Cryptobounty Certification Program

Problems: Wyoming needs blockchain developers, PoW/PoS operators, and a workforce with a strong fundamental understanding of blockchain technologies.

Currently, the University of Wyoming is trying to solve this through its blockchain and computer science programs, aided by a shift in school philosophy, along with the implementation of the IOHK Blockchain Research and Development Lab. Currently, blockchain education at the Highschool level is rare at best, with only a school or two attempting it at any capacity in the state of Wyoming. The University has expressed the desire to form developmental pathways for Highschool students that will allow them to participate in UW’s Proof of Stake and Proof of Work programs. High School curricular and CTE programs (which is what STEM falls under currently) are required to show accountability for students that have participated in a certain number of semesters in a program. Currently there are no suitable High School level certifications that can be expected to be taught at the Secondary education level that pertain to Blockchain or PoS/PoW infrastructure operations.

The University of Wyoming runs a Cardano stakepool and will need people capable of running and expanding their efforts in validating blocks on Cardano and other chains. Solutions: With industry help (Cryptobounty LLC), we would like to take steps to establish pathways for students to gain Highschool level certifications in Proof of Stake operations on Cardano. We will attempt to achieve this through developing a micro-certification program, similar to the Computer Science Educator micro-credentialing program developed by the state and University to aid in Computer science education. We will issue proof of stake micro-certificates as NFTs on Cardano. Once a student acquires all of the micro-cert NFTs in Stakepool Operation, they may trade those micro-certs in for a Stakpool Operators certificate, which will be recognized by the University and the Wyoming Department of Education. Benefits:

Because there is currently funding in place trying to solve some of these problems, scholarships need to be developed for students that both obtain these certificates and enroll in an applicable UW program. Also, everything we develop will be open-source and can be easily forked and used as a template for other ambitious Secondary/Post-Secondary problems. This micro-certification NFT method can also easily be ported and used for many other things, such as learning a programming language, understanding eUTXO, minting NFTs, etc.

Methods: We will develop a gitbook containing the micro-certification process for becoming a Cryptobounty Certified Stakepool Operator. This gitbook will be developed by High School students. This is going to be a living document, and will be kept up to date so it may best serve our needs over time.