Meet the Romanian entrepreneurs that want to use the power of the blockchain to reward students that enroll of their micro-learning platform.

Bogdan Ciubotaru founded the micro-learning platform Code of Talent several months ago together with Vlad Grigoriu, Marius Opris and Adela Grigoriu. Their goal is quite straightforward – to have 1.8 million leaners with 15,000 active educators and 30,000 micro-learning courses on their platform by 2021. Some estimates stated that 375 million people will need to change occupational categories by 2030, which means they will also need additional training.

“Code of Talent emerged as a response to the lack of engagement and efficiency that exists when people are trying to learn new things and develop their skills. Online learning faces dramatic lows in terms of completion rates – which are under 10 percent. Micro-learning solves this problem, accelerates learning and makes it more efficient,” Ciubotaru, the CEO of the start-up, told BR.

Their “secret sauce” is the personalized user learning experience and enhanced levels of interaction and gamification obtained through an extensive research&development program.

“Code of Talent’s micro-learning platform can be use in both classrooms (in school or after-school) and online. It transforms the content making in more digestible, exciting and interactive. Learning becomes faster and more efficient. The platform is global and free – anyone could enroll and be a student or a teacher,” he explained.

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EUR 600,000 – the investment in Code of Talent up to now

The start-up is also attempting to feed more competition in the education system, which has been historically more rigid. Instructors are rewarded based on the feedback and ratings they get from students, thus encouraging them to stay up-to-date with the latest labor market requirements and student needs

Ciubotaru says the product is co-developed by Ascendis, one of the leading L&D companies of the Central & Eastern Europe and Co-factor, an industry awarded expert in digital engagement. Code of Talent has already been able to secure a pipeline of paying customers that includes multinational groups such as Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, BRD and JTI. His experience in the corporate sector might have helped attract the attention of large companies. Ciubotaru has over 18 years’ worth of experience in industries such as IT/Software, Education, Online Market Research and Telecom. He managed multinational, medium-size and entrepreneurial companies and coordinated diverse teams and complex projects, with global footprint.

Smart contracts for students

With distractions all around us, just count how many times you check your smartphone per day, the challenge of the start-up is to make sure students are focused on what’s happening on the platform. Code of Talent developed a mechanism on the blockchain through which students are encouraged to solve the tasks.

“All the courses on the platform may be built with easy to use micro-learning framework, encompassing best of breed gamification and interaction techniques. There will be 10 minutes daily learning sessions and direct interaction with the educator, within groups of maximum 40 participants,” he explained

“We have the blockchain rewarding system. Now, a student gets paid to learn. Teachers get incentivized for their courses on a merit-based algorithm and can become premium content providers is they pass quality tests,” added the entrepreneur.

In addition, the platform stores the learner’s accomplishments on the blockchain making it immutable so that everyone interested can see what their acquired skills are.

According to its White Paper, the Code of Talent’s platform will use Ethereum’s smart contract mechanism to incentivize its users on a merit-based system by allocating a specific number of tokens for this purpose.

The platform is a “working product” as Ciubotaru puts it and the founders want to attract financing for development. Up to now, over EUR 600,000 was invested in Code of Talent and the Romanian team wants to raise some USD 28 million from an Initial Coin Offering (ICO).

The start-up currently has offices in Romania and plans to open new offices in the US, Russia, India and also cover Africa and Latin America.