Diwala

1.8 billion people lack an identity that can prove who they are, what they have done, and what they can do.COVID-19 has exacerbated preexisting challenges and inefficiencies faced by institutions and companies in issuing proof of skills and for talent and businesses to showcase their skills. 

Diwala allows institutions to safely and securely issue verifiable credentials to students, enabling trainees and companies to access and share verification of their achievements, and employers and investors are to digitally verify this information safely knowing the information is authentic. 

Through combating invalid credentialing processes, Diwala builds back trust in information, saving all parties time and resources. With Diwala we can enable over 428 million African employees and businesses to tap into the international job market and financial opportunities. By offering a safe documentation exchange tool, we give people more visibility, flexibility, and control of their data, allowing them to access the digital economy.

1.8 billion people lack an identity that can prove who they are, what they have done, and what they can do. Due to COVID-19, thousands of people have lost their jobs and over 1.6 billion people are likely to remain unemployed after the pandemic. With physical interaction limited between institutions and students, and job seekers failing to return to their institutions due to geographical lockdowns, many are unable to access and retrieve the credentials they need to apply for jobs or to access finance. 

For employers, banks, or investors, verification of credentials has become more costly and time-consuming with institutions taking even longer to provide feedback due to their operations being disrupted by the pandemic. Organizations are spending hundreds of hours monthly on the verification of documents, losing time and money. 

Educators and skill trainers experience challenges with corruption and forged credentials and need a safe and efficient way to issue certificates that protect their identity and staff. They also need reliable data to know what skills are needed in the market, to align their education thereafter. 

Lack of verified information about current skills needed is causing a growing skill gap worldwide, enhancing problems like nepotism and poor career guidance.

Diwala is a digital solution that enables any organization to issue and verify digital proof of data to people and businesses.

The Diwala platform allows institutions to safely issue digitally verifiable certificates and skill identities to trainees and companies. These credentials issued through the platform cannot be forged thus protecting institutions’ reputation. Anyone looking to verify these credentials can do so in seconds on the Diwala platform. 

By issuing skill identities to African talent, we are building an ecosystem of trust. A skill identity contains a person's verified skills, education & work history thus making the information therein authentic and traceable back to its authentic source. This is possible by the use of digital identities and blockchain technology.

Diwala´s digital Skill ID mobile application enables graduates, entrepreneurs and job seekers, to easily access, request, and share their credentials with interested employers, and showcases job suggestions and skill training based on one’s career choices. 

Not only does the platform make issuance and verification more effective, it also reduces costs for employers and recruiters, when screening for job applications. The Diwala platform allows employers direct contact with verified talent and can be utilized to mobilize students and professionals on the African continent.

Africa has the fastest-growing talent hub and workforce in the world, with an estimated talent base of 500 million people. growing every year. Looking globally, 1.8 billion people lack an identity that can prove who they are, what they have done, and what they can do. We look to enable as many people as possible with an SSI identity that holds verifiable credentials. We focus on building inclusive technology, making sure that we build functionalities that works with limited access to smartphones and the internet.

The Diwala platform meets the needs of any organization who seeks to issue secure and verifiable certificates and credentials in a more time-efficient, resource-friendly, and safe manner. Especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that requires social distancing;

We especially work to help job seekers that seek a way to access, request, and share verification of skills and experience anywhere they are at any time hence getting access to more global opportunities. Especially at a time when they are desperately trying to find jobs and employers that seek a simple way to connect, request and verify potential candidates’ credentials. 

Diwala has been working and developing the platform and application in collaboration with schools and employers in Uganda over the last 3 years. We develop our services from user insight and needs, with regular user testing and getting to know our users in the market. Read more about our user testing processes here: https://medium.com/diwala/the-importance-of-user-testing-8942258c524f

The increased level of unemployment is critical to understand how we can enable economic growth. Diwala enables organizations to get the African workforce online and connected through an easy way to verify who you are and what they have done.

