Okta held their annual users’ conference Oktane21 from April 6-8, 2021, and like 2020, it was held virtually, complete with exhibition halls, booths, and keynotes. BeyondID was a sponsor of Oktane21, hosted a booth at the event, and held an informative panel discussion with customers ATN International, Inception Health, and Johnson Financial Group.
This year’s event highlighted the fact that the past year accelerated the adoption and elevated the importance of digital interactions, whether with the workforce or with customer experiences, and it will be a trend that continues even as more in-person experiences re-emerge.
As a result, providing secure, seamless digital experiences for customers and employees is a paramount concern for many companies, especially as the landscape shifts to support a digital-first mindset. In approaching these identity challenges, it’s also crucial that developers are empowered to build what customers need more easily, while IT teams can ensure compliance and security. This is all part of what companies need to address as they move into the future.
We wanted to touch on event highlights, talk about Okta’s announcements and roadmap, and conclude by sharing where BeyondID fits into delivering what companies need to thrive in a digital-first world.
Oktane Highlights
BeyondID was pleased to sponsor Oktane for the third year in a row and welcomed hundreds of visitors to our booth. 
This year’s event delivered a variety of insightful sessions, interviews, and demos around identity management and much more, including new products, future trends, and Okta’s acquisition of Auth0.
The conference started with a bang. The opening keynote was an often emotional 45-minute documentary that reviewed the human stories of Okta through a tumultuous 2020, from the impact of the pandemic to social justice. The film underscored that big changes can occur at any moment, and business needs to be flexible enough to adapt to that change. That includes serving customers and keeping employees productive, wherever they are in the world. The film also delivered an important message on embracing diversity and encourage inclusion. Okta led a separate session to discuss their commitment to that approach.
Okta
Okta CEO Todd McKinnon’s keynote featured a conversation with Auth0 CEO Eugenio Pace. They talked about how Auth0 integration with Okta empowers greater customer experiences and how Auth0’s commitment to developers enhances Okta’s offerings. Okta Identity Engine provides out-of-the-box APIs and SDKs to better support developers as they make meaningful customer experiences. This makes it easier to integrate Okta products into the app stack, integrate CIAM workflows and push data to downstream systems like Hubspot. Okta also announced they would be extending their platform to include PAM (Privileged Access Management) and IGA (Identity Governance & Administration).
“Identity is horizontal and applies to every company, industry, and geography.” – Diya Jolly, Chief Product Officer, Okta
The future of digital identity is a unified platform, and that platform is Okta. It is cloud-deployed, Just-in-Time, for cloud and on-prem resources, and offers security and compliance. With this ubiquity of identity, Okta also announced the Identity Wallet. Since digital identity is foundational for every aspect of work and life, Okta’s Identity Wallet will be the one place to keep all payment, identification, and other records together.
BeyondID
BeyondID’s breakout session focused on digital transformation and identity with customers ATN International, Inception Health, and Johnson Financial Group. Each company had a unique story, but in keeping with the digital experience theme, Dr. Melek Somai from Inception Health shared his organization’s journey to create a new mobile-first app to allow patients to connect with telehealth services. This is important since Dr. Somai envisions telehealth demand remaining higher than pre-pandemic levels for the foreseeable future. 
Other Highlights
Celebrity speakers included comedian and actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Olympic gold-medalist Simone Biles, and talk show host Trevor Noah. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best known for the legendary sitcom Seinfeld, talked about how working effectively with others is important to success.
Gymnast Simone Biles described her path to developing the discipline that helped her to achieve athletic greatness. Host of “The Daily Show” Trevor Noah discussed identity and how growing up in Africa affected his conception of that concept. And former astronaut and pilot Ellen Ochoa talked about the real meaning of inclusion, which is respect and equal treatment.
Our Takeaways
The key takeaway is that identity is more important than ever and will continue to be a top priority for organizations globally. The last year proved that a remote workforce can be productive, is more convenient and some form of it will be here to stay. While it will never replace face-to-face interactions, the landscape has shifted to one where digital life is accepted as a key part of work life. Even as companies plan for their workforce to return to offices, all indications are that the shift has become permanent.
Identity is an area that almost every business and organization must address, or be left vulnerable. Customer identity, in particular, has massive potential to drive 
revenue while building the best experiences possible. By partnering with Auth0, Okta has shown its commitment to strengthening its customer identity approach and ensuring developers can effectively integrate Okta into their application stack. With Identity Governance and PAM, Okta can help organizations focus on security and compliance. These two mandates are key for every organization that exists in the digital space. Businesses must be able to manage and audit privacy and avoid costly data breaches.
BeyondID is closely tied to the Okta vision and future plan. We have enjoyed a close partnership and we will continue to strengthen our partnership. BeyondID achieved and maintained its status as Okta Platinum Services Partner and we currently have the highest number of certified Okta professionals of any service provider. In addition to that, our team has the experience of working with many hundreds of Okta customers. We too see the future of identity exploding. It is mission-critical that organizations be able to deliver their services online securely. But it is also critical that companies get help to know where they are and how to create a roadmap to get to where they want to be. With an experienced business partner, it has been proven time and again that companies such as yours can also accelerate your business transformation by acquiring, deploying and managing Okta, your Identity Cloud.
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