A partnership for growth: Gradbase and London Blockchain Labs team up to promote Blockchain to the UK’s vibrant student community
Almost 750,000 university graduates will obtain their hard-earned degrees this year in the UK. A population large enough to fill the city of Stockholm will therefore seek to kickstart or enhance their careers, be it in industry, academia or voluntary work.
Yet, the prospect of taking their next career step is quite bleak in 2018. Inefficient degree verification services cripple hiring processes in the UK and worldwide, pushing up expenses and time needed to on-board new employees. As a result, honest candidates stay jobless for longer and companies are discouraged from verifying job candidates’ qualifications, opening the door to widespread CV fraud. In fact, a recent survey has uncovered that a staggering 58% of scrutinised CVs were in some measure fraudulent! Whether it is simple degree embellishment or the outright fabrication of a degree, fraud is often uncovered too late, if ever.
The emergence of Blockchain technology has put forward a solution that can instantly and effortlessly perform background checks. Blockchain’s distributed and inalterable nature enables universities to encode cryptographic fingerprints of the qualifications they issue, in such a way that they can be both immediately accessible to prospective employers, and completely safe from a data privacy perspective, granting data owners (i.e. the graduates) full control over whom they share information with.
At the forefront of this innovation stands Gradbase, one of the first commercial platforms that leverages Blockchain for instant qualification verification. They provide universities with the ultimate technology to prevent diploma fraud, and via elegant QR codes, grant verifiers instant access to the true degrees straight from CVs and LinkedIn profiles. Most importantly, we give job candidates the ideal means to flaunt their credentials with the same ease in any part of the globe, elevating the Gradbase QR code to a must-have in the modern job market. The reduction of all barriers to verification, together with the independence from any activity on behalf of the issuing party, grants unparalleled social mobility.
Beyond such checks, since Satoshi Nakamoto’s influential paper that triggered the Blockchain revolution, a growing number of industries have become receptive to it and acknowledged the greater transparency and efficiency it can bring to their processes. University students represent a crucial demographic to keep the momentum going and devise the use-cases of tomorrow. Many leading UK universities have established Blockchain-focused student societies that promote adoption and collaborate daily with the most innovative start-ups.
With a view to connect, support and boost this vibrant community, London Blockchain Labs (LBL) is the UK’s largest blockchain student community, based at UCL, LSE and Imperial College London. LBL provide education for students, support businesses on blockchain implementation and policy makers on regulation. They also host distinguished talks, and promote job opportunities for the Blockchain professionals of the future. To seize the opportunity of bringing graduates, employers and universities ever closer to Blockchain technology and its benefits, Gradbase and LBL have just signed an exciting partnership.
Harnessing the combined student and academic networks of both parties, Gradbase seeks to bring their technology to the educational activities of LBL, making them a lot more visible to employers and fellow students. Moreover, through events and promotional activities, both parties aim to attract new interest in Blockchain, with a focus on its applicability in the education space.
If you would like to find out how Gradbase can make the qualifications you issue portable and instantly verifiable, drop them an email at contact@gradba.se. If you would like to discover how LBL can help you or your organisation learn about blockchain and its implementation, visit www.londonblockchainlabs.com or email contact@londonblockchainlabs.com.
