Front Matter

Title: DirectEd Technical Specification

Author(s): Rohan Mitta

Team: DirectEd

Reviewer(s):

Created on:

Last updated:

Task tracker reference link: https://github.com/users/bubblyc/projects/1

Overview

Problem Description

Many talented students in low-income countries lack the economic means to realise their potential, but philanthropists hesitate to donate. The impact of their funds is unclear, and attaching conditionality to ensure that funds are used for its intended purpose is costly. DirectEd solves these problems by combining the power of decentralised identifiers and blockchain technology to provide a transparent, secure, and low-cost means of making conditional peer-to-peer donations directly to students.

This document outlines the technical details of our proposed software solution.

Product Overview

Step By Step Solution Outline

  1. DirectEd identifies high schools in low-income areas. In Ethiopia, these schools have been onboarded to the Atala PRISM decentralised identifier system. In Kenya, we help schools become issuers of verifiable credentials and help students set up DIDs. We link those DIDs to Cardano wallets, preparing the students to receive scholarships.
  2. DirectEd specifies a smart contract for each high school. The smart contracts do four things: (a) specify the threshold for scholarship eligibility, (b) randomly choose scholarship winners if the number of eligible students exceed funds available, (c) specify total size of each scholarship and (d) specify progress requirements needed for release of next portion of the scholarship.
  3. Donors pledge donation amounts to one of many smart contracts, each representing a high school. Initially, only ADA donations will be supported, but over time other currencies will be accepted as well, starting with stable coins, other cryptocurrencies, and lastly fiat currencies. Donors receive an NFT minted by DirectEd, that can be used to prove that they have donated and unlock access to a progress tracking page for the specific cohort they donated to.
  4. High schools issue credentials, containing grades, to decentralised identifiers (DIDs) belonging to students. A student can then apply by sharing this verifiable credential with the smart contract.
  5. Once the scholarship application window is closed, a randomisation amongst eligible students decides the scholarship winners if the number of eligible students exceed the funds available.