Help refugees keep track of educational credentials, such as school certifications, and other formal and informal experiences.

Join a project to design and build an educational passport for refugees to record and keep proof of their educational experiences.

There are currently over a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Roughly 50% of them are children and of these only 250,000 are currently in school. Whether in schools or not, tracking their identity, learning credentials and ensuring that their achievements are portable remain key challenges.

Additionally, the #BlockchainEducationalPassport will benefit teachers in helping them to develop support measures and pedagogical approaches which are evidence-based and certified. The tool will potentially be deployed in refugee camps and schools in Lebanon and impact more than 250 thousand people in schools across Lebanon.

The tool will potentially be deployed in refugee camps in Lebanon impact more than 1,200 children across schools and refugee camps.

The best solutions will be featured during the STI Forum for the Sustainable Development Goals at the United Nations, New York, USA, June 5-6.

We invite individuals and collectives to establish a new open source software team dedicated to build or configure a solution based on Blockchain.

This new tool should be designed to be applicable worldwide for refugees and other displaced people around the world which might have similar needs.

Over one million people have moved from Syria into camps in Lebanon, leaving behind proof of their educational experiences. During their experience as refugees they might accumulate more experiences however they lack a portable and trustable mechanism to record them and carry them to their destination.

The Ana-Aqra Association and University of Northampton would like to implement a Blockchain-based solution which will enable people to have an Educational Passport in which they will be able to keep a trusted record of their educational experience for the rest of their lives.

The Challenge

We challenge you to play a role creating this new system by joining or forming an open source collaboration project. We are looking for:

• Project managers / coordinators
• Blockchain specialists
• User Interface Designers
• Programmers
• Architects
• Testers
• Educators, psychologists and curriculum designers
• Legal experts (especially in the areas of children’s rights and refugees)
• Translators, communicators and other related skills.

See more details about the features and characteristics of the required platform at the Project repository:

https://github.com/UniteIdeas/BlockchainEducationalPassport/wiki

If you want to contribute, register to this website and send a message to the core team members below.

From the University of Northampton:
Dr Cristina Devecchi, Associate Professor, Education
Dr Scott Turner, Associate Professor, Computing and Immersive Technologies
Dr Jane Murray, Associate Professor, Early Years Education
Dr Ali Al-Sherbaz, Associate Professor, Computing
Dr Eunice Lumsden, Head of Early Years Division
Dr Angela Rushton, Head of Postgraduate Programmes, Marketing
Dr Luciano Batista, Senior Lecturer in Operation Management
Prof Olinga Taeed, Professor in Social Enterprise
Mr Wray Irwin
Dr Hala Georges, Senior Lecturer in Graphics and Communication
Prof Nick Petford, Vice Chancellor

From Ana-Aqra Association:
Rima Doany Musallam, CEO Ana-Aqra Association
Amina Kleit
Ali Fakih
Dr. Maha Yaha
Tarek Jallad

Advisory Panel
Mr Nick Pitts-Tucker, Independent Governor and Chair of Development Committee and Chair of Treasury Committee, University of Northampton
Ms Jane Kimberlin, The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT)
Mr. Jorge Martinez Navarrete, United Nations OICT, Innovation Unit.

You can contact them by creating your account on Unite Ideas.

You can also start a new team or offer your skills by posting a comment explaining what you can do or inviting others to join your team.

Challenge Phases & Timeline
Throughout all phases below, teams are encouraged to interact with the core team at the challenger organizations to discuss the requirements for this project.

1. Formation of Teams (self-organized online and offline). Using the Unite Ideas website, project leaders can submit their ideas for architectures and approach while volunteers list their skills and offer to join their team(s) of choice. You don’t have to be in a team, you can also work independently. 1 month (End: Feb 28, 2018)

2. Individuals and self-organized team(s) collaborate independently to implement their solution. 2.5 month. End: May 6, 2018 last day to submit your work (system design, specifications, prototypes, demos, etc.)

3. Review phase. End: June 3, 2018.

Expected Outcomes
By the end of this challenge, we expect to have identifyed one or more self-organized teams designing and building versions of this new platform (using test data).

It is expected that interested participants will be able to continue collaborating in an open source manner towards the full completion, testing and rollout of the new platform by the core team.

Open Source
All the inputs and outputs of this project must be covered by recognized open source and creative commons licensing. You will be asked to accept terms and conditions prior to submitting any content.
It is encouraged that teams leverage and extend existing open source frameworks.