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A diverse team of renowned academic, corporate and technology leaders is about to roll out a first of its kind global education and professional development platform, based on the Ethereum blockchain, that will serve two main product functions:
▪ As a distributed credentials database that enables Academia, Learners, and Businesses to record and verify educational and professional development accomplishments. This in turn will enable businesses to locate suitably qualified learners through highly-targeted searches.
▪ As a global decentralized marketplace upon which high-quality academic and broader L&D offerings will be made available, bought and sold with the help of the EDU token that will enable transactions on the platform and will be traded on leading cryptocurrency exchanges.
Starting with the integration of 700+ of the world’s top universities and 60+ million MOOCUniversity” — one that enables transferability of knowledge & skills beyond institutional and national borders, reduces operational costs and opens up the access to high-quality education and career development opportunities to hundreds of millions. The more the OS.University marketplace scales in a global trillion-dollar market, the more its EDU token value is expected to rise, hence the idea for a token generation and distribution campaign through which tokens can be offered at a set price — sharing the cost, but also the benefits from launching such a global social innovation project.

The OS.University platform provides a systematic response to a seemingly unrelated set of challenges in learning and development:
○ Robots and automation to replace up to 30% of jobs by 2025, according to BBC. 35% of core employment skills will change between 2015-2020, according to the World Economic Forum.
○ At present, employers spend over a month and up to thousands of dollars on verifying employee credentials, according to industry-wide research. In more than 50% of the cases there are unreliable or false claims.○ 30+ million U.S. learners with some college education, no degree or certificate, according to the National Students Clearinghouse. 1,714% increase in tuition & fees since federal student loans introduction, according to Mises Institute, U.S.
○ Higher education penetration as low as 15% in the world’s 2nd and 5th most populated nations , i.e. India and Brazil.

Our multifaceted value proposition can be summarized in 3 key points against which existing products are used for comparison:
● “ Competence Passport ” – one credentials wallet to store and share all your
accomplishments and achievements across the world, validated and verified through the blockchain.
● “ Booster for Learners ” – a global peer-to-peer marketplace for learning and
development. More scalable and cost-effective than e-commerce because it operates without an intermediary.
● “ Meant for Education ” – without claiming superiority, EDU tokens will be the only once used for 0% fees on transactions between educators, learners, and businesses.

Keywords

academy analytics · blockchain · collaboration · credentials · flexibility · global catalogue · modularity · smart contracts · tokenized marketplace