What is the Open Source University at www.OS.UNIVERSITY and why does it matter?

You may have already went through some of my recent posts, regarding the Open Source University platform — world’s first distributed academic & career development ledger, with potential to transform the way 7 billion people develop academically and grow professionally. But how would this transformation really look like? — a question that this article answers to in 3 to 5 minutes, in case our 30-page whitepaper is not your first choice.

OS.UNIVERSITY smart contracts definitions and interaction

Our diverse team of renowned academic, corporate, technology, NGO and public sector leaders, is about to roll out a first of its kind global higher education and professional development platform, based on the Ethereum blockchain, that will serve two main product functions:

• As a distributed database that enables Academia, learners, and businesses to record and verify educational and professional development credentials. This in turn will enable, for those users who so desire, businesses to locate suitably qualified learners through highly targeted searches.
• As a global marketplace upon which high quality academic and broader L&D offerings will be made available, bought and sold with the help of the EDU Token that will enable transactions on the platform and will be traded on leading cryptocurrency exchanges.

Starting with the integration of ~700 of world’s top universities and 60+ million MOOC learners, our blockchain-based platform is introducing the concept of the “Distributed University” — one that enables transferability of knowledge & skills throughout institutional and national borders, reduces operational costs and opens up the access to high quality education and career development opportunities to hundreds of millions.

The more the OS.UNIVERSITY marketplace scales in a global trillion-dollar market, the more its EDU token value will rise, hence the idea for an initial coin offering (ICO) through which tokens can be offered at a set price — sharing the cost, but also the benefits from launching such a global social innovation project.

OS.UNIVERSITY PROOF OF CONCEPT 2+ years of research and validation

• From corporate and social perspectives, our R&D project has been recognized by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) global community as one of world’s top 10 social innovation ideas [1] and has been awarded by AIESEC and their partners from Ernst & Young (EY) as the innovative solution to enable better information coordination relationships between Academia and businesses, which is the core reason for mismatch of skills demand & supply, according to EY consultants [2].
• From academic perspective, our project has been peer-reviewed by the European scientific community and featured in journals in Bulgaria, Latvia, and the Czech Republic [3]. In addition, Sony Global Education [4] and the Open University [5] on the diagram above are working on smaller-scale blockchain-based ed. tech. solutions of experimental and commercial character to assist in addressing the challenges that we have successfully identified and that we’re systematically resolving with the global launch of the OS.UNIVERSITY platform.

OS.UNIVERSITY MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

We offer potentially transformative value generating proposals to all three participating categories of the higher education and professional development value chain, enabled through three main Ethereum smart contacts, which our team of blockchain technologists has developed:

1. Academia will be able to

• Market their offerings globally and at ultra low cost, given that attracting students via conventional methods in the Digital era is increasingly difficult and inefficient;
• Benefit from the reliable transferability of modular L&D achievements between universities and other learning providers, reducing admin. costs and assisting smooth continuance of learning for mobile students and life-long-learners;
• Modernize educational operations — from organizing distributed offerings on demand to improving internal record keeping with substantial cost savings.

2. Businesses will be able to

• Receive instant access to a global pool of talent with credentials verified through the ultra low cost system build on top of the distributed database;
• Leverage highly specific search facilities, allowing business to identify and seek to contact qualified candidates, therefore disintermediating conventional slow, expensive and less specific recruitment methods;
• Generate massive cost savings in corporate L&D operations — from finding and paying for educational services to monitoring the progress of employees’ certification.

3. Learners will be able to

• Access some of world’s best L&D opportunities irrespective of where the learner is, no matter what barriers exist — geographic, social, economic, or political;
• Mine EDU tokens that are used for all transactions of products and services on the marketplace, thus grow academically and professionally by powering the platform;
• Get incentivised in the knowledge that potential employers are more likely to find them through targeted searches on the platform than via conventional recruitment methods. Learners would control the access to their secured credentials information, but would be able to promote their blockchain-validated portfolio of accomplishments.

The Open Source University project is proud to partner with some of the leading corporations, universities, research centers and media outlets, among which: Cobden Partners (London-based investment consultancy) | VUZF (University of Finance, Business & Entrepreneurship) | Brain Workshop Institute (Sofia-based free market think tank) | Investor Media Group (Bulgaria’s leading media corporation) | Bloomberg TV Bulgaria (recent interview on the project available here).

While we are proud of our institutional partnerships, which increase on a daily basis, what we are aiming at is to reach and win on our side the educational and technology enthusiasts that dream and work for a better word where opportunities are distributed fairer.

As a project lead of the OS.UNIVERSITY, I count on your support to build the ‘Global University on the Blockchain’ and remain available for your questions, feedback and future cooperation.

---

Originally posted on LinkedIn