I’ve stepped away from academia to pursue a solution for a web3 public good problem: how do we get university diplomas on a blockchain? The need is obvious to all involved: fraud is rampant and your diploma is a stranded, undervalued asset instead of the cornerstone of your web3 identity. Imagine the possibilities of blockchain diplomas: LinkedIn could verify your university degree; Match.com could leverage your social homophily to identify new matches; my own Alumni Labs is building an exclusive social network for alumni; with blockchain diplomas a whole world of trust suddenly comes online. But, the corporate landscape is riddled with failed attempts (a VC once quipped to me, “university diplomas are a red sea”). Even university-borne, open source projects have failed (MIT’s promising “open standard” got bought by a credentials company and is now languishing with some ineffective business model). The engineering and technology isn’t difficult or complex.