Verifiable Credentials in Action: How IIIT-Bangalore used VCs to Digitise Academic Records

This feature highlights an initiative led by IIIT-Bangalore, the academic institution under which the MOSIP project is incubated. Carried out by one of our trained ecosystem partners, Ooru Digital, the initiative demonstrates how Verifiable Credentials (VCs) can enhance the way academic records are issued. Powered by Inji, MOSIP’s credentialing stack, it serves as an early example of how open-source technology can be applied in real-world contexts.

Academic records – degrees and transcripts – are critical documents for an individual's educational and professional trajectory. Yet, for most, these records remain largely paper-based – easily misplaced, vulnerable to forgery, or delayed during verification. For institutions too, issuing and validating these credentials often involves relying on manual workflows that are time-intensive and difficult to scale. 

While many aspects of public service delivery have transitioned into digital ecosystems, academic credentialing remains an outlier, resulting in avoidable inefficiencies for both students and institutions.

Recognising this gap, the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-Bangalore) – a long-standing supporter of digital public infrastructure projects – wanted to use Inji, MOSIP’s credentialing stack, to issue tamper-evident, QR-based Verifiable Credential digital academic records to its graduating cohort. The institute partnered with Ooru Digital, a trained ecosystem partner of MOSIP, to execute this project.

The Solution: Secure, Shareable Digital Credentials

The collaboration centred on a common goal: to give students lifelong access to their academic records while preserving the trust and authority of the issuing institution.

As part of the project, IIIT-Bangalore issued verifiable digital credentials, including degrees, transcripts, and diplomas, to its graduating cohort. With CredIssuer, a digital credentialing product by Ooru, each credential is embedded with a secure QR code, making it portable, tamper-evident, and easily printable. 

Why does this matter? 

For students, this removes the need to depend on physical copies or institutional intermediaries. They now have a format they can carry with them, across borders, platforms, and applications, always accessible and instantly verifiable.

For institutions, this approach ensures secure delivery and faster verification, all without changing their core infrastructure or processes. It preserves their role as the source of truth, while easing the administrative overhead of issuing and validating credentials at scale.

This collaboration also surfaced a critical future use case: enabling the digitisation of legacy academic records without major infrastructure overhaul. This would enable alumni to benefit from the same secure, digital format, turning past academic milestones into cryptographically secured, easily shareable achievements. Whether for job applications, higher education, or international mobility, these credentials are designed to be future-ready.

1. Data Upload: IIIT-Bangalore’s Examination Office uploads student records in the NAD-format Excel template to the CredIssuer Issuance Portal. These records are based on the post-evaluation data already maintained by the university.
    

2. Credential Generation: The credentialing engine, powered by Inji Certify, processes the uploaded data. Based on selected templates, it generates digitally verifiable credentials, cryptographically signed and embedded with secure QR codes.
    

3. Download & Distribution: The system then generates print-ready CMYK PDFs. These credentials are printed on secure paper and distributed to students during the convocation ceremony. Students also received digital copies for personal storage and sharing.
    

4. Verification Portal: Issued credentials can be verified through IIIT-Bangalore’s dedicated portal, powered by Inji Verify. This allows third parties such as employers or academic institutions to instantly verify authenticity.

“At IIIT-Bangalore, we are always working to improve the academic experience for our students. For example, challenges such as AI-driven deepfakes are raising new concerns around authenticity. Embedding trust through verifiable credentials (VCs) is an important first step toward ensuring the security and authenticity of students’ academic records.”

— Prof. Debabrata Das, Director, IIIT-Bangalore

Built on Inji: Powering a Trusted Credentialing Ecosystem

CredIssuer is built on Inji, MOSIP’s open-source credentialing stack that enables secure, standards-compliant issuance of digital credentials. At its core is Inji Certify, the signing and issuance module that ensures every credential issued is cryptographically secure, tamper-evident, and globally verifiable. CredIssuer uses Inji Certify to generate W3C-compliant verifiable credentials, allowing institutions to issue credentials in a way that is both interoperable and trustworthy. This integration makes it possible to streamline traditional issuance workflows without disrupting existing systems.

Inji is built to support a wide range of use cases, from academic records to government-issued documents and more. As an open-source framework, it enables MOSIP’s partner ecosystem to build customised issuance and verification tools that meet local requirements while aligning with global standards. CredIssuer is one such implementation, and the broader potential extends much further, offering governments and institutions a foundation to create secure, portable, and privacy-respecting credentialing solutions. 

Most recently, the government of Trinidad and Tobago has adopted Inji to issue digital credentials for degrees and transcripts from two universities. This initiative is being implemented by Deloitte, another MOSIP partner.

As the world moves toward trusted, digital-first solutions, this initiative undertaken by IIIT-Bangalore stands out as a forward-looking model for how academic institutions can adapt. It showcases a practical, standards-based approach to issuing secure, verifiable credentials, one that other institutions can easily adopt as they transition toward digital public infrastructure.