Trust and verify: how blockchain can revolutionize your world

Rana Gujral is a columnist for TechCrunch, Fox, NBC, CBS, and Forbes, as well as an entrepreneur and investor.

Almost every day I receive pitch decks from company founders who state which school they graduated from, what skills they have, etc. I think they are mostly honest, but sometimes I want to verify the authenticity of certain high-stakes claims. No one would go directly to the school to verify or ask for official certification because the process is complicated and time-consuming. It would be great if I could check the authenticity of these claims with a click of a mouse and know that the result is immutable. I know, it sounds a bit like magic.

However, over the past decade, the rise of Bitcoin has made it possible to conduct secure transactions between strangers. Bitcoin is a digital currency whose transfers are recorded in a global ledger called a blockchain. This blockchain ledger has thousands of copies stored on computers around the world, so it cannot be easily damaged or tampered with. Essentially, this global blockchain is a timeline record of transactions, so it cannot be hacked. Bitcoin is a breakthrough technology that guarantees that the blockchain record is immutable. Moreover, the public blockchain is not controlled by a company or government (like the Internet), and it is a public resource with the potential to bring positive change.

Applying blockchain to academia

Over the past few years, some schools have begun experimenting with using blockchain records as official record keeping. After all, the issuance of a certificate is similar to a transaction process, and the blockchain can record who is the issuer and who is the recipient, and can store code to verify whether the content of the certificate has been changed. This means that the digital certificate received by the graduate is cryptographically signed by the school, it is tamper-resistant, and after the certificate is issued, anyone can use the verification service to verify its authenticity on this blockchain. This concept is far-reaching because it means that decentralized technology can replace centralized authorities to ensure security. Query services no longer have to rely on centralized authorities, but can verify certificates by consulting this blockchain.

MIT Media Lab was one of the first to register digital certificates on the blockchain. A year ago, it announced a proof of concept and shared philosophical motivations that were consistent with its long history of openness. However, the code for the project was not fully open source at the time because it was not packaged as a public resource, it was missing some key features, and the creators of the project wanted to be cautious about the security of the code before making it public.

However, MIT and Learning Machine have worked together over the past year to develop this initial concept into a public resource, creating components that developers can use for free. MIT considers this version of the project as an open source standard for multiple blockchain certificate services to ensure future interoperability. The motivation is obviously to develop a common model so that future implementations are compatible with each other.

All of this is publicly available on Blockcerts (www.blockcerts.org), which contains a complete toolbox for creating, issuing, and verifying certificates using the blockchain, and is now available to everyone for free.

Many schools open their internal projects to inspire others, however, this often does not work because these projects often contain special implementations and customized functions that are generally not adopted. The project released by MIT and machine learning companies is different, it is very useful: they have developed a simple code installation guide for developers, which can meet all functional requirements. Although these open source codes can only be used through the command line, this is an important step. Sooner or later, vendors will develop products with graphical user interfaces.

Use cases beyond education

We now have the resources to create apps that allow students to take control of their own official records. While there are ways to manage this before it becomes mainstream, giving students control over their official educational credentials would be a revolutionary achievement (and obviously has many use cases beyond education).

This website has done an incredible job. By using a new communication infrastructure, society can be transformed. Blockchain will become the infrastructure of the future. The new trust infrastructure provided by blockchain will make people's lives more convenient and new impetus may emerge in society. If this technology is integrated into our daily tools, then any app connected to this secure trust anchor will be a revolutionary experience.

The potential of this technology is also valuable for national and local governments. Decentralized technology that people trust can replace entire bureaucratic systems. While our governments don’t seem to be changing anytime soon, our academic institutions are open to such changes.