The title of a blog including “steady progress” is not the norm for technology marketing. Breathless incantations of the rapid and transformative effects of new technology are more usual, including because they grab attention. But at LearnerShape we believe firmly in steady progress.
As I recently wrote, our core mission of developing “open source learning infrastructure” is a big idea that has taken some time to develop. In this blog, I take a closer look at our steady progress in the specific area of verifiable credentials (VCs) for authentication of skills.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines a “verifiable credential” as “a tamper-evident credential that has authorship that can be cryptographically verified”. VCs are frequently recorded / authenticated on blockchain, although not necessarily.
Two years ago, near the top of the most recent cryptocurrency hype cycle, I wrote about the potential for blockchain in education, accurately predicting that cryptocurrency hype might be overblown, and identifying the potential for other blockchain applications to benefit education.
LearnerShape continues to believe in the potential for VCs and blockchain to record skills credentials, and we have been making steady progress, including these developments in recent months:
Over the medium to long term, we believe that VCs could become a killer app for blockchain, transforming the way that people maintain and share credentials of their skills and accomplishments. But this will require a lot of change in the way that education and employment systems operate. In the meantime, we will continue to make steady progress.
Maury Shenk, Founder & CEO, LearnerShape