SINGAPORE — Singapore-based Accredify, driver of the adoption of digital credentials, has announced a new partnership with The TU Delft Extension School for Continuing Education, the online education arm of the Dutch university Delft University of Technology dedicated to delivering learner-centred, cutting edge courses and programs to support the upskilling and career path of lifelong learners and working professionals. Through the collaboration facilitated by Partners for International Business (PIB) Blockchain Solutions, a program coordinated by the Dutch Blockchain Coalition (DBC), Accredify and TU Delft will trial the issue and verification of tamper-proof, digital academic certificates through Ethereum.
TU Delft provides online professional courses with proof of learning verified through online certificates. When a course is completed, Accredify creates a unique fingerprint, or hash, for each certificate, which is then published to the blockchain. The certificate is then distributed to learners as an OpenCert file, from which users can verify if the learner’s certificate has been tampered with, who it was issued by and whether it is still valid. Subsequently, they can share their certificates with other parties such as their employer or via social media, providing greater ease of shareability and verifiability.
Quah Zheng Wei, Co-founder and CEO, Accredify, comments: “As lifelong learning opportunities continue to flourish, we want to make sure learners of today can have access to educational records that last a lifetime. Through this partnership, we hope to normalise digitally verifiable certificates not just in the Netherlands and Singapore, but around the world.”
Nida van Leerseum, Policy Advisor, TU Delft says, “At TU Delft, we pride ourselves in delivering world-class education through innovative technologies. Many of our lifelong learners come from different parts of the world. By having blockchain-backed certificates, we wanted to ensure they could bring their educational portfolios wherever home may be and easily share these with future employers, all the while safeguarding their personal data.”
This marks Accredify’s first partnership with an institute in Europe, an example of the PIB’s success in connecting the Dutch and Singapore’s blockchain ecosystems to explore and develop blockchain solutions. Among other applications, Accredify’s software has been used to automate the issuing of Covid-19 health records using the HealthCerts framework, which is supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Health.
