Apply for the 2026 Vittorio Bertocci Award!

By Chris Phillips
Vittorio Bertocci Award Recipient, 2025

Image: Unconference agenda setting at the Internet Identity Workshop, Oct 2025

As one of two awardees in 2025 it’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year and can definitely say you should invest in yourself and apply!

The Vittorio Bertocci award allowed me latitude to lean in and engage in the community at a time when it was too easy to pull back. The award offered me an opportunity to continue to contribute to the IAM community at large. I would not have been as active without it. The award enabled deeper connection with OpenID Foundation AI Identity Management (AIIM) community group where I was fortunate to collaborate with a great group of people and co-author a position piece on the intersection of AI and Agentic identity. In addition, the award afforded me in person connections and assisted toward my contributions to the finalizing the OpenID Federation specification. The award allowed me to attend events I once thought out of reach.

Even though I was active for decades in Identity and Access Management (IAM), circumstances changed over a year before the award. I had limited choice as to where I could invest my attention at a time when the options were increasingly numerous. IAM has never been more active than it is right now and that paradox of choice is everywhere. To sidestep the problem, work on understanding what outcomes you are looking for. For me, this took the form of applying for the Vittorio Bertocci award with a goal to help maintain connection with the community and continue to contribute broadly. My award submission was a great forcing function for an internal conversation on ‘what is possible with this?’ and helped sharpen my art of the possible approach.

Long time connected to IAM I knew it was highly collaborative and had many places to connect. It was getting around to the places that was the challenge. It is like planning a journey between cities – if planned with intention and forethought you can build and expand from that new place. The same is true if intention is low; you may not get to the destination you want or be forced to handle circumstances during the trip. There’s no wrong answer here as you hold the pen on ‘ok’ and ‘better’ as you write your journey. The key is to get started and try to taste different things as you never know without trying. We’ve all been there and know it’s hard to go from ‘hey, what is this protocol and how do I use it?’ to ‘How can I contribute input or this thing?!’ or ‘Darn it, I want to work on fixing that, where does that happen?!’. The answers to all these are both ‘it depends’ and ‘keep showing up’ to find out. It’s where to show up that’s sometimes challenging. I had the privilege to be connected to many places over the years but for others starting out I’ll call out some places to find the places so you can see what works for you.

Image: Self portrait to capture the sense of all the ideas and topics that will be talked about in a day.

First, consider exploring some of the resources from IDPro.org and the fantastic list of IAM events that’s kept current (thank you Heather Flanagan!). Being able to attend and connect is positive and found navigating the events invaluable to plotting a pathway on what’s next.

Image: Two meetings, one wall in the middle as IIW held 8 sessions simultaneously each hour.

My fall 2025 set of conferences had a trifecta of being able to attend the Internet Identity Workshop, a colocated OpenID workshop, and the first Agentics Identity Workshop all in one week in Mountainview, CA.

Image: Kaliya’s quiet focus while capturing the events of the first Agentic Internet Workshop

These are often colocated by design and I recommend them as well. I also squeezed in a remote participation in IETF in Montreal. IETF gets top marks for remote participation tech but you will miss the in-between conversations which are more valuable than the sessions at times . This is why when forced to choose one, IIW made it to the top of my list. IDPro.org is also a great resource; they attend identity conferences and have member events that may be in your area and another great way to show up with little to no travel. Newer IDPro.org members often say they’ve felt alone at their workplace doing IAM and didn’t realize IDPro is an IAM community hiding in plain sight offering access to other IAM professionals and a view of the IAM landscape and community. I hope these starting points help on your journey and you consider applying.

The hockey saying of “you miss all the shots you don’t take” rings true when working towards a goal. I hope you choose to take your shot and look forward to reading about you as the next recipient!