Veteran technology and product development leader will help shape technology initiatives for HAND, which enables efficient talent discoverability, royalty collection and revenue tracking through use of unique persistent ID for both real and virtual worlds
New York, NY, September 12, 2023 – HAND (Human & Digital), the first global Talent ID registry for efficient discoverability, royalty collection and revenue tracking of Performing Arts and Sports, has named John Callahan as its first Chief Technology Officer.
Callahan joins HAND with more than 25 years of technology leadership and product development experience. He has served as Chief Technology Officer and senior product engineering leader in organizations including Intelivideo (acquired by Wexer in March 2023), MediaShift, Accenture, Rogers Communications, Active Video and Charter/Time Warner.
In addition to his corporate career, for the last 10 years he has actively engaged in the start-up community, working with early and mid-stage B2B and B2C company teams focused on SaaS technology strategy and product delivery.
He is the recipient of four Technical EmmysⓇ and is named on more than 20 patents in video streaming and software technology domains.
HAND (Human and Digital) is a B2B Talent ID registry that assigns a standard, unique, persistent and verifiable ID to talent. It enables cost savings and revenue acceleration by automating the process of talent utilization identification – including name, image and likeness – in both real world and virtual productions. The HAND ID can be used to identify legal-entity Humans, licensed Virtual Humans and Fictional Characters in Performing Arts and Sports.
HAND, founded by Will Kreth, CEO and former Executive Director of the 2023 Technical EmmyⓇ winning EIDR – the Entertainment ID Registry (a universal identifier system for movie and television assets), offers automation and interoperable ID resolution for workflows – driving down costs and accelerating time-to-value for both production and distribution of content. The HAND ID is a SaaS-based, B2B focused Talent ID standard, and like EIDR – it is built on the ISO-level Digital Object Identifier (DOI) handle system. It is the first new DOI member since DOI was founded in 1998 to be allowed to create persistent DOI IDs for Humans, Virtual Humans and Fictional Characters.
“John’s combination of technology expertise and executive leadership skills will help lead the evolution of HAND (Human & Digital) to success at scale,” says Kreth. “His passion for digital media product development is equaled only by his interests in fitness, endurance cycling, music, and time with family and friends.”
“I’m thrilled to join Will and the savvy HAND team at this early stage of their remarkable journey,” said Callahan. “We’d worked together in the past on the data side of interactive and on-demand video, so I was delighted to reconnect with Will and to find out that we’d both arrived at a similar place – building software-defined architectures and workflows, powered by smart metadata, for advanced analytics and business intelligence. The work HAND is doing in developing an interoperable, global, 1st class Talent ID is essential for the future of both entertainment media & sports value-chains, and I’m glad to be on-board and rolling.”
Based on a SaaS subscription model, HAND is a B2B Talent ID Registry focusing on Talent (not User) Identity. HAND offers both paid API-level access to subscribers and a manual Web UI that is free to search for a limited number of HAND Talent IDs per day. The HAND ID was designed for use by entertainment producers and distributors; PROs, Talent Guilds and Sports Leagues and Federations; Talent Agencies; Talent Payment processors and digital platforms.
The HAND ID is currently available in a limited, invitation-only Beta. For more information, visit www.handidentity.com.
About HAND
Founded in January 2022, NYC-based HAND (Human & Digital) is the first human Talent ID Registry under the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Foundation (an ISO standard). Using the power of Citation-Backed Notability™ – HAND provides provenance automation value to global supply-chains via the instantiation of persistent, unique, resolvable IDs for legal-entity Humans, licensed Virtual Humans and Fictional Characters in Performing Arts and Sports.
Contact: Bill Daddi
DBC Brand Communications
+1-917-620-3717
