It’s been a year since President Obama unveiled his far-reaching initiative to implement a single identity ecosystem to replace the current user name and password paradigm that consumers rely on to log-in online.

When it was unveiled last April, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace –or NSTIC for short—envisioned a single identity ecosystem that allowed people to choose among multiple identity providers—both private and public—that would issue trusted credentials that prove identity. This new identity model would finally do away with the unmanageable number of passwords people must remember to access their online accounts.

Twelve months later, NSTIC has taken the next step to bringing that vision to reality.

NSTIC announced that, after culling through some 187 proposals for developing a new identity ecosystem, it had winnowed the field to a little more than two dozen promising entries. One of those came from an organization that Wave has been a proud and active member of—the Transglobal Secure Collaboration Program (TSCP). TSCP counts as its members the “who’s who” of the Aerospace and Defense industry, the likes of Boeing and General Dynamics to name a few. The group has been working on securing all aspects of information-sharing—from identity management, secure email, information sharing, to document sharing with identity federation.

TSCP’s proposal builds on the work of a number of industry standards groups (including the Open Identity Exchange, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Trusted Computing Group) to produce a reusable non-PKI standard suitable for release to the public domain. The model will show how millions of strong credentials that have been issued by federal and state governments, and those in the private sector, can be put to greater use to access sensitive applications at relying parties. Relying parties can securely leverage these assets for use within existing applications for commercial viability.

We’re happy to see TSCP’s bid make it to the next round, and celebrate the central role open industry standards can play in addressing this universal problem. See yesterday’s formal announcement from the TSCP here.