Blockchain in Education Presentation by Andrew Sears for the Aquaduct Project

1. Blockchain in Higher Education
Andrew Sears
President, City Vision University
Aqueduct Project Webinar, October 12, 2018

2. How BlockChain Could Affect Higher Education
 Short term impact
◦ Provides a protocol to authenticate transcripts (likely to be implemented by
National Student Clearinghouse in US)
◦ Creates demand for education programs in Blockchain programming
 Long-term impact
◦ The most interesting function of Blockchain is that it can serve as a “trust
engine” to provide a generalize alternative currency to accredited degrees.
◦ Could provide mechanism to enable mass disintermediation in higher
education
◦ Enables technocratic mechanisms that could replace the government’s role
in accreditation (most likely through a tech company)

3. Disintermediation in Higher Education
Educator Government
Accreditation
Agency
Higher
Education
Institution
Student Employer
Educator Government
Accreditation
Agency
Disintermediating
Entity Student Employer
• Ordination
• MOOCs
• Certificates/Badging
• Blockchain
• Licensing
• Alternative Accreditation

4. Characteristics of Fields Likely to Be Disintermediating First
 Employers are willing to hire skilled workers without accredited
degrees
◦ Tech Companies, Churches
 Qualifications are more effectively objectively assessed
◦ STEM fields, Computer Programming
 There is an incentive not to limit the supply of workers and there
isn’t entrenched professional licensing regulation
◦ Computer Programming

5. Likely Sources of Blockchain Disintermediation
 Need an industry that will accept common currency of trust that is a better
signal than degrees
◦ Most likely will first happen tech industry
 Potential sources Blockchain Disintermediation
◦ Generalize company that becomes “Facebook of the blockchain”
◦ Freelance portal like Upwork.com, Freelancer.com
◦ Existing tech giant: Microsoft/LinkedIn
◦ Education Loan/Financing Companies
◦ Ed Tech Companies like MOOCs
◦ Unlikely: existing higher education entities
 Very likely outcome is that most significant disintermediation comes from
forms other than blockchain

6. Technological Determinism
Vs
= Technology shapes society
 Technology dominates if we let it
 Technocracy dominates
 Example: Inevitability of Disruptive
Innovation
 More likely to happen in unregulated
spaces
 Western “Free market” economies
enable tech determinism
 Becomes more difficult to restrict
over longer periods of time
Social Constructivism
= Society shapes technology
 Depends on the will of society:
China, North Korea, Middle East
 Government policy dominates
 Disruptive innovation theorist
avoid implications of regulation
 Social is dominant in regulated
industries
 Tech disruptors typically avoid
highly regulated spaces
 Inevitability of global competition
limits any one country’s
capacity for regulation

7. Reasons why Wolfe University is Unlikely to Succeed
 Regulatory Reasons: Unlikely to get accredited under Oxford
◦ You are asking permission to launch a revolution by those who would be hurt the most by it
◦ Malta accreditation will be essentially like Maltan currency: if you print a bunch of Maltan
money (degrees) it doesn’t mean you have created a global currency
◦ Disintermediating government from employment credentials would alter the foundation for 60%
of the global economy and would require a social effort greater than the “communist revolution”
 Technology Reasons: Founding Team Lacks Tech Experience
◦ Could Facebook have been invented by a non-technologist?
◦ Is Wolfe a tech fantasy of how blockchain will enable faculty to get their revenge on
administration?
 Market Reasons: Challenges of financial scale
◦ Internet economics require economies of scale, which will likely result in some company
capturing most of the value of disintermediation rather than faculty capturing the value
◦ Netflix (valued at $150 billion) disrupted global video market ($286 billion annual business)
◦ Higher education market globally: $1.9 trillion. Need initial investment to create $1 trillion
company
◦ Since the Web, nearly all major tech “standards” have been dominated by the market
Data from: https://www.statista.com/topics/964/film/ and https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/19-trillion-global-higher-ed-market

8. Concerns about Blockchain in Education: Are We Replacing the
Government’s Role in Education with Technocracy and Will that Be Better?

9. Ten Commandments of the Culture of Technology
1. Measurement over meaning: Value only that which can
be counted.
2. Quantity over quality: Do only those things that affect
millions of people.
3. Ultimate goals over root causes: Focus narrowly on the
end goal to ensure success.
4. Destinationism over path dependency: Ignore history
and context, and take a single hop to the destination.
5. External over internal: Do not expect people to change;
instead, focus exclusively on their external
circumstances.

10. Ten Commandments of the Culture of Technology
6. Innovation over tried-and-true: Never do anything that has been done before, at
least not without new branding.
7. Intelligence over wisdom: Maximize cleverness and creativity, not mundane effort.
Use intelligence and talent to justify arrogance, selfishness, immaturity, and rankism.
(Rankism is abuse, humiliation, exploitation, or subjugation based on any kind of
social rank.
8. Value neutrality over value engagement: Bypass values and ethics by pretending
to value neutrality.
9. Individualism over collectivism: Let competition lead to efficiency; avoid
cooperation, which breeds complacency and corruption. Any inhibition of individual
expression, including compromise to support the common good, is the same as
oppression.
10. Freedom over responsibility: Encourage more choices; discourage discernment in
choosing. Any temperance of liberty, including encouragement of responsibility, is
tantamount to tyranny.

11. “Be in the world but not of it.”
“Be in the culture of technology but not of it.”