Four and half years ago, when Zain Zaidi was applying to grad school, he submitted his academic transcripts. But, through an administrative error, the documents were lost, and he almost lost his place.
Understanding how someone’s life could be altered by not being able to prove something like an academic credential, Zaidi set out to try and make it easier.
Instead of going to grad school, Zaidi started TransCrypts, which helps companies verify employment information. The blockchain-powered startup recently won CoinDesk’s Pitchfest at Consensus Hong Kong.
Zaidi says if we’re not able to prove data about ourselves, we give up something important about who we are. “We as consumers can’t actually verify who we are, own who we are,” Zaidi told CoinDesk Live after walking off stage.
TransCrypts gives individuals “self-sovereignty” over their ID information, proving their information on-chain.
Zaidi told us the business already generates about $5 million in annual revenue. After employment information, the startup is now expanding into medical records and academic records.
TransCrypts picked up $10,000 in tokens, a trophy and ten coaching sessions.
In the runner-up spot was CredShields, an automated auditing platform that scans, manages, and fixes vulnerabilities in Solidity smart contracts.
Ten other teams competed at Pitchfest at Hong Kong, including Oneverse Technology and Liquidium (both finalists) and semi-finalists Apillon, Domi Chain, GoSats, iBTC, NettyWorth, Tokenyze, Vanilla Finance, and Zypher Network.
The event was presented by Dimitra, a token and toolkit for smallholder farmers.