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Since 2018, the European Commission and the European Blockchain Partnership (EBP) are building the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). EBSI is the first public sector blockchain in Europe, helping citizens study, work, and grow across the EU borders with verifiable credentials, digital wallets and blockchain.
THE EARLY ADOPTERS PROGRAMME
In 2020, both the European Commission and the EBP launched the “Early Adopters Programme”: an incubator to help Member States and their partners imagine, build and launch their EBSI pilot projects. In total, 22 projects from 18 European countries were selected and received early access to the pilot environment, where they piloted the exchange of educational credentials across EU borders.
Amongst the projects, the "multi-university pilot"was born out of a joint effort from 11 European universities and 2 European universities alliances, thanks to which, 6 successful cross-border scenarios were piloted.
THE 6 SUCCESSFUL CROSS-BORDER PROJECTS
1. Transcript of Records- A student gets a Master diploma after receiving a transcript of records validated by Erasmus.
2. Bachelor/Master Degree- A student applies for a PhD with a Bachelor/Master degree from a foreign country.
3. Municipality Credentials- A student gets access to local discounts using municipality credentials based on a European student card.
4. European Qualification Passport for Refugees- A refugee presents an EQPR to a European University to apply for a Master and find a job in Europe.
5. Licence to Practice- A graduated student applies for a job with a degree from another foreign country.
6. Micro-credentials- A PhD student applies for specific courses in a foreign country.
The success of those scenarios relies upon the use of a common standard, known as verifiable credentials, wallets as digital interfaces and blockchain as the trusted technology infrastructure. This combination makes information verify and almost impossible to fake.
Discover now and learn about EBSI Success Stories in details!
MUNICIPALITY CREDENTIALS - VALIDATED ID SUCCESS CASE
A student gets access to local discounts using municipality credentials based on a European student card
The project
One of the benefits of being a student, is having access to several discounts in various places inside their own country but also outside. Since not all public credentials are interoperable, exchanges between public & private sector can be restricted. This issue can be solved by empowering citizens, fostering the control of their data, providing trustworthy interoperability services and promoting a global digital identity.
The Open Government of Catalonia, Howest University and Validated ID have come together in order to showcase a possible solution of providing local discounts using EBSI. Thanks to the EBSI-infrastructure, we are able to take a giant leap forward. We are ready to work with real data and do a real digital on-boarding. We are also in the position to do a rapid deployment to the 1,000 governments of Catalonia, making this service scalable to any European university.
We are ready to move forward. Our short-term objective is to by go into production with EBSI, further develop the compliance with GDPR, include some features such as the revocation. Our ambition if to be able to scale the solution across many European Universities.
Demo
Check out the demo video to see how EBSI can simplify this process.
The scenario
01
Application for a Bachelor’s Degree, request a Verifiable ID
Ivan, a Belgian citizen, applies for a Bachelor Degree at the Howest University in Belgium. He requests a Verifiable ID (VID), which the Howest University verifies.
02
Issuance of a Student ID and a Verifiable Attestation
The University issues Ivan a student ID (Verifiable Attestation) through which he becomes an official student.
03
Travel to El Prat and purchase a ticket with the student discount
In the second semester, Ivan travels to El Prat where he visits a museum.
But Ivan wants to buy an access ticket to all the city’s museums with a student discount.
04
Access AOC with student eID and get verified
To prove eligibility, Ivan uses his student ID by accessing the facility provided by the Open Government of Catalonia that will then verify this attestation.
05
Login to El Prat platforms, provide Verifiable Credentials and receive a Municipality Credential
Ivan is now able to log into the platforms of the municipality of El Prat, provide his Verifiable Credentials and receive a Municipality Credential through which he will receive his discounts.
THE INCUBATOR IS GROWING – EBSI IS LAUNCHING A NEW CAMPAIGN
By successfully piloting “self-sovereign identity” and the “diploma” use cases, EBSI is well advanced in the implementation of various types ofVerifiable Credentials.
Thanks to this you have the possibility to implement credentials successfully piloted in the education domain. Additionally, the Early Adopters programme is growing and EBSI is opening new tracks;
· Piloting a new credential in the education domain
· Piloting a new credential in the social security domain
· Implementing credentials successfully piloted in the education domain
· Proposing a new use case in a specific domain where VC is relevant
· Other: in case you want to propose new use case outside VCs
You can join the Programme by taking any role such as a trusted accreditation organisation, an issuer, a holder or a wallet / IT service provider
HOW DOES THE REGISTRATION WORK?
1. Start your registration process to the EarlyAdopters programme by filling out the short form on the website.
2. We will monitor your expression of interest during a period of 6 weeks
3. We will come back to you with concrete next steps
