In this blog series, I&nbsp;have been&nbsp;focussing on digitizing credentials for skills and knowledge.&nbsp; My previous blog focussed&nbsp;on how we credential knowledge and skills&nbsp;today,&nbsp;the&nbsp;challenges&nbsp;we&nbsp;face&nbsp;and&nbsp;how blockchain can potentially&nbsp;disrupt and transform&nbsp;this space.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

The grand vision of connecting all the organisations globally into one huge blockchain network is practically impossible in today’s context due to a variety of reasons such as lack of consensus among credential issuers globally, lack of governmental support, social, economic, and political challenges.&nbsp;&nbsp;Veri Once has an alternative approach to this.&nbsp;

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Veri Once looks&nbsp;at this problem&nbsp;from&nbsp;a&nbsp;different perspective.&nbsp; Instead of&nbsp;working towards&nbsp;getting all credentials issued on one blockchain, why not create an&nbsp;app for individuals&nbsp;to store their own credentials&nbsp;and&nbsp;have them verified by their issuers on blockchain?&nbsp;&nbsp;Sounds simple enough! Right?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Here is how it works.&nbsp;&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Step 1:&nbsp;&nbsp;An individual register on&nbsp;the&nbsp;Veri Once platform and adds credentials&nbsp;to their wallet with the required details along with an image.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

The&nbsp;Veri Once platform is working with OCR and NLP technologies to&nbsp;use document image to read essential details about the credential.&nbsp;This will mature over time as more documents are processed on the platform.&nbsp;The&nbsp;goal is to&nbsp;make it simple and easy for the user.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<o:p></o:p>

Step 2:&nbsp;&nbsp;The individual&nbsp;then&nbsp;initiates a verification request to the issuer of the credential. This is recorded on the blockchain.&nbsp;&nbsp;<o:p></o:p>

Veri Once is pre-loaded with education providers across various&nbsp;geographic locations. While many of these providers&nbsp;have signed up&nbsp;to use&nbsp;the&nbsp;Veri Once&nbsp;platform for verification, it will be an on-going initiative to get as many&nbsp;education providers and employers&nbsp;on-board as possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

If the issuer of the credential charges for such verification, Veri Once will&nbsp;provide a payment gateway for the individual to make&nbsp;any&nbsp;necessary payments before&nbsp;the&nbsp;verification request is accepted and shared with the issuer.&nbsp;&nbsp;<o:p></o:p>

Step 3:&nbsp;Representatives of issuers connect to the portal,&nbsp;review the request for authentication and provide their&nbsp;approval or rejection.&nbsp; At this&nbsp;point,&nbsp;the&nbsp;verification&nbsp;outcome&nbsp;is also stored on blockchain&nbsp;and made visible to the individual.&nbsp;&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Authenticators&nbsp;are set&nbsp;up in the platform for the issuer as part of&nbsp;the&nbsp;on-boarding exercise.&nbsp; This will enable the platform to keep the authenticator updated on new requests created&nbsp;and&nbsp;requests awaiting authentication.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Step 4:&nbsp;&nbsp;Verified credentials on the platform can be shared by the individual with any&nbsp;third&nbsp;party,&nbsp;as and when the need arises.&nbsp;&nbsp;These verified credentials can be used FOREVER!!&nbsp;&nbsp;They don’t have&nbsp;to&nbsp;seek another verification for the same credential ever again.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Voila!!&nbsp; We have&nbsp;a&nbsp;digital credential that is immutable,&nbsp;secure,&nbsp;and easy to share.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

While the worldwide blockchain network of all credential issuers is an ideal solution,&nbsp;I feel&nbsp;that&nbsp;the&nbsp;Veri&nbsp;Once&nbsp;approach is more&nbsp;practical.&nbsp;&nbsp;Global education is&nbsp;transforming to be&nbsp;more&nbsp;student centric, byte sized and flexible.&nbsp; Hence, a student-oriented approach&nbsp;can be the best way to scale&nbsp;adoption over time.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

In my next blog in this series, I&nbsp;will dwell upon specific use cases of this solution around education, employment,&nbsp;immigration,&nbsp;and types of verification that Veri Once offers for authentication for these&nbsp;specific&nbsp;use cases.&nbsp;<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p>

Stay tuned!!....&nbsp;