Chitkara University is India’s First Institution to Use Blockchain Technology for Issuing E-documents

Chandigarh-based Chitkara University, a University Grants Commission (UGC) recognized private university offering multi-disciplinary industry relevant programs, has announced that it has started adopting the Blockchain technology to issue e-documents for student’s benefit.

By doing so, Chitkara becomes the first university in India and will be among the handful educational institutes in the world to issue and verify useful academic documents for students via Blockchain.

Blockchain is a shared, secured and public ledger system that is the most talked about database in the world today. It is a sequential transaction database that is crowd managed with every transaction bunched into a block, validated with timestamps and stored using strong cryptography.

This development is the result of the university adopting HashDegree, a blockchain technology enabled solution from Hashcove  which is a subsidiary of Indian fintech major uTrade solutions.

How Students are Benefitted by Blockchain?

• Every academic certification will have a unique quick response (QR) code. For document verification, students only have to share this code digitally to the concerned authority requisitioning it, without having to post or courier physical copies.
• Avoids the hassle of photocopying and notarizing mark sheets, education degrees and other relevant certifications.
• Would benefit students aspiring for higher education abroad.

Speaking about the successful adoption of blockchain, Dr. Madhu Chitkara, Vice Chancellor, Chitkara University said, “We are happy to announce the issuance of the first set of e-documents today using blockchain, making us the pioneers of adopting this revolutionary technology in India. In line with the university’s vision, the adoption of HashDegree is a step that is indicative of our innovation centric approach to promote academic excellence. We’d like to see our partnership with uTrade’s Hashcove deepen in the future with the adoption of more such technologically advanced products.”

Kunal Nandwani, Co-Founder and CEO, uTrade Solutions said, "Our subsidiary Hashcove is committed to building breakthrough blockchain solutions like HashDegree that offers hybrid models across the offline and online world. The degrees issued on blockchain have a physical certificate with a QR code leading to the blockchain. We are trying to bring efficiencies in the existing workflows, while keeping it backwardly compatible too. It’s a matter of time everyone follows this blockchain platform."

Educational institutions such as schools, colleges, universities, training institutes as well as e-learning portals can stand to benefit from blockchain as the issuance and verification of academic documents can be done within seconds, thereby making the process faster, more cost effective besides reducing the counterfeiting of such documents.

About Chitkara University

Chitkara University has got two independent campuses located respectively in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh almost equidistant (about 30 Kms) from Chandigarh. Both the universities are approved by UGC and offer industry – relevant programs in the areas of Engineering, business administration, health care sciences, mass media, hospitality, education and architecture etc. As a result of their student-centric approach, Chitkara University is renowned as one of the best private universities in North India.