German Institute of Frankfurt will issue course certificates based on Blockchain

The School of Finance and Administration (FS) of Frankfurt will now offer students the ability to demonstrate their qualifications using Blockchain technology.

As part of a pilot program, the graduates of one of the FS courses on block chain technology will be able to demonstrate their successful completion of the course with a certification stored in a Blockchain.

For the pilot project, FS is working with Consensys, one of the leading software companies in the Blockchain field. Consensys has developed a decentralized application (DApp) for the so-called self-sovereign identities, where certificates are not necessarily published in a chain of blocks, but are only copied to the computers of numerous network participants.

Copies can be encrypted so that the owner of a particular node in the respective network can decide, on a case-by-case basis, which certificates he or she makes visible to other participants in the network. Therefore, the Blockchain really makes credentials physically portable for students.

Veronika Kütt, associate researcher at the FS Blockchain Center and director of the pilot project, finds the opportunity to present digitally "fascinating" certificates:

"We are doing pioneering work here ... It seems to our students a privilege to get involved in new technologies at an early stage. It's a bit like the programming of the first public Internet sites in the mid-1990s. "

Professor Philipp Sandner, head of the FS Blockchain Center, added:

"With Blockchain you can store personal data, such as a CV or identity document, as in an album of images. With our project we demonstrate how easy and comfortable it can be for the user. "

This makes the FS the first educational institution in Germany to offer its students certificates based on Blockchain. The new technology is also being used in Switzerland at the University of Basel. At the end of April, the Innovative Finance Center (CIF) presented the certificates of the courses registered in Ethereum Blockchain.