Miguel Caballero, CEO of educational blockchain platform Tutellus, tells what problems online education faces and how the blockchain techology may help to resolve them.

Millions of students around the world do not have access to quality and inexpensive education. Online education can reduce the social disparity, but students lack the motivation to pass online courses to the end. Blockchain is capable to radically change this situation.

CoinFox: There are a lot of EdTech online platforms now that enable students to develop their skills, upgrade their qualifications, and attend courses of prominent University professors. What is the difference between Tutellus and other EdTech platforms?

Miguel Caballero: We are the only platform that pays user for learning. We believe tradicional EdTech industry is over: all platforms try to offer similar value proposals, and the result is that learning online has the same issues that doing it offline: lack of motivation and painful process for everyone. We are disrupting the industry with a new business model being able to change the market forever.

CF: Despite the abundance of educational courses on the Internet, they can’t replace comprehensive University education: students are not patient enough to complete the course and perform all the tasks. Academic requirements at traditional universities are usually higher and stricter that at online courses. How is this issue solved by Tutellus?

Miguel Caballero: We motivate students with a rewarding system focused on the short term, encouraging them to use better the system: the more you learn, the more tokens (money or relevance) toy get. Traditional system forces you to bet on the long term, waiting years to have (sometimes) results. We stimulate each minute, each hour, each session in the platform, so we get a viral loop between students who help others (earning tokens) and students who have been helped (getting smarter in those skills). Everyone wins.

CF: What is the point of transferring the platform on the blockchain? Why did you choose the NEM blockchain, and not, for example, popular Ethereum?

Miguel Caballero: Blockchain is critical to migrate the Governance from a centralized perspective (tutellus.com) to a decentralized one (tutellus.io): we put decisions in hands of the community through the STUT token governance system. Doing it with Ethereum was expensive, slow and painful (because of our business model). NEM adds a powerful infrastructure and a kind of blockchain and services that match very well with our both side token model.

CF: You intend to connect employers to the Tutellus platform. But what incentives will you offer companies that are used to finding young employees through traditional channels: social media, specialized websites, partnership programs with Universities?

Miguel Caballero: Most of the traditional channels to hire people suffer from lack of credibility: it´s difficult to differentiate good than bad employees because it’s very easy to deceive the system. With our model, offering to employers people with the highest Relevance in the skills they are looking for (based on the most STUT tokens they hold) is basically impossible to hire fake people. Process will be more efficient because they are not based in past accreditation but in actual knowledge.

CF: Do you intend to raise financing from retail investors only, or will investment funds also be buying tokens? How much are funds going to invest? What funds? Can you give examples?

Miguel Caballero: We have space for all kind of investors, from retail to funds. There are also companies interested in holding tokens to be able to use them  in the future to hire people. We are looking for investors aligned with our business model, the ones who share our values and vision and believe in the power of Blockchain to transform an old industry like this one. Learning and teaching will never be the same.