New York, NY, February 14, 2001–The Smart Card Alliance, the largest smart card oriented, non-profit entity in the world, announced today it will hold its first industry conference for 2001, “Smart Cards and Consumers Security and Convenience” with pre-conference events beginning February 26th, 2001 and the actual conference taking place on February 28–March 1, 2001 in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Sheraton City Centre.

The event will start off with the Educational Institute, a comprehensive smart card education program presented by top industry executives, beginning Monday 26th. A Pre-conference tutorial on Tuesday focuses on the subject of Personalization and Card Issuance and features speakers from Gemplus, Schlumberger, and Datacard. For those participants interested in learning more about Public Key Infrastructure technology, the highly regarded PKI 101 Tutorial will be offered again on Tuesday as well.

The featured conference agenda will begin on Wednesday, February 28th and end on Thursday, March 1st. The feature keynote for the Conference will be Austin Hill, President of Zero Knowledge Systems. In addition, industry leaders and representatives of government, financial, and consumer organizations that are issuing millions of smart cards in North America will share successful experiences of smart card applications as well as some disappointments from their respective industries, which have used smart card technology. The conference always draws attendees from a range of sectors, including financial institutions, issuers, consumers, technology, card manufacturers, government agencies and universities, offering opportunities to network with the drivers of the smart card industry.

At this meeting, the newly organized Alliance board, consisting of the combined leadership of the former Smart Card Industry Association and Smart Card Forum boards will present the new vision and mission of the Smart Card Alliance. It will also introduce some of the member-driven committees such as the Alliance’s Smart Card Network Security Initiative, Market Survey Committee, Marketing Committee, Stable Points Initiative, and Educational Institute Committee that will help shape the industry in the future. Those committees will be recruiting participants and may hold some individual sessions during the conference to discuss their goals.

“The Alliance represents the go-to place for producers and users of the technology alike,” said Allen Gilstrap, Vice President, Global Network Services for American Express and Chairman of the Smart Card Alliance. “The renewed emphasis on working committees and the continued support from our diverse membership will allow us to expand our outreach and education efforts.”

The entire industry as well as anyone interested is invited to celebrate this first Alliance meeting. To register, please call The Alliance office at (212) 837-7713 or visit the Alliance website at https://www.securetechalliance.org.

About the Smart Card Alliance

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for-profit, multi-industry association of over 175 members working to accelerate the widespread acceptance of multiple application smart card technology by bringing together, in an open forum, leading users and technologists from both the public and private sectors. The Smart Card Alliance is the leading organization for education and awareness of topical issues associated with the use and adoption of smart card systems. For more information about The Smart Card Alliance, log on to the organization’s Web site at https://www.securetechalliance.org.