If you are working in some way in tech you probably did some certificates in your life to prove that you know what you are talking about.
That might be to prove you know scrum, networking, coding, particular products such as AWS, salesforce or a number of others.
Those certificates can be a great way to boost your career and make it easier for employers to judge your skill set.
But currently it's surprisingly complicated to keep track of all your certificates as they are issued by a number of different institutions and it is just as hard to validate that you actually got the certificates you say you've got.
And this is where the blockchain can help as trustless 3rd-party to act as
a.) A wallet for all your different certifications so you have them in one place and can showcase them easily as well
b.) An easy way to validate all certifications of a person, e.g. your future employer can make sure you are not lying about your qualifications
Lets look at how that might work roughly:
First we have the certificate issuer who needs to publish their public key to identify themselves and proof that the certificates they issue are in fact from that institute.
Then when a nominee earned a certificate s/he might request the certificate to be issued on the blockchain (fancy name anyone?) and provides her/his own public key so the issuer can sign a transaction with the certificate and the public key of the nominee which then can be recorded on a smart contract.
Then the second part is a front-end for the DAPP that displays all certificates for a person which is easy to share (put a link on your CV or linkedin) and fairly easy to validate as you just have to compare the public key of the issuer
There are certainly some challenges to overcome but I believe this is something blockchain technology can really help with!
Would you use something like this? What are the main challenges you see?
Are you interested to bring this to life? Get in touch!
I'd be in particular keen to pick the brain of some of you that have experience in adult education and can give some more insights into the industry!