP's modular and open architecture emerged as a response to them. He also spoke about the partner ecosystem initiatives developed over the last 8 years to support this vision, helping countries benefit from open standards, reusable components, and a growing community of technology providers and implementation partners.
Drawing on experiences from Ethiopia's National ID Program – one of MOSIP's largest implementations, with over 45 million residents registered to date, Yodahe Zemichael described how the programme is quickly building a national authentication ecosystem connecting public institutions, banks, telecom operators, fintechs, and digital services. More than 150 organisations already use the platform's authentication capabilities, helping enable trusted interactions across institutions, service providers, and residents.
"Digital ID is not just another ID card or identifier. It's where the trust, or the digital trail, starts," he noted, describing how this trust infrastructure is creating pathways to financial inclusion, faster onboarding, easier access to credit, and broader participation in the formal economy. The programme's guiding principle, "Identity is the new collateral", reflects this shift from identity as a document to identity as an enabler of opportunity and economic participation.
Zemichael also spoke about Ethiopia’s investment in building the capabilities needed to sustain and evolve the system over time, including developing in-country engineering capacity to customise, integrate, and extend MOSIP based on national needs. The flexibility of MOSIP's open architecture, he noted, enabled Ethiopia to introduce new services, redesign workflows, integrate with civil registration systems, and tailor the platform to local realities without compromising interoperability or long-term ownership.
Technology partners shared lessons from real-world deployments, from infrastructure constraints and hardware durability to connectivity challenges, noting that national identity systems must perform reliably across both urban centres and remote communities.
The discussion also turned to standards, certification, and compliance in supporting trusted digital identity ecosystems. Ted Dunstone, focusing on the MOSIP Biometric Working Group and the MOSIP Advanced Compliance Programme (MACP), emphasised that "quality extends through the entire lifecycle of a deployment," highlighting the importance of maintaining high-quality biometric capture not only at enrolment, but throughout the operation and evolution of national identity systems.
Jozef Drgona of Innovatrics shared a similar view from their experience going through the compliance process, framing compliance as a starting point rather than an endpoint: "For us, it is not the end of the journey, but we think that it is the beginning of a long-term partnership. We share the common vision of building standardised interfaces that are interoperable and can offer governments the flexibility to choose the technology that best meets their needs."
The webinar closed on a broader reflection on ecosystem sustainability and the conditions needed for long-term success. As Sanjith Sundaram observed, "sustainability of the ecosystem is about success stories by all parties." Delivering lasting impact, he noted, depends not only on countries achieving their objectives, but also on creating opportunities for implementation partners, technology providers, and local ecosystems to grow alongside national programmes.
Many of the participants who joined were already part of the broader MOSIP ecosystem – a reflection of just how many practitioners, in different roles and different corners of the world, are now working with us. Conversations like this one, made possible through Biometric Update's webinar, are a valuable reminder of how much this community learns from sharing its experience openly. It is this kind of exchange that strengthens the work already underway, and lays the groundwork for what the ecosystem will go on to build together.
