Kelly Robertson
By now you have probably realized that the mantra of today’s crypto company makers is simple – “if something can be decentralized – it should be done.” The (crypto) wave started with peer-to-peer money transfers, and now we have a number of services that have their decentralized counterparts in the making.
Decentralizing education
You can already find a number of solid education services on the Web that aim to connect students and teachers. In this model, however, the vast majority of money is being kept by the platform provider. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — it wasn’t easy to develop the underlying software in the first place — but there is a better way, to use blockchain.
And that’s what ODEM, short for On-Demand Education Marketplace, is trying to do, all while cutting inefficiencies in the system, and directly connecting students and teachers. Once live, the service will work across borders, to for instance, connect students in Africa with teachers in, say, New York.
Similarly to centralized offerings, it too would make it simpler for students to learn new things — online education works from home and there are no transportation costs of any kind.
In the background, there is an Ethereum blockchain that runs a smart contract to simplify all the agreements between students and professors. These agreements, in case you wonder, would be settled in ODEM tokens, the service’s own cryptocurrency, which ensures lower fees and fast transaction times.
Token sale
Like many other blockchain-based projects, ODEM has decided to crowdfund its way to the market. The company is in the midst of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and you may be able to join the party.
When we say “may,” we want to say this ICO is not as open as some others we’ve seen; it follows certain KYC (Know Your Customer) rules. If you’re interested, you will have to provide some details about yourself which ODEM will then send to regulators before they can ascertain that you are eligible to invest in the token sale.
You can get more details about the requirements from ODEM’s website; while there, you may also want to consider backing their efforts. It’s your call.
