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I am an educator involved in the planning, design and teaching of students in my institution. Being involved in many forums with hiring managers, learners and education institutions, I think that Open Source University has nailed it by introducing blockchain technology to address various issues that are faced by academia, education, learners and various businesses. They do so not just because Blockchain is the new 'in-thing' but by addressing the challenges in these various fields. 

### **Addressing the problems**

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZEaRwLUx7kbCrDed6SbS6ZDL82QsgxjLpVCVLLcxPPVm/image.png)
[Image source](https://os.university/static/open-source-university-edu-whitepaper.pdf)</center>

One of the biggest challenges government or any private tertiary education institutions face is money and location. The government would need to set up  universities to cater for the needs of a particular location. On the other hand, private tertiary education institution would find desirable locations  difficult due to high rental costs and competition from other institutions. 

Open Source University (OSU) removes these barriers, allowing students to choose the courses. OSU offers courses online regardless of politics and location, allowing students to study any course anywhere at any time at their convenience. This also helps managing the students by tertiary education institution as the fees are lower through the EDU token and record keeping can be done much more efficiently as compared to conventional methods. 

This contributes towards the economy as a whole where businesses will be able to hire the students with the right skill set. This is done through cost effective search functions and monitoring services as provided by OSU. Not only will this help in the company's business, but it helps the company focus on other aspects of the business aside from just the hiring aspect. In addition, companies can also leverage OSU to help monitor their employees' skill acquisition. Traiing is indeed necessary to help the workers stay relevant in this ever changing world and OSU can help manage that. 

### **Reaching further**

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVYErUazTi3vSCF89Evm7h3fUv6Ri91F3HBw4Cp8KqnRa/image.png)
[Image source](https://os.university/static/open-source-university-edu-whitepaper.pdf)</center>

As much as there are many advantages, I think OSU can go further, leveraging the connections between academia and businesses to curate the right skill set required by companies. Want to work for Google but there is no Google 101 in university? No problem, OSU can curate a list of courses for that. 

Businesses will thus be able to hire people based on their interests on working for a particular company and students would not have to spend a lot of time figuring out what to study. Instead, the students can just decide who they want to work for , search for the list of courses and pursue that. If they do not like it, they can just transfer the credits or skills to other job sets as this is one of OSUs many functions. 

That being said, I think one aspect that OSU can seal its dominance in the education industry is by carrying out a study, recording the success of the students who have gone from using OSU to finding a job. I think this would be a powerful testimony to OSU's effectiveness. Furthermore, feasibility studies are written about OSU, another case study or experimental research can be conducted to prove how OSU is the future of the education industry.  

### **Final thoughts**
Of course, this does not change the fact that Open Source University and the EDU tokens will revolutionize the education industry. I have personally written something similar on [education and the blockchain technology being used in tandem](https://steemit.com/sndbox/@alvinauh/gamification-and-blockchain-in-education). However I do believe that with discussion and competitions as this one organized by @originalworks, I believe that the developers of Open Source University would be able to roll out a more refined system that will benefit not just the education industry, but the various industries that hire through this platform. 

<hr>

This post is written fro a [competition](https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@originalworks/150-sbd-sponsored-writing-contest-open-source-university) by @originalworks.

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