What I have.
What's left.
UK Global Talent (Digital Technology) endorsement, Exceptional Talent route. The official asks, each marked banked, draft or missing; the internal working map sits underneath.
The 11 asks.
Everything required for the endorsement, from GOV.UK and Tech Nation guidance, checked 12 Sep 2026.
CV - typed, max 3 A4 sides
Career history plus any publication history. Draft v1 delivered 12 Sep; six [CONFIRM] items - including the Salford MSc dates - block typesetting the final three pages.
Recommendation letter 1 - Shashwat Mittal
Signed two-page Ripple-branded letter, 9 Sep 2026. Established expert with 12+ months' detailed knowledge of the work.
Recommendation letter 2 - Suzanne Warren
Strong draft archived, unsigned. Open: ask her directly about naming State Street, then the signed final letter with her credentials attached.
Recommendation letter 3 - Sabrine Habassi
Marked up 12 Sep. Missing the 12-month familiarity statement - an ineligibility risk whatever else it says. Also needs Promise wording, concrete dated examples and a UK-benefit close.
Founder business-connection proof
Required from any founder or senior executive of a tech business in the last 5 years. Banked: Settley LLC incorporation (Delaware, 28 Apr 2025), a signed ZILO outside-business-interests letter (10 Sep 2026) naming SettleySend, the Switch Labs SLA - client Settley LLC, reg. 10176179, Temisan named Cofounder, signed/dated client-side 26 Aug 2026 (Switch countersignature blank) - plus paid provider records: Turnkey wallet infrastructure (3 Sep 2026), Alchemy API (11.5M compute units, 1 Sep 2026) and Google Workspace on settley.co (31 Aug 2026). Still missing gov.uk's listed proof types: audited accounts, 12+ months of accounts, or sales/customer evidence. Ownership percentage unevidenced - Initial Resolutions name four Members, no stated split.
Recognition evidence - min 2 documents (mandatory criterion)
Recognised by others as a (potential) leader in the last 5 years. Proof banked: Ripple-ZILO announcement, Arbitrum Founder House originals plus organiser-published selectivity (490+ registrations, 140 selected), four 2022 Nairametrics press articles. Not yet packaged as final 3-page documents; the 12 Sep five-year audit found no talks or awards - do not claim any.
Innovation evidence - 2 documents (optional criterion 1)
SettleySend claim/payout product and Settley conditional-liquidity RWA. Live traction reconciled across two independent systems 12 Sep (97 internal payouts vs 101 provider payments, ~4% apart). Missing: dated dashboard captures, user and partner corroboration, benchmark-format packaging.
Contribution evidence - 2 documents (optional criterion 2)
ZILO Mint product leadership and State Street tokenisation architecture impact. First-party Modeler captures banked (Creator: You, 10 Sep). Missing: State Street primary-source captures, permission/redaction sign-off, packaging.
Remaining evidence slots - up to 10 documents total
Four strengthening slots proposed (SettleySend traction, Settley provenance, ZILO-Ripple consequence, Peppera/research). None assembled; each document max 3 A4 sides and may serve only one criterion.
Evidence index - one document per criterion
Index drafted 12 Sep (exhibits/evidence-index-one-criterion.md) mapping each of the 10 slots to exactly one criterion; re-verify at final assembly.
Home Office Stage 1 endorsement application form
Not started. Submitted only when rows 01-10 are complete; endorsement decisions take up to 8 weeks.
Sources: GOV.UK - documents you'll need to apply for endorsement and Tech Nation Global Talent visa guidance, both checked 12 Sep 2026. Each letter must use different examples, be written for this application, and arrive with the author's CV.
Six things actually gate this.
Load-bearing items. The tail in the working map is mostly admin captures and moves fast.
Founder-lane referee gap
No referee covers the Settley / SettleySend founder work, so the Innovation criterion currently rests on documents alone. His call: accept the gap, swap Sabrine into that lane, or add a fourth informal statement.
Letter signatures - 1 of 3 signed
Sabrine's draft needs the 12-month familiarity statement before it can be signed - an ineligibility risk without it - and Suzanne's draft is still unsigned. Only Shashwat's letter is banked.
Teaching evidence must age
Decide the Salford workshop series, the first milestone of the teaching plan. Recognition evidence needs months of runway before the application, so a slipped start moves the earliest credible date.
CV confirmation gaps
Six [CONFIRM] items - including the Salford MSc dates - block typesetting the 3-page endorsement CV.
UK plan decisions
Five [DECIDE] items open in the UK plan draft, led by the SettleySend suspension disclosure line. Letters, CV and plan must tell the same story.
Settley LLC timing check
Settley LLC was formed 28 Apr 2025 - the same day ZILO employment started. ZILO's signed outside-business-interests letter (10 Sep) covers SettleySend; the LLC's ownership split and IP chronology still need a counsel check.
What Tech Nation actually scores.
Business/product route, digital technology. The case targets two strong optional criteria plus the mandatory recognition threshold, rather than spreading thinly across all four.
