i-Sprint Innovations (i-Sprint) was founded by Mr. Albert Ching and Mr. Dutch Ng in 2000, Singapore. Back then, Albert and Dutch were working for a global bank, Citibank N.A. Through their years of security management experience, they had foreseen the upcoming trend for companies needing Identity and Access Management solutions (IAM). With this vision of creating IAM Solution that enables individuals, organizations and societies to build trust and identity assurance for powering huge productivity gain, they had moved on to take up the challenge of setting up i-Sprint to start their entrepreneurship journey. Currently, Albert is the Vice-Chairman and the Chief Technology Officer, and Dutch is Chief Executive Officer in i-Sprint.
One of i-Sprint’s core values is its Customer-Centric philosophy. Currently, i-Sprint is serving over 250 organizations worldwide, of which over 100 of them are from the banking and financial institution industry (FSI). With the strong experience in the FSI sector that demands the highest security protection and compliance requirements than any other industries, i-Sprint’s products have been battle-tested to meet those stringent requirements. They have earned high praises from its customers for its security design and innovative product features.
Extensive Cyber Security Solutions
i-Sprint’s Digital Identity Solutions help organizations to govern the verification of their users’ identity and access protection. Leveraging the solution suite, enterprises can implement strong authentication, single sign-on, access control, identity management and end-to-end encryption solutions to safeguard asset, data, and transaction.
i-Sprint’s Digital Identity Solutions have embedded many of its patented technologies:
A Hierarchy Model: This hierarchy model, when implemented, can allow security administrators to centrally manage user and application security-related attributes (authentication methods, access rights, privileges, access control rules) and other application attributes.
One-Time Password Generation and Verification: The invention discloses a one-time password generation method and device, an authentication method, and an authentication system.
Out-of-Band Dual Channel Authentication: This invention relates to the technical field of network-centric application security, more particularly to use dual communication channel to authorize an authentication or authorization request using two separate data communication channels.
End to End Data Protection: This invention is to provide the end to end data security protection to address the security deficiency of traditional SSL connections and avoid the potential reply attacks for web services.
Offering Solutions as per Business Requirements
i-Sprint’s key industry focus has been in the FSI industry, which demands the highest security standard solutions for deployment to meet the compliance requirements and deliver security protection for their business requirements. i-Sprint has been delivering bank-grade security solutions which are designed to exceed global financial services regulatory requirements and standards. i-Sprint’s Digital Identity Solutions have been proven to meet the Compliance Guidelines, and Security Standards mandated the regulatory agencies such as Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Technology Risk Management Guideline(TRM), Hong Kong Monetary Authority Internet Banking Guidelines, China Banking Regulatory Commission Guidelines, Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). Other standards include SOX, HIPAA, ISO/IEC20000, ISO/IEC27001, ISO27036 and CoBit4.0.
In recent years with the widespread of cybersecurity threats, i-Sprint has expanded its customer base focus to serve enterprises in other industry sectors across the Asia Pacific region with their proven digital identity solutions to help organizations to tackle the threats.
AI in Security Solutions
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming many existing technologies and processes, which includes Digital Identity Solutions. AI can look at circumstances surrounding access requests, such as time, device type, location and resources being requested. This aid in monitoring any subtle user change in activities and provide necessary actions to automate identity assurance, authentication and authorization based on various risk level situations. For i-Sprint’s product area, AI plays a major role in their adaptive contextual authentication, which dynamic authentication enforcement is already available in their digital identity products.
A Renowned Trailblazer
Dutch, the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of i-Sprint, has been working for the company since 2000. Dutch is instrumental in providing strategic leadership in business development strategy and product directions. He plays a key role in managing the financial and business performance of the company.
Dutch has been in the IT industry for over 25 years. He has held senior management and executive-level positions for high tech companies and took on various challenging and operational roles with regional responsibilities. His vast operational experience has helped him to develop a wealth of practical and hands-on experiences in managing the critical operations from professional services organization, administration, and finance to customer care operations. He has worked in many countries such as the United States, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand and is fluent in speaking many languages.
