QualiChain meets in Lisbon

The consortium of the QualiChain project has met in Lisbon, Portugal on May 9-10. This has been the first plenary face-to-face meeting of the project, after its kick-off meeting in January 2019. Representatives from all project partners spent two days discussing the latest project developments and planning their next activities. The next plenary face-to-face meeting will be held on September 19-20 in Madrid, Spain.

QualiChain targets the creation, piloting and evaluation of a decentralised platform for storing, sharing and verifying education and employment qualifications. The project focuses on the assessment of the potential of blockchain technology for disrupting the domain of public education, as well as its interfaces with private education, the labour market, public sector administrative procedures and the wider socio-economic developments.

The Open University (OU) was represented in the meeting by John Domingue, Allan Third and Alexander Mikroyannidis. The OU team is building upon its expertise from the Open Blockchain initiative to conduct a landscape analysis, implement Blockchain technology for storing and sharing education credentials and qualifications, integrate Semantic Blockchains in Ethereum, as well as conduct a pilot on lifelong learning. The OU is also in charge of shaping the overall dissemination strategy of the project.