Independent actors must be seen to recognise the work. Letters alone cannot carry it.
Have: Ripple-ZILO public announcement, signed Shashwat letter, Suzanne draft, Arbitrum Founder House acceptance originals (selection email 29 Jun 2026, briefing 7 Jul 2026, event 10-12 Jul at Encode Hub, $300K pool), selectivity publicly documented (490+ registrations, 140 selected - Arbitrum Foundation blog + Luma), four 2022 Nairametrics press articles quoting him as Kudy Financials' Head of Digital Asset Desk.
Missing: Ampigram acceptance originals; recorded talks and awards (the 12 Sep five-year audit found none - do not claim); organiser confirmation of cohort size and his selection - letter drafted 12 Sep, Temisan to send himself.
SettleySend claim/payout model and multi-chain settlement; Settley conditional-liquidity RWA architecture.
Have: architecture, git-verified history (355 commits, 9 Jun-6 Sep 2026), live traction reconciled across two systems on 12 Sep (97 internal payouts vs 101 provider payments, ~4% apart), ZILO outside-business-interests letter naming SettleySend (10 Sep).
Missing: dated dashboard screenshots, shareholding proof (LLC incorporated 28 Apr 2025; four Members, no stated split), user and partner corroboration.
ZILO Mint institutional tokenised-fund product leadership; State Street tokenisation architecture impact.
Have: first-party Modeler screenshots (Creator: You, 10 Sep), 40 epics / 227 work items, manager review, Suzanne corroboration.
Missing: permission/redaction sign-off, State Street primary-source captures, benchmark-format packaging.
The standard every final document must meet: page 1 shows the company, the exact role, the personal contribution, the primary proof, a measurable or externally visible outcome, and the criterion it serves. Gerrard did X -> the product changed -> measurable outcome Y.
Three letters. One signed.
Three different well-established experts, each with at least 12 months' detailed knowledge of the work. Distinct examples, UK contribution language, signed and dated with credentials.
Shashwat Mittal
Ripple-side expert. Signed two-page letter, 9 Sep 2026.
Corroborates the original ZILO tokenisation-engine pitch, positive Ripple-side evaluation and recent cross-company workshops. Carefully worded: his assessment was one input into a wider evaluation.
Suzanne Warren
ZILO manager perspective. Draft received and archived; unsigned.
Strongly supports the Promise framing and independently corroborates the Digital Transfer Agency operating model, BPMN ownership, client sign-off process and Exceeds Expectations performance.
Sabrine Habassi
State Street implementation-side validator. Draft received and marked up 12 Sep 2026.
Markup against the Tech Nation letter standard delivered. Biggest gap: no 12-month familiarity statement - an ineligibility risk whatever else it says. Also needs exceptional-promise wording, concrete dated examples and a UK-benefit close.
Valente Vidal
Brief prepared; retained as additional corroboration.
Held in reserve unless the final recommender mix changes. Formal eligibility (12-month detailed-knowledge rule) still to be confirmed across the pool.
Damilare Aregbesola
Added to the recommender pool in the 12 Sep register update.
Role still to be defined; formal eligibility (12-month detailed-knowledge rule) to be confirmed as with the rest of the pool.
The ten slots.
Proposed final allocation from the evidence register (v0.3). Scores are the repo's own readiness ratings out of 5. No document may serve more than one criterion.
Moving right now.
Work already in flight this week that moves items from right to left.
Submission package ready; awaiting Temisan's read-through before anything touches arXiv. Feeds the research/recognition flank.
90-day cadence at 4-6 hrs/week. First milestone: decide the Salford workshop series and capture protocol; organiser letters and enrolment numbers are the evidence.
Selectivity is now publicly documented: 490+ registrations, 140 selected (Arbitrum Foundation blog + Luma). The organiser letter is a low-friction confirmation ask only - draft ready in the 12 Sep drop; Temisan sends it himself on the original selection thread.
Markup and distinctness check delivered 12 Sep. No referee covers the Settley / SettleySend founder work - the Innovation criterion currently rests on documents alone. Accept it, swap Sabrine, or add a fourth informal statement.
Exceptional Talent is the decided route; State Street gets named explicitly (Suzanne to be asked directly - her letter is not rewritten); the E06/E07 ID collision is fixed (E06 Settley, E07 Arbitrum); the 150-user figure belongs to Settley only; the unreconcilable 1 Sep SettleySend dashboard is benched; the SettleySend benchmark exhibit is re-frozen against the reconciled figures.
SettleySend sits on a holding page since 6 Sep. Freeze dashboards, chain records and provider exports into a dated pack before they get harder to pull.
Every tracked item.
Internal breakdown behind the 11 asks: captures, exports, screenshots, letter logistics. 53 banked / 76 left of 129. Filter to what is banked or what is left; open a group.
One claim. One source. One outcome.
Self-authored material is context, never independent validation by itself. Applications are not awards. Planned features are not shipped features. Every final number resolves to a dated, attributable capture.