SocialPhysics.org

Led by Berkman fellow John Clippinger, the Social Physics project examines the relationship between our identity and the emerging digital ecosystem. With the funding and technical support of IBM, Social Physics undertook the development of the Higgins Trust Framework, open source identity management software, and a white paper. Higgins debuted during the Berkman Center's Identity Mashup Conference, and received acclaim from media and Internet companies. Numerous technology companies have already begun incorporating Higgins: IBM and Microsoft demonstrated interoperability among their identity systems using Higgins; Best Buy demonstrated interoperability with a new "i-card" prototype using Higgins with My Virtual Model; Boston Mainstreets has made use of the i-card and physical affinity card as part of its program; Interra will use Higgins to make purchases and assign donations to nonprofits; Novell announced the release of its product Bandit within Higgins; and the OSIS announced the development of an open source identity selector within Higgins. Social Physics also offered the Gruter-Berkman Series, a discussion series examining the future of Digital Institutions, including two interdisciplinary workshops bringing together leading technologists, economists, neuroscientists and legal scholars. The Identity Mashup Conference website is available here: http://www.identitymash-up.org/.