Design a scalable verifier platform solution for Gravity digital ID Wallet holder . Design and implement the wire-frames during my work in Gravity as a UX/UI project Manager intern
The first step to building robust identity verification solutions
We wanted to move beyond the digitization of paper forms. This was a platform to help employers easily verify job applicants' identities. It had to be as easy as possible with the help of the tech at Gravity using blockchain.
A particular focus of the project was addressing challenges specific to the almost 4 million strong displaced population, especially Syrian refugees, in Turkey. An initial 2 month period involved field visits to gain insights from representatives from displaced communities, aid organizations and local public institutions. These discussions helped us understand how our decentralized identity solution could address some of the challenges specific to livelihood prospects faced by persons under temporary protection in Turkey.
Turkey hosts more than 4 million refugees, most of them from Syria. Almost all live in towns and cities across Turkey, there are no refugee camps. The Turkish state has spent more than $30 billion on all of this. And the infrastructure that they have built so far with their partners is impressive. There is almost universal access to healthcare and education for children. And the WfP and the Turkish Red Crescent are running one of the biggest cash transfer programs in the world with 1.5 million beneficiaries.
How to find jobs for 4 million people?
During the first month, our focus was to explore the potential of decentralized Identity to improve the livelihoods of Syrian refugees. We had the chance to discuss for hours with people from the refugee community. They shared with us their challenges when it comes to accessing employment and education. Also, we managed to talk with decision-makers from many different organizations. These included the Turkish Directorate General of Migration, UNHCR, UNDP, ILO, the Turkish Red Crescent, and many others.
This is a daunting task, especially when it comes to finding employment. We’ve learned that there are a whole number of barriers that refugees have to overcome to find work.
First, there’s language. The language courses offered are quite short and being in an Arabic speaking environment for most of the day makes it very hard to improve.
Second, there’s a lack of verifiability of their Syrian education credentials. Sometimes, the certificate itself is missing, sometimes it’s there but not certified by the right entity.
Third, there’s discrimination by employers that exploit the fact that refugees often have little legal means if they are not being paid. Fourth, quotas limit the number of Syrian refugees one company can employ.
we have been working on a collaborative project for issuing official records to recipients, and anchoring them onto the Bitcoin blockchain. It allows education providers, employers, and others to issue official certificates that supply proof of membership, completion, or achievement.
Our goal is to help create an entirely new environment where individuals are the custodians of their official records and can easily share those records with others.
Key users:
Students don’t have easy access to their official records and typically have to pay money to have them shared with others.
Lifelong learners have no meaningful way to insert the wider array of experiences and achievements into their official academic record.
Displaced peoples (refugees) can lose their history and have no way of proving who they are (i.e. doctors or lawyers).
Employers have given up asking for transcripts to be sent (too difficult, slow, and increasingly less relevant).
Colleges and Universities wait too long for official documents to arrive during admissions and spend too much effort trying to connect them with the right application.
All of these problems are solved when individuals are empowered to be their own record keepers and when the database (the blockchain) is not owned by any company or government.
These certificates can be collected by individuals and shared directly with anyone who requires official documents. The Bitcoin blockchain is currently being used as the secure anchor of trust to ensure that each certificate is authentic, unchanged, and still valid. If another open, immutable data store is proven reliable — for example, Ethereum’s public blockchain — issuing to those resources can easily be included.
One woman even mentioned that she could get her diploma certified by a body of the temporary government of Syria. But she is shying away from doing that out of fear of retaliation if she ever goes back and the government has changed. What makes things worse is that many Syrian refugees are well qualified. While the group we spoke with was certainly not representative, there were people with law degrees, a PhD in chemistry, and a veterinarian.
My mission in the team was to develop the wire-frames for the employer's verifier platform and tested ASAP I worked closely with the product owner to make sure that all the features are implemented well.
Like I mentioned before, in this project I worked only on the wire-frames so we can move fast and test it with our users in this case employers.
During the project, beneficiaries were able to create decentralized identity based digital wallets to request educational credentials (in the form of digital certificates) from GSO & GESOB as proof of their training experiences. They could then share these digital certificates and other relevant information with a total of 7 enterprises (in sectors ranging from hardware and mechanical manufacturing to information technology and cosmetics) with job openings. Overtime, beneficiaries can accumulate additional relevant data in their wallets to form cohesive profiles reflective of their work and educational experiences.
Employers were also able to verify the authenticity and origin of these certificates via a verification portal, allowing them to rest assured of the job applicants’ skills and competencies.
