US digital credentialing leader Credly teams up with UK and EU based Digitalme to help individuals demonstrate achievements and employers to see every skill, accelerating the use of digital credentials internationally
LONDON, UK MAY 09, 2017
Digital credential pioneer Credly announced today a partnership with Digitalme, a City & Guilds Group business, to expand the use of digital credentials to recognize skills and talents in the EU. The partnership reflects an evolution in the way achievement is recorded online, empowering individuals to advocate and differentiate themselves with verified, digital evidence – while enabling organizations to find individuals with the right skills to meet their business needs.
The collaboration further expands Credly’s international operations and enhances the technology underpinning the Digitalme platform. As part of this international expansion, Credly has built a dedicated European-based data center which extends its infrastructure to support Digitalme operations and help organizations based in Europe to comply with EU data privacy requirements.
The ability to digitally frame, capture and verify skills and competencies has become critical as employers seek more trusted, granular insights to inform hiring and talent development strategies. Digital credentials provide an agile, responsive, trackable and cost-effective way to do this. They also give individuals, employers, educators and professional associations a common, standards-based approach to verify skills and achievements through data-rich, evidence-based digital badges. Using the globally recognized open badge standard allows individuals to build a single profile of their credentials, no matter where they are issued from and when.
“Working with hundreds of organisations, ranging from schools to universities and major employers and professional associations, we’ve seen first-hand how digital credentials are fast becoming the global learning currency for recognizing and sharing achievements online,” said Chris Kirk, Managing Director of Digitalme. “This new partnership will enable us to scale the impact of digital credentials globally, and provide more relevant and meaningful data points to connect talent with opportunity.”
Under the new partnership, Digitalme will work directly with organisations who enable skills development to help design and implement achievement and recognition systems. This will range from internal workforce development solutions to transnational standards for specific job roles and industry associations.
“Contemporary hiring and talent management requires portable, data-rich tools for communicating industry-aligned skills and competencies,” said Jonathan Finkelstein, Chief Executive Officer of Credly. “Our partnership with Digitalme extends Credly’s international reach through one of Europe’s largest and most respected certification organisations and further demonstrates the viability of digital credentials as the universal currency of competencies. We’ve helped thousands of organizations to issue millions of trusted credentials and we can now work directly with Digitalme to do the same in Europe.”
The Credly and Digitalme collaboration follows last year’s acquisition by the City & Guilds Group of Digitalme, as well as an investment in Credly as part of its New Venture Fund. This places the City & Guilds Group at the forefront of the international digital credentialing movement.
One of the first to deploy digital credentials as a result of this collaboration in Europe is City & Guilds Group business, ILM. ILM is the largest leadership and management awarding organisation in the UK. It assesses and awards employer-recognised qualifications and accreditations to thousands of leaders and apprentices each year. Its new credentialing program includes the retroactive issuing of digital credentials to individuals holding up-to-date paper-based certificates. It is also introducing the live issuing of badging across several new apprenticeship programs.
Speaking about the program, John Yates, Group Director, ILM said: “Digital credentials empower our learners with portable, verified and transparent evidence of achievement, and give employers and training providers much greater flexibility over the delivery and benefits of our programs. The success of our initial launch to qualified leaders, managers, coaches and mentors demonstrates clearly the demand for a technologically-enabled credential. We are excited to be extending digital credentials for all of our qualifications and accredited courses.”
About Digitalme
Digitalme, a City & Guilds Group Business, offers digital credentialing services to help organisations & individuals realise their potential by making all skills visible - http://www.digitalme.co.uk/
Working directly with educators, professional associations, employers and the 3rd sector, Digitalme help these skills enablers to build, design and issue relevant and objective digital credentials and badges
About the City & Guilds Group
About Credly Credly is a leading digital credential service provider, helping the world recognise lifelong achievement with the most popular platforms for verifying, sharing and managing digital credentials and badges. The enterprise-class system allows organisations to officially verify skills and competencies; distribute portable and secure digital credentials and open badges; and gain actionable data and insights. Thousands of education institutions, industry associations, employers and workforce development programs use Credly to make achievements visible. For more information about Credly, please visit http://www.Credly.com.