A web3 edtech startup built on EDU Chain with Harish Kotra and Hazel Rodrigues — all three of us ex-colleagues from Tribe.
the problem
Credentials are fragmented. A person's learning journey — courses, certifications, badges, bootcamps — lives across dozens of platforms with no coherent picture of what they actually know. For employers and learners alike, there's no single source of truth.
what we built
POAPedu gave learners a universal skill profile on-chain. The core product:
- On-chain credential aggregation — learning certifications and badges minted as NFTs on EDU Chain, creating a verifiable, portable record of achievement
- GenAI skill tree — an AI layer that inferred skills from course curricula and mapped them into a structured skill tree, turning raw credentials into a career planning tool
- Career planning layer — learners could see skill gaps relative to target roles, and employers could assess candidates against a verifiable, structured profile
the hackathon
We entered the EDU Chain Hackathon Semester 1 — 725 submissions from 4,500 participants globally. We competed in the Infrastructure track and placed 2nd.
Full submission with demo video and screenshots: dorahacks.io/buidl/14755
funding
We received grants from the EDU Chain / Open Campus Foundation following the hackathon.
what happened
No momentum after the initial grant. The product vision was solid but we couldn't generate the pull needed to sustain it. Shelved.