The Center for Shared Science and Business (CSSB) has the statute of a university center at the Technical University of Sofia, an applied science laboratory, established on March 28th 2018 by the Academic Council of TU Sofia on recommendation by the Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Electronic Engineering & Technologies. The Center provides opportunities for the three key parties within the Knowledge Triangle – Academia, Public Sector and Business to benefit from OS.University and other innovative projects, representing a shared platform for R&D collaboration - its focus is on mediating the process of open technologies transfer.

1. Center for Shared Science & Business
About us:
 The Center for Shared Science and Business (CSSB) has
the statute of a university center at the Technical
University of Sofia, an applied science laboratory,
established on March 28th 2018 by the Academic Council
of TU Sofia on recommendation by the Faculty of
Management and the Faculty of Electronic Engineering &
Technologies.
 The Center provides opportunities for the three key parties
within the Knowledge Triangle – Academia, Public Sector
and Business to benefit from a shared platform for R&D
collaboration - its focus is on mediating the process of
open technologies transfer.

2. Center for Shared Science & Business
The Mission: To develop contemporary approaches of
shared science, as well as to maintain a collaboration
between industry and science when it comes to new
knowledge areas development in order