The organization of the KERI Conference 2026 is primarily a joint initiative of volunteers at the KERI Foundation, supported by contracted staff working remotely from Europe during preparation and providing on-site support during the conference.
Thank you all for the hard work involved!
Sam Smith
Sam Smith, the inventor of KERI.
Samuel received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Brigham Young University in 1991. He spent 10 years at Florida Atlantic University, reaching full professor status before retiring to become an entrepreneur.
He has over 100 refereed publications in the areas of machine learning, autonomous vehicle systems, automated reasoning, and decentralized systems. He was principal investigator on numerous federally funded research projects.
Dr. Smith is a serial entrepreneur and an active participant in open standards development and governance.
Henk van Cann
Chairman of the KERI Foundation. Other activities: KERI Suite Documentation and Education, Spec-Up-T at TrustoverIP
Henk bundles operations under LFDT-TrustoverIP, WebofTrust, and Blockchainbird.
➡ Provides free open source toolkits
➡ Organises Meetups to spread the word of decentralised assets and identifier innovation.
Kim van Cann
Preparatory Operations
Kim van Cann has been contracted part-time by the KERI Foundation L3C until April 15 2026.
Kor Dwarshuis
Website Development and Maintenance
Kor Dwarshuis has been contracted part-time by the KERI Foundation L3C until May 2026, for one month at the conference.
Kor Dwarshuis, a sole proprietor operating under www.dwarshuis.com
Kor is responsible for website creation, maintenance, and related technical services.
Joseph Hunsaker
Volunteer KERICONF26
Caleb Smith
KERI Foundation
Videographer, photographer
Ryan Hansen
KERI Foundation
Jay-Alexander Elliot
KERI Foundation