• South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology, POSTECH is reportedly issuing diplomas on top of blockchain technology. 
• Coronavirus fear has led the university to take this step.

What’s New?

POSTECH is a science and technology university located in Pohang, South Korea. South Korean’s Maeil Broadcasting Network (MBN) was told by an unknown university official that the university feels it is unsafe for all students to gather for the graduation ceremony, particularly after Coronavirus has its presence across China. That fear led to the university issuing a digital diploma certificate.

The University will send a personal email that contains QR-code and a link to their diploma degree stored on the blockchain to all the graduates (precisely 828 graduates).

Adding further, the official also informed that even if a student is not able to visit the school, the diploma certificate will be sent online to the student encrypted with Blockchain technology. This certificate is created using “broof”, a Blockchain certification service handled by a Korean company ICONLOOP.

Back in June 2019, POSTECH had already issued Blockchain technology certificates. The Blockchain certificates were issued for the Blockchain CEO course.

Looking at the changes brought by POSTECH, other educational institutions have also shown their interest in Blockchain-based certificates.

For example, MIT Media Lab has also created a number of prototypes and tested them. They shared digital credentials with their Media Lab Directors and Media Lab Alumni.

How impactful will this change be? What’s next going further?

Reports suggest that POSTECH is now planning for a Blockchain-based voting system. POSTECH is presently working on developing a Blockchain-based voting survey system called Voting for Students.

Reportedly, POSTECH and Yonsei University in SEOUL had also announced their plans to create a Blockchain campus back in April 2019 last year.

Also, it was reported by iHodl that ICONLOOP has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Korea Productivity Center (KPC), the first consulting educational firm in Korea, to build a blockchain-based industrial ecosystem.

Considering the advantages of Blockchain technology, POSTECH is also in the process of using Blockchain technology in various management level certificates, using digital way at the time of school enrolment, providing other graduate degrees and grades in digital form. Reportedly, these projects will be running as pilot projects in schools. It will start as early as this year. This will ultimately reduce the cost of building and maintaining the database to store information. Also, this will reduce the cost of maintaining paper-based certificates.

Consequently, students will have access to their certificates easily anywhere across the globe. It will also keep their data safe from any suspicious activities, fraud, and scams happening around the globe.

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