Before co-founding i-Sprint, Dutch spent four years in Citibank Regional Asia Pacific Technology Group, and he was responsible for implementing and deploying of technology solutions for the bank offices across 14 countries in the Asia Pacific region.
Other than managing the global operation of i-Sprint, Dutch is also contributing his time and experience to support industry activities. Currently, Dutch is the Chairman of Cybersecurity Chapter at SGTech, a Singapore premier IT federation representing the industry interests to work with the relevant government agencies, and a member of Technical Work Group for Cybersecurity at WorldSkills Singapore to bring Singapore IT industry to the global scene.
Three Tone Approach
Due to Covid-19 pandemic, many business activities are affected. i-Sprint has adopted a digital approach by using solutions such as virtual meeting, webinar, digital marketing to engage and reach out to their customers. i-Sprint leverages a three Tone Approach to handle its customer relationship:
Web Tone: This is their online content, which provides a one-way communication of their product and company information to their customers.
Dial Tone: This is inbound and outbound communication with their customers. Customers may phone in or send email to i-Sprint to request information and i-Sprint will respond within one working day.
Face Tone: Once the needs have been qualified, their sales organization will arrange for face to face discussion if possible or using online meeting to engage with their clients.
i-Sprint has continued to enhance their Digital Identity Solutions to meet the latest market demands and their customers’ requirements to have a competitive edge over their competitions:
A Comprehensive Process of Analysis and Research
Besides working with research firms such as Gartner, Fortune Business Insights, Aqniu, RoarTalk to participate in their research reports, i-Sprint also monitors the news/ popular tech portals for latest technology trends, and news related to the target industries to develop new product features/ update product technologies to serve the markets better.
Its research program and methodology are based on information gather and analysis from multiple sources:
- Industry and Technology Trends
- Government and Financial Regulatory guidelines
- Operational needs of their Focused Market Segments: FSI/ Government/ Regulated Industries
- Feedback from the Industry and Thought Leaders
- Continuous Evolution and Co-creation through Client Common Reporting Standard and Enhancement Requests
- Working with System Integrators and other partners in other markets like Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, etc. have also provided i-Sprint with some insights into the importance of PRODUCTIVITY over SECURITY.
E.g. Japanese culture places considerable emphasis on PRODUCTIVITY and QUALITY. In this aspect, “security” is already assumed to be of the best that the world has to offer.
Mapping the Future
i-Sprint’s vision is to be the world-class Solution Provider in IAM Solution that enables individuals, organizations and societies to build trust and identity assurance for powering huge productivity gain through digital identity and identity of things – “The Force of IdentityPlus” – to accelerate and extend the Circle of Trust.
Over the years, i-Sprint has developed a range of products under Digital Identity Solution – AccessMatrix suite to provide on-premises and cloud deployment and the product coverage has also been extended to protect the mobile platform via their YESsafe Mobile Security Suite. i-Sprint’s Digital Identity Solutions have been deployed to help their clients to implement a seamless Omni-channel platform to engage their customers. The solutions have helped leading global and regional FSI, government agencies, telco providers, public utilities, manufacturers, healthcare providers, multi-national corporations, and others to address their cybersecurity requirements.
Its knowledge and know-how in digital identity have enabled i-Sprint to excel its solutions in the Identity of Thing (IDoT) and innovate a new generation of Brand Protection Cloud Service Platform, AccessReal, for anti-counterfeiting, track and trace and consumer marketing. The solution is integrated with Blockchain technology to provide the provenance information of the product and issue official product certificates. With its unchangeable nature, blockchain reduces the chances of unintentional mistakes and tampering, and its traceability and transparency also improved the process of a product recall. For the past two years, its solution has been able to win clients in publication, food and beverage, health products, automotive, pharmaceutical, and more.
i-Sprint is diversifying its industries coverage to have more companies benefiting from their bank-grade solutions. Asia is still the fast-growing region in the world, and the company will continue to expand its coverage to in the region, especially China, which has been the fastest-growing country for i-Sprint in recent years.
