What are the benefits of using blockchain technology?
- Removing intermediaries. Traditional means of donations require several layers of trusted middlemen. Using blockchain transactions, donations go straight to students, peer-to-peer mediated only a smart contract.
- Transparent conditionality. Rather than paying out the scholarship in bulk, it is broken down into milestones that the students must achieve. This aligns incentives and means that donors get their donation back if the donation fails in achieving its intended impact.
- Digital reputation. Thanks to the above-mentioned characteristics, students are now able to build reputation which may be leveraged in other venues such as in credit scores.
What are the benefits of using Decentralised Identifiers (DIDs)?
Decentralised Identifiers, also known as Self-Sovereign Identifiers, is a new form of identity technology. They give ownership of identity documentation back to students.
What is the Access Scholarship for?
We call all students accepted to the tuition-free DirectEd Coding Bootcamp the “DirectEd scholars”.
Since it is tuition-free, students only need a laptop and stable WiFi to participate. However, this is not something all families can afford.
The Access Scholarships enable scholars from low-income families to participate in the Coding Bootcamp. It covers the following
- Laptop to borrow (purchased by DirectEd)
- WiFi or mobile data
- Tutorial vouchers
- Transportation
Do students receive stipends in cryptocurrency? Isn’t that volatile?
By default, our goal is to have students receiving scholarship stipends in a USD-pegged cryptocurrency, a so-called stablecoin. There are many variations of this, from fully collateralised to ones that are overcollateralised with a volatile crypto asset supporting the peg. Fiat-backed stablecoins are backed by liquid US-denominated treasury bonds or other high-grade papers. You can read more about stablecoins here.