We are excited to announce Team BadgeChain. We’re a small core team of experienced badge enthusiasts working to investigate the next stage of the grand open badges experiment. Our mission: Explore through research, advocacy and development how Open Badges (and related technologies) can be advanced by blockchain.

Our values

  • We’re a democratic organization.
  • We’re committed to working in the open.
  • We’re ecosystem focused.
  • We are learning as we go.
  • We’re building the future of badges.

Who we are

Please use the Twitter hashtag #badgechain

What’s been happening so far

  • We’ve learned that we’re excited about what’s already being achieved with badges.
  • We are convinced that something like blockchain could be an answer to many of the extant badge currency / rigor / verification concerns.
  • We’ve found a lot of heat developing in the blockchain world.
  • We are ambitious and realize that that ambition needs to be fueled with funding.
  • We seek independence from any one funding source.
  • We have different drivers motivating our interests in this new technology.
  • We’re committed to ensuring a future for open badges.
  • We believe that this work offers a window into a new credentialing world.
  • We continue to build our immediate, 3 month, 6 month, 12 month roadmap.

Next steps

  • One thing that is blatantly obvious to us: blockchain is a complex and evolving technology and we still have a lot of investigation to do.
  • We’re building a website so you can know what we’re up to and who’s doing what.
  • We’re establishing a series of subcommittees in order to move our work forward rapidly: technology, product / ecosystem research, funding, communication / support.

Thanks!

We appreciate your interest and look forward to future collaboration


Originally published at medium.com on February 10, 2016.