It's essential to be digital literate in the digital economy. Diwala is partnering with organizations to tackle the very basics of digital literacy and onboarding. We build educational content and assessment to verify their digital literacy. This data gives relevant actors insight into what the labour force needs and expand what can unlock opportunities and capital to the local market.

We have currently on-boarded 34 institutions in over 6 African countries i.e. Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Ghana with over 2,000 users and 1,845 credentials issued. For verification, 50 top employers in Africa have expressed interest in using our platform.

We are exploring new use cases with important actors and government bodies in the region i.e. API integrations with BrighterMonday (Uganda’s leading recruitment/HR services platform) and Strathmore University (a leading private non-profit University in Kenya/East Africa); Digital Literacy and Aptitude Testing with the Education Service Commission (mandated to appoint all education service personnel and is responsible for approximately 70% of the public service of Uganda); and expanding credentialing and issuing for individuals and businesses with the National Social Security Fund (a National Provident Fund providing social security services to employees in Uganda).

We are also in discussions with partners to expand further into Rwanda, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Our platform enables transparency on both individual and organizational levels on issuing and signing of data with handwritten visualization of cryptographic secure signatures. We argue that this function builds an important cultural bridge to trust digital signatures and in return combat invalid credentialing processes. Enabling the use of cryptographic secure signatures hold institutions more accountable for their training, as well as the people managing this data. Our Skill Identity application allows people to build a verifiable track record of verified information about a person or business so that they connect with a job or investment opportunities quickly. This can enable over 428 million people across Africa to access job opportunities faster and enable them to tap into the international work market. Our core value is building innovative and inclusive technology, which is why we have developed functionalities that give all students in a class a digitally verifiable certificate, even those who do not own a smartphone. 

By enabling access and sharing of data, Diwala can further connect both people and businesses to investors and companies. Access to capital to scale your business is one of the biggest challenges for African entrepreneurs. A Diwala track record of credentials, licenses, and training can build greater KYC knowledge and insight in the market and unlock access to capital and global opportunities. For the government or education sector, the platform can supply dynamic labor market analytics of future skills by analyzing talent data to drive decisions.

Currently: 2030 users 

In 1 year: 49 000 - 100 000

In 5 years: 3 000 000 - 5 000 000

We measure our progress towards our impact goals in OKRs, Milestone achievements, and by analysing User Insight and Feedback. We track how many times people share and verify their credentials. We continuously share insights with key stakeholders and investors that hold us accountable to our goals.

11 people working full time

Our dedicated team has international experience in education, technology development, business, marketing, product design, and blockchain technology.

CEO Thea is a holistic problem solver with the grit and energy to drive action. A visionary holistic thinker with 10 years of experience in creating social impact projects globally. Thea has a highly diverse background working with Mastercard, Adidas, and the UN. A globally recognized speaker in development innovation, blockchain, and entrepreneurship.

Structured and driven problem solver and CTO, Snorre Lothar von Gohren Edwin is one of Norway's top Blockchain Experts, leading the Nordic SSI initiative DIN. Recognized speaker and panelist in the Self-sovereign Identity and blockchain community.

Our flexible and curious CCO Marina has 10 years of work experience in brand strategy, concept and product development, communication, visual design, art direction & project management. 

Our Head of Sales Irene, is a Communications and HR Professional with over 10 years of work experience in media, education, HR, and technology sectors, giving her a holistic understanding of Diwala's value proposition.

Systematic and strategic Graeme is our enterprise systems consultant with solid experience in aligning information systems with business needs over the last 8 years. 

Our goal-oriented UX Designer Carmel has diverse experience across multiple industries in both established and start-up companies. Her passion is to ensure the user’s experience with the product is the best it can be.

The rest of the tech team consists of full-stack + front and back end developers, laser-focused on delivering secure, inclusive, and sustainable technological solutions.

Diwala has a fully remote, diverse, and skilled team, with members from Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Norway, Ireland, Sri Lanka, and India. When we hire, we make sure to find people all over the world that can relate to the challenges we are addressing, with leadership potential, who want to grow and build their career. Our leadership team consists of 3 women and 1 male. We expect everyone to work autonomously and to own their areas of responsibility. We collectively prioritize and make most decisions together. Decisions needing swift and experienced decisions are handled by our founders, CEO, and our new Head of Sales. Our CEO usually doesn't speak her opinion until she has heard everyone's input, making sure everyone can express their opinions. Our Team Culture values focus on Critical Decision Making, Accountability, Integrity, curiosity, being humble and active listeners, working with resourcefulness, compassion, and grit for the cause. When developing products, we build with a high ethical compass, focused on human centered-technology and being politically neutral.

Our CTO” s passion for remote process and structure has safeguarded us to keep alignment and management with the team across the world, even though the pandemic. We also make sure to have monthly 1-1’s with all team members, to check in on their progress, work, development, and menthol safe being.

We like to think of the Diwala team as a steady ship sailing through the storm. We keep calm, work steadily towards our goals and help each other as best we can.

We believe MIT SOLVE has a network of great expertise when it comes to building social impact ventures. Which is why we think it would greatly benefit how we best acquire the right expertise to grow the company successfully and also be matched with relevant institutions, distribution partners and organizations.

We have learned throughout our journey that finding like-minded, driven enthusiastic people is always a potential opportunity down the road, and we don't want to miss out on any opportunities for Diwala. We are always looking for actors that we can collaborate with that are operating in the East and West African market, especially in sectors of tech, health, business, agriculture, and construction, that is something we are looking for continuously. We are focused on East and West Africa now, but we are building a solution that is applicable worldwide as there is a consistent challenge with a lack of trust in data. We think having access to transparent data is essential to build in years to come.

Diwala has since its inception, been focused on creating opportunities for people in displaced communities, which is why we have created Skill identities.

Take Ischa Najjar’s story, who was a doctor in Syria until war turned her into a refugee. She found safety in the United States, but amid the chaos of her flight, her medical academic records vanished. She had little choice but to repeat medical school. Millions of displaced people and people in emerging markets face similar problems each year. Without proof of training, organizations are reluctant to give people a chance for employment. Tedious and outdated verification processes also prevent people from proving their skills and education, resulting in them missing out on jobs or repeating years of schooling.

If Ischa Najjar, or any other displaced person had their certificates and documents in their Diwala Skill ID, the records would be safe and retrievable - no matter if Ischa lost her phone or the school disappeared because of war.

We in Diwala are working to change the misperception of refugees. A refugee is as skilled and valuable as any other person - and should not be judged down because of his or her unfortunate situation. Should we be so humble to receive the The Andan Prize, we will invest heavy efforts to expand our platform in displaced communities and rural areas - and keep building the Diwala platform and Skill ID mobile app, to be a valuable tool to combat the invalid perceptions of refugees.

Diwala is working to enable ownership of personal information by giving each user a digital skill identity. By issuing skill identities, we give people more control and flexibility in terms of sharing their information, making it easier for recruiters, government bodies, and employers to receive and verify their documentation. A skill identity focuses only on verified skills and achievements, not gender or nationality.

We want to help women and girls both in urban and rural areas, linking them with more opportunities for further education and work. Our career Guidance feature in our app will focus on just that - so women and girls all over the world can enhance their learning abilities and opportunities for work. 

The Diwala platform has been developed with collaboration partners on the ground in Uganda where we have learned that gender equality in both the educational and employment sector is a big challenge

If we are selected for the Innovation for Women Prize, we will use the opportunity to incentivize special opportunities for women and bring transparency and accountability to the people providing training and employment. We also aim to build better reporting and feedback mechanisms in our platform and application making sure there is full transparency on hiring mechanisms. 

As 60% of our founding team are female, we are highly aware of the challenges it takes for women to build businesses and exceed in their jobs. We would especially shine a light on these issues and provide resources and help through our app.