Blockchain in EdTech

Interview with Anna Verba and Andrey Gorbatenko

Aktiv financial academy is one of the most active users of the Emercoin blockchain. Their story shows that despite any “crypto recessions”, blockchain is not merely alive, but continuously opening up new non-monetary uses. That’s really inspiring.

I talked to the academy’s founder & CEO Anna Verba and CTO Andrey Gorbatenko to find out some of their best practices of applying blockchain to real-life business issues.

Eugene Shumilov: How do you use blockchain technology in your business?

Anna Verba: We started using blockchain to secure our diplomas against counterfeit. We achieved this pretty quickly, but we are now willing and eager to go further. There are at least three kinds of stakeholders if we talk about blockchain and education: educators, students, and employers. For example, here at the academy, we train financial managers and executives while trying to integrate our offering with our main customers — employers. To this end, we have created the FinAssessment online platform that lets us assess our students’ knowledge before and after training. We automatically enter all this data into the blockchain. Every alumnus gets a diploma/certificate from the academy, including a QR code that any potential employer can use to check the applicant’s hard skills. Hiring people is a complex and time-consuming process. There is no single algorithm that can “narrow down” the search exclusively to people with the required skills. Employers need a complete and reliable picture and know in which precise direction they need to go to improve their employees’ skills. When this data is stored in a blockchain, which is publicly accessible by definition, employers can build systems to find specialists with specific skills. This, in turn, creates a demand-supply regulation mechanism, encouraging more people to improve their professional education. At Aktiv, we try to keep all this in mind while making our blockchain initiatives more effective in motivating specialists to never stop learning.

ES: Why Emercoin for blockchain?

Andrey Gorbatenko: First and foremost, because of its NVS (name-value storage — ES) data storage service, which is transparent and easy to use. Unlike, say, Solidity, which is used for writing Ethereum smart contracts, NVS does not require any specialist knowledge, hence no additional financial burden. Another advantage is the low cost for creating new entries: Keeping records in the blockchain is more than affordable even if there is a lot of data.

ES: What do students think about the new technology?

AV: Our alumni mostly come from Generations Y and Z. They are pretty well-versed in technology in general and EdTech in particular. They are open to innovations such as blockchain and respond well to the opportunities it gives them. We are working with an eye to the future. In 3–5 years, all CVs will be stored in blockchain, and they will contain not just hard skills, but the whole history of applicants’ relations with employers, their career milestones, KPIs, and so on.

ES: And what about employers?

AV: Surveys indicate that 85% of employers find misinformation in applicants’ CVs. This is a major problem in today’s hiring processes. We are not a university; we train accountants, financiers, and highly specialized managers — all according to the market requirements. Especially in finances, the price of an error can be significant, and the level and credibility of skills and knowledge play a great role here — both in hiring new and retraining existing employees. Our clients understand that better than anyone else. To fill this credibility gap, we are adding QR codes and IDs to our certificates, with which any employer can verify an applicant’s hard skills via the blockchain. We can see the huge interest employers have in the technology and the trust they place in the academy. They see us as allies and partners, and we really value that.

ES: How many records are created in the blockchain daily?

AG: It varies from day to day depending on our students’ activity, but it’s around 150–200 records per day right now. And I’m pretty sure it’s not the limit.

ES: How much did it cost to implement this Emercoin-based system?

AG: Well, the only cost here is the effort of the people who implemented it. The implementation and PHP integration with our node was mostly done by me, and it took me around a week to study the specifications and around 450 lines of code. Then again, this part is highly individual and depends on both initial requirements and future integrations. We also had a system administrator who deployed the node on the server, a designer, and a copywriter. The last two handled the front end part — that is, the website page where employers can verify applicants’ certificates.

ES: How successful was the project economically? And what are the factors involved?

AV: We’re now in the initial phase of applying blockchain technology to our business processes. The financial academy is a pilot project of sorts. We plan to continue with other EdTech and HRTech projects of the Aktiv group. It’s too early to put out the details, so let me just say that the more job seekers add their information to a public blockchain, the more the HR industry will benefit from understanding the real situation and making informed business decisions. Freelancer hiring is also much easier with blockchain and smart contracts. Customers and vendors will be able to contract each other directly, with automatic payments on completion. Having said this, at the moment we are more involved with the process of collecting data.

ES: What are the running costs of maintaining the system and adding blockchain records? What are the components?

AG: Monthly maintenance costs consist of $50 to run a dedicated server for our Emercoin node and around $2 (two US dollars) to add up to 5,000 records to the blockchain. We can also consider as costs the 5–10 minutes of daily checking of system logs for errors and correct system operation.

ES: What can be improved in the Emercoin blockchain and community?

AG: The Emercoin blockchain works like magic. As for the community, it seems really small — this can definitely be improved. But we love how responsive your development team is, quickly coming back to us via the Telegram channel. Thanks for that!

ES: How about turning your system into a product and selling it on the market?

AV: We’re considering this and already have a preliminary vision of a “turnkey” architecture and a business model. What keeps us are the complexities of integrating the product with various external systems and automating the blockchain interactions. We are now studying how to optimize and standardize the process to use fewer of our IT resources.

I’d like to thank Anna and Andrey for this interview and for running arguably the most comprehensive Emercoin-based project to date. For me, such examples underline the social significance of Emercoin as a platform. The fact that the platform can be used to help others adds to its fundamental value — one that can be turned into money through real-life products and not through speculative cryptotrading.

Another interview —10 most common questions (and answers) about Emercoin

Emercoin website

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