For the 61 winners of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Pursaskar (PMRBP) 2021 and 2022, the award was special in ways more than one, as they received digital certificates that use blockchain-driven technology created by IIT Kanpur under the National Blockchain Project.

Abhay Karandikar, Director of IIT Kanpur said on Tuesday that in a first, as PM Narendra Modi, conferred the children certificates digitally. He added that this technology can be used to grant all certificates and degrees in the upcoming time.

According to Abhay, the digital certificates will be saved on digital wallets installed on the mobile phones of the recipients. These certificates are verifiable globally, can’t be copied, are selectively disclosable and sensitive to user content.

On Monday, in a tweet, he said that the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur has conferred digital degrees to its students for the first time utilizing the in-house developed blockchain and self-sovereign identity technology.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the chief guest of the premier institute’s convocation ceremony on December 28 the previous year, had introduced the blockchain-based digital degrees on the occasion.

The technology is being implemented by CRUBN, a company providing blockchain solutions. It was incepted by 4 IITians namely Mukul Verma from IIT Bombay and Ras Dwivedi, Nilesh Vasita, Tanmay Yadav from IIT Kanpur – under the mentorship of Prof. Sandeep K Shukla and Padma Shri Prof. Manindra Agarwal, joint coordinators of the National Blockchain Project under the National Security Council Secretariat.