MPS Awarded for Innovative Solution

M Powered Strategies is proud to have been selected as one of the winning candidates for an innovation award hosted by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), the American Council on Education (ACE), the Lumina Foundation, and Credly.com for Closing the Skills Gap with Digital Credentials. The solution proposed by M Powered Strategies was selected as one of the top three winners out of more than 200 submissions.

Digital credentials are a method for verifying an individual’s abilities and accomplishments through accessible and portable digitized certificates. They are similar to traditional certifications (such as PE, CMP, and CAE) but narrower and more responsive to evolving skill requirements in any industry. The concept behind these credentials was pioneered by the Mozilla Foundation and Peer 2 Peer University in 2011, but the credentials have not gained much traction outside of the programming and computer science communities since then.

First, MPS identified four essential components of a successful digital credential:

  • A credential must be applicable and provide meaningful information about an individual’s capability.
  • A credential must by adopted by enough individuals who have demonstrated high performance to warrant acknowledgement by others in the field.
  • A credential must be recognized as legitimate and valuable, and issued by a trusted authority.
  • A credential must by portable between organizations,.

Secondly, we stipulated that all of these components need to be addressed simultaneously. Efforts spent addressing only one would be overwhelmed by deficiencies in the other three, which is what has frustrated efforts to develop digital credential programs in other fields.

We proposed to expand the reach and relevance of digital credentials via:

  • A social extranet platform to encourage adoption, through active and continuous engagement, and immediate recognition of credentials.
  • An accreditation system to encourage recognition.
  • A system of federated digital authority to encourage portability, and community building to reinforce applicability.

To develop this solution, the MPS team synthesized our expertise in IT governance, performance management, certification program design, educational program development, and implementation of social extranet solutions. We look forward to developing innovative solutions to industry challenges as we continue to expand our services in the nonprofit sector.

For more information about how MPS can support your organization with creative solutions to challenging integration problems, contact our Account Manager for Association Consulting, Davin Hattaway, CAE.