Future Proof

< All posts Future Proof Learning Machine wins DHS Grant to align Blockcerts with the W3C specifications for Verifiable Credentials and Decentralized Identifiers. When Blockcerts was incubated at MIT, it was the first open-source project in the world that...

Remaking Credentials

< All posts Remaking Credentials As we move from a world of discrete paper repositories to a world of interconnected digital systems, we need official records that are natively digital to reap the full benefits of electronic exchange. When desktop computers came...

A Passport to Greater Opportunity

< All posts A Passport to Greater Opportunity Verifiable digital credentials are a critical component of addressing global workforce challenges related to education and mobility — all while following the principles of Good ID. One of the earliest challenges...

Badges and Blockcerts

< All posts Badges and Blockcerts In education and workforce development, it’s important to understand the differences between digital credential formats and how to combine them for greatest impact. Education and training providers have long been wrestling with the...

Credential (n.)

< All posts Credential (n.) From the Latin credere: “to believe, trust” Paper documents have been used throughout history to represent aspects of an individual’s identity or qualifications, providing the bearer of that credential a certain amount of credit when...

Digital Identity

< All posts Digital Identity A framework for organizing the categories of digital identity and an analysis of where disruptive innovation is most likely to succeed. Digitizing people’s identity to streamline their interactions with a digitally connected world is a...

Flexible Systems

< All posts Flexible Systems Top-down initiatives to reconstruct entire sectors like digital identity are too brittle to succeed. Flexible systems require a different mindset. Official records are one of the most powerful forms of social currency. They allow people...

Why Use a Blockchain?

< All posts Why Use a Blockchain? Blockchains offer a new public infrastructure for verifying credentials in a manner far more durable, secure, and convenient than relying upon a single authority. Everyone wants digital records to be shareable and verifiable, but...

Hosted ≠ Verified

< All posts Hosted ≠ Verified Credentials hosted on an institution’s domain may be convenient, but hosting alone is not sufficient to provide security, reliability, or longevity for recipients and verifiers. Credentialing has been undergoing a renaissance in recent...

Ownership

< All posts Ownership The term ownership means the act, state, or right of possessing something. For digital records, this requires control of private keys, for both issuers and recipients. Many credential issuing products have features for designing records,...

Talent

< All posts Talent The modern concept of skill and ability evolved from the ancient unit of financial measurement. Today, blockchains are unifying these concepts into a new forms of functional and social currency. The word “talent” has existed for thousands of...

Hybrid Benefits

< All posts Hybrid Benefits How can the security structures of decentralized apps be reliably combined with the polish and patterns of centralized apps? Software applications created and maintained by a single company typically enjoy characteristics of...

Credential Issuing Systems: Five Questions to Ask

< All posts Credential Issuing Systems: Five Questions to Ask A guide to help navigate solutions claiming to provide blockchain-based identity records. Don’t be fooled by fakes. Now that the Blockchain and Self-Sovereign Identity have become popular concepts, both...

The Future of Identity Records — Funded

< All posts The Future of Identity Records — Funded Official records — birth certificates, academic records, professional licenses, and more — form the legal basis of who we are and what we have accomplished. Despite the critical role they play in our lives, legacy...

Blockchain in Education

< All posts Blockchain in Education A growing forest of choices for securing academic credentials means starting with open standards or betting on vendors. The blockchain revolution has recently come to the education sector with the promise of providing...

Digital Identity and Values

< All posts Digital Identity and Values With so many different options emerging, here are a few values to assess any vendor’s blockchain-based solution for official records. Learning Machine has written and spoken publicly about the value and importance...

Academic Credentialing and the Blockchain

< All posts Academic Credentialing and the Blockchain This is a transcript of the presentation given during Educause at the Anaheim Convention Center on October 28, 2016. Hello everyone. My name is Chris Jagers. I’m the CEO of Learning Machine, the software company...