Description: Our platform enables issuance of blockchain-based certificates in the form of soul-bound NFTs on Polygon built for the teachers & students of an e-learning platform (English For IT), ensuring transparency, verification, and individual integrity.
Vision: Our vision is to establish a future where certificates are universally trusted and verifiable, accomplished through the transformative utilization of blockchain technology and soul-bound NFTs. We strive to eliminate doubts and uncertainties associated with certificate authenticity, creating an ecosystem where individuals and institutions can confidently engage with and endorse achievements.
Problem: The existing approach to issuing certificates, reliant on paper or digital formats, exposes certificates to the risk of fraud and manipulation. These vulnerabilities undermine the credibility of certificates, causing distrust and complications for both recipients and certifying entities. The need for a secure, tamper-proof solution is evident.
Solution/Product: Our solution leverages blockchain’s immutable nature and introduces soul-bound NFTs to reimagine certificate issuance. By binding certificates uniquely and unchangeably to recipients, we ensure certificates are tamper-proof and perpetually verifiable. This approach enhances the security, transparency, and integrity of certificates, revolutionizing the process and establishing a new standard of trust in credential verification.
Here’s how the solution works:
For Verified Issuers:
- Verified issuers, such as instructors, can attest certificates to students who have successfully completed their courses.
Upon attestation, a certificate is dynamically generated through certificate.english4it.online/attest, incorporating cryptographic signatures from the issuer. - The signed certificate image is uploaded to IPFS, ensuring immutability and accessibility.
- The certificate is minted as an NFT on the Polygon network, securely delivered to the graduating student’s wallet.
For Students:
- Students can access their certificates by logging into certificate.english4it.online/profile using their registered wallet associated with English For IT.
- The platform displays all certificates issued or minted to the student’s wallet, each signed with a verifiable cryptographic signature.
- Students have the option to view and download their certificates at any time through IPFS gateways or explorers like Opensea.
For Everyone:
- The transparency of the blockchain enables anyone to verify the authenticity of certificates issued using the project’s platform.
- All certificates are minted on Polygon and can be viewed on Opensea or other NFT explorers, ensuring wide accessibility and visibility.
- While certificates can be burned if a student chooses not to hold them, they cannot be transferred or sold to maintain the integrity of the issuance process.
- The cryptographic signatures on each certificate can be verified using the project’s dapp, ensuring the legitimacy of the credential.
By adopting soul-bound NFTs and blockchain technology, “English For IT - NFT Certificates ” pioneers a groundbreaking solution that secures certificates against fraud, ensures their verifiability, and empowers both issuers and recipients with an unassailable proof of achievement. This innovative approach not only transforms certificate issuance but also ushers in a new era of trust and credibility in the realm of education and credentialing.
How are we encouraging other women/minorities to be part of your community?
Anna is a social media influencer with over 600K followers. As a female leader, she generously shares her personal web3 journey with her audience. Anna is also a co-founder of an in-person web3 community in Miami https://thechain.miami, where she hosts monthly events to promote and educate about web3. The community has gained popularity, especially among females, as both Anna and her co-founder are women.
Also, the fact that English For IT is issuing NFT certificates has a very educational and onboarding character. The majority of the English For IT students are not familiar with web3. However, in order to obtain a certificate, they need to learn and perform basic tasks like setting up a MetaMask wallet. Therefore, Anna created a lesson on web3 and MetaMask and added it to every course curriculum. This approach helps onboard people to web3 without making it complex and challenging.
If we receive the grant and make our platform available to other educators, it will mean that more people can be effortlessly onboarded to web3.
Validation / Traction / Progress so far: Since its launch in December 2022, the platform has achieved remarkable success, forging a path of innovation and integrity in the realm of certificate issuance. To date, the platform has proudly facilitated the issuance of approximately 186 NFT certificates.
Team:
Anna Gandrabura - Founder of English For IT & Project lead for the NFT Certificates platform.https://www.linkedin.com/in/annagandrabura/
https://twitter.com/anna_gandrabura
Saimano - Full Stack Web3 Developer & Member of Raidguild. Core Developer of the NFT Certificates platform. https://www.linkedin.com/in/saimano1996/
https://twitter.com/saimano1996
Grant Requested:
$10,000
What it will be used for?
Our long term goal is to expand the certification platform feature pool and tech, and make it accessible for other educators and course creators.
The short term goal for this grant is to implement certain technical architecural changes, improve current user experience & fix existing issues in the platform making it compatible to pass through our long term goal.
We will use the grant to help us pay ourselves as the founding team while building the platform over the next 4 months. Also, we will be paying for services such as AWS, gas fees, etc.
- Build the necessary tech to have the platform available for other educators, namely: upgrade the existing platform’s tech:
- construction of a dedicated NoSQL/SQL database,
- Migrate from our existing temporary airtable database to the newly built datastore,
- creation of a custom admin panel for teachers to create & manage student related records,
- Fix any existing issues based on the feedback collected till date,
- Upgrade the contracts (if necessary)
- Marketing and BD: reach out to educational institutions and course creators and pitch the platform & evaluate interest.
Grant Split
Development: $4000
Product & design: $4000
Marketing & BD:$1500
Services: $500
How did you hear about MGD’s Funding program?
Heard via a twitter post from Rika.