Current Climate:

Soulmynt - Whitepaper

We are in the midst of an information revolution.

With more and more information being available at the click of a button, people are choosing to spend their time in different ways than they may have in the past. Learning skills online through courses, coaches, and more is becoming increasingly popular with the new generation.

However, nine in ten company executives believe that their organizations face skill gaps or expect them to develop, according to a McKinsey survey on global workforce needs. In addition, according to a Northeastern + Gallup study interviewing 10,000 people from the US, UK, and Canada, most people believe that lifelong learning through your skills, affiliations, and experiences is extremely important as we go into an AI/Automation led future, but current higher education, businesses, and government fail to provide these solutions. People may spend their time obtaining these credentials and skills in their personal time, but understandably this can be difficult due to their circumstances. Companies and groups alike need a way to promote learning and skills by issuing credentials. This, in tandem with skill-based hiring, would enable organizations to reduce skill gaps. At the same time, people can learn and obtain verifiable, lifelong skills and credentials. In addition, a survey of 372 managers by McCartney and Holbeche (2003) found that 54% of managers said that the biggest single demotivator for employees is a lack of recognition. According to Bersin by Deloitte, companies that have built out a recognition program are 12x more likely to succeed. By issuing badges of recognition, companies can promote a positive workplace environment where employees feel motivated to accomplish more, while also working towards stronger business outcomes.

It's no secret that blockchain technology is on the rise. According to Blockdata, 81 of the top 100 companies are using this technology. However, it is not just companies utilizing the blockchain. In fact, new-age entrepreneurs are aiming to get into the space as well, through NFT projects and more. In a report by nonfungible.com, Q1 of 2021 saw $2 billion worth of NFT sales, a 131x increase from Q1 of 2020. However, there are no NFTs representing credentials or awards with groups or companies because currently, NFTs are strictly transferrable. Thus, there is currently no way for an entrepreneur to distribute credentials and affiliation for their group on the blockchain.

Here are a few examples, but in reality, the possibilities are endless.

1. Someone who owns a coaching business can issue tokens to their clients on-chain.

2. Someone who created a course can issue tokens to the people who completed it.

3. Members of a church group all hold tokens that say they are affiliated with it.

In our current climate, the ways in which these credentials, affiliations, and awards are created and shared are flawed and outdated. Currently, the world takes a "web2" approach to credentials and affiliations. For the most part, this comes in the form of resumes, and in a few cases, "web2" digital credentials. We will go into the roadblocks of both of these approaches and later talk about how Soulmynt aims to solve these issues.

Resumes

There are countless resume templates. Job seekers spend weeks if not months polishing their resumes using these templates before "recruiting season," just to get rejected by a resume parser (ATS) that may not have parsed the resume correctly. People should not have to worry about spending this time, but rather use the time for other things important to them. At its root, resumes are simply words on a piece of paper. They would have much more meaning and credibility to them if they were verifiable by potential employers.

On the employer side, there is no way to efficiently and adequately verify that the information on a resume is accurate. Potential risks include applicants overexaggerating the extent of their skills and experiences, inaccurate representation of soft skills, and simply not telling the truth. In addition, the time that employers spend actually verifying information in our current ecosystem is highly time-consuming. Companies will call previous employers, affiliated groups, etc. associated with a candidate to verify that information is true because there is no efficient way to currently do so.

Resumes regarding both sides of the spectrum have their gaps and are overall flawed in regard to time and money.

"Web2" Digital Credentials

Digital credentials are an improvement to the widely adopted resume method but there are still flaws. They are usually sent through an email or text message, or are on the user's account for the specific application in which they obtained this credential. There is no central "hub" that holds all of a person's credentials and because of this, there is no efficient way to gauge if someone is a good fit for a company/group in the application process. Furthermore, a user is at risk of accidentally "deleting" their digital credential and "losing" that affiliation. How can someone prove they actually were a part of the group or did the work that they were claiming? Usually, companies would need to check this by conducting background checks. However, this is highly inefficient and time-consuming. What else can be done?

Soulmynt aims to solve these issues and more using blockchain technology.