Karnataka will use blockchain technology to issue 30,000 digital certificates for skill-based courses

Officials said digital certificates will provide more security, transparency and efficiency while reducing manual verification processes.

Karnataka, a pioneer in technology and innovation, is now betting big on blockchain technology.

The Karnataka Skill Development Corporation (KSDC) has floated a tender to select a firm to implement blockchain-based digital certificates for skill-based courses.

KSDC is the flagship organization of the Government Tool Room & Training Center (GTTC), an educational institution of the Government of Karnataka that provides skilled manpower and technical services to existing and emerging industries.

GTTC offers a wide range of technical courses such as Computer-aided Design (CAD), Computer-aided Manufacturing (CAM), Computerized Numerical Control, Rapid Prototyping, etc.

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“GTTC offers both long term and short term skill training courses. Candidates will get certificates after successful completion of the courses. These certificates can now have a digital stamp which will increase their credibility,” Ashwin D Gowda, Managing Director, KSDC told Money control.

He said they will complete the tender titled ‘Comprehensive Blockchain-Enabled Digitization of Examination and Centralized Student Placement Platform for GTTC’ in a few weeks

Last year, GTTC piloted the technology and issued 180 digital certificates to those who underwent training. This year, it is planned to issue around 30,000 digital certificates.

Officials said digital certificates will provide more security, transparency and efficiency. This will also reduce manual verification processes as individuals can easily share their credentials with employers or educational institutions. They said blockchain-based certificates will prevent fraudulent representation of qualifications.

“These digital certificates are secure and accessible from anywhere. These cannot be altered/duplicated and can be easily verified by employers/third parties. This will reduce the risk of fraud or other types of misrepresentation of credentials,” said a KSDC official.

This project also involves a centralized student placement module which will coordinate interview requests from industries with the main placement cell of GTTC.

How does it work?

GTTC will generate soft PDF files of the student certificates as usual. Instead of printing the certificates, the PDFs will be uploaded to the issuing software installed on the GTTC server. The issuing software will calculate a unique and irreversible digital fingerprint (SHA 256 Hash) for each PDF certificate.

The PDF certificate’s fingerprint will later be uploaded to the public blockchain (Polygon) and mapped against the GTTC using a unique algorithm.

After successfully uploading the certificate fingerprint to the blockchain, unique blockchain proofs will be generated for each PDF certificate. These blockchain proofs will be combined with the original PDF certificate generated by GTTC to form a digital PDF file. The digital certificates will be sent to the students via e-mail or file server.

How do they verify?

The verification software, a web app hosted on the GTTC website, directly accesses the blockchain data. Any verifier can upload a student’s digital blockchain file to the verification portal to authenticate and verify the certificate.

The verification portal will extract the blockchain proof from the digital certificate, calculate the digital fingerprint of the digital certificate and check the validity and availability of the digital fingerprint on the blockchain using the blockchain proof.