“Yay! I completed this course!”  says the post on the LinkedIn feed, followed by a link and a thumbnail displaying the certificate.

If you click on it, the link takes you to another page enlarging the certificate.  To the top left, you see the verified symbol.  You can also click on verify again and it pops up with further validation.

Below the verification, you can see the date of issue, the issuer, the issuer’s public key, transaction id, and other details.

The certificate is powered by CertOnce’s  Blockchain Secured Digital Credentials issuance platform, and it is issued by Sanjay Shenoy to the students of his HIIT programs.

Let me tell you the story behind this certificate.

What is this HIIT Program?

The seed was sown back in 2009 when Sanjay Shenoy explored SEO for the first time when he bumped into freelancer.com.  After a few experimental projects and working with a multitude of start-ups, consultations with Fortune 100 corporations, PixelTrack Digital, a digital marketing training and services company, sprouted in 2017.  

After training companies like Mercedes Benz India, Nikon Lenswear, and more, Sanjay is today successfully manning three training programs, namely HIIT SEO, HIIT Content, and HIIT MAP (Marketing Automation Program).  But there is one common thing that endows all these courses – Blockchain Verified Digital Certificates.

From the beginning 

Sanjay Shenoy is a teacher, marketer, and blogger who teaches you to become a better digital marketer in simple and easy-to-understand methods through his content and courses.  He has built a 10,000+ strong community of aspiring creators and marketers.

Running an online course has its own process.  Some of it includes designing the curriculum,  structuring the sessions, making an inventory of resources and course materials, and it is incomplete without finally issuing certificates once the course is done.  

The matter in question for Sanjay though was that, for an online class that started out of nowhere, it is crucial to gain the trust of the audience.  He was providing value with his subject and teaching but until the brand is established, how do you attract an audience that converts to customers?  

Make an offer that one cannot refuse

Apart from valuable bonuses and packages to attract customers, he also wanted to provide credentials.  The students might learn the lesson and successfully implement what they learned.  But once they go into the world outside and look for jobs, they would want to add the course to their resume.  Certifications definitely add value!  

Sanjay wanted to give something distinctive.  An ordinarily designed certificate saved as a pdf would hold superficial value and do no good to either his brand or his customers.

1. The certificate would have to be easily stored and shared online with anyone or on any platform.
2. The certificates would have to be instantaneously verified online for education or employment, without the hassle of attestation and manual verification.
3. The certificates must be secure and not be tampered with, and should not give scope to forgery.  The risks are unimaginably high on online portals.
4. They should comply with digital standards and have eternal value.

He wanted to make a document that is authentic, credible, and easily verifiable, and at the same time, the making of which did not burn a hole in his pockets.

Collaboration with CertOnce LLC

PixelTrack collaborated with CertOnce to provide Blockchain anchored digital certificates to its students.  The truly digital certificates that met all the criteria Sanjay was looking for.

CertOnce is a platform that issues blockchain verified digital certificates that solve the above-mentioned glitches and more.  It was built on an open-source platform that was developed by a team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, in their incubation center called MIT Media Labs.  The institute has also employed this solution to issue certificates to its own students.

Once these certificates are issued, the issuer can wash his hands off of them and will not have to face the pain of verifying and attesting them in the future.

How it Works

The platform uses Blockchain Technology which allows the user to create documents and use a distributed public ledger to verify the document by uploading its hash onto the ledger.

The document can be easily verified with a single click.  It will recreate the hash of the received document and match it with the hash available on the public ledger (the blockchain).   If the hash matches, it will confirm the document to be authentic and publish the authentic copy on the verification portal.  Any tampering or attempt to modify the certificate makes it unverifiable.

A Happy Customer

“In a crowded market, where every other course was dishing out certificates, it was very important for us to stand out and make the course feel like a premium program. Blockchain secured certificates from CertOnce have allowed us to create a positive student experience,” says Sanjay Shenoy.

He is one happy customer of CertOnce.  And wouldn’t he be?

1. He does not have the pressure of replying to emails, posts and maintaining the records of student data with the digital certificates being instantly verifiable independent of its issuer.
2. He shines as a brand that is progressive for using cutting-edge futuristic blockchain technology and attracts more students.
3. The students or alumni hold the torch as brand ambassadors by proudly displaying their digital certificates on social media platforms, hence building credibility and recognition.
4. He does not have to depend on the vendor every time there is a need to verify the digital certificates.
5. No one can tamper with or misuse the certificate in any way owing to blockchain technology.  There is also no scope for forgery.
6. There is no need for database exposure for the purpose of online and instant verification as the digital certificates are self-sovereign documents.

Sanjay Shenoy is not the only happy customer using these certificates.  Students of HIIT can flaunt their Digital Certificates wherever they choose to with the following advantages.

1. They enjoy one-click verification without having to go through the hassle of manual verification.
2. The certificates are secure and cannot be replicated or tampered with by anyone.
3. The technology is based on MIT incubated open standards, endorsed by Digital Credential Consortium ensures interoperability across a wide range of organizations.
4. They don’t need to go back to the issuer for verification.  The certificate remains independent of its issuer as it is verifiable on any of open standard compliant platforms like www.certonce.com, www.blockcerts.org, credentials.mit.edu.
5. They are in complete control of the certificate and it can be safely stored in the local mobile app or in the cloud ensuring privacy and choice of sharing.

Conclusion

The digital world demands everything to be digitized.  The intention is to make lives easier for everyone.  But there is a lot to catch up with.

The solution provided by blockchain technology is not restricted to issuing digital degrees but has more use cases like ID cards, scholarly paper submissions, thesis submissions, transcripts, and any documents which you may want to secure.  

It is definitely a boon to academic institutions in the matters of record-keeping and verification.  Do you want to adopt blockchain technology too?  You can contact CertOnce at hi@certonce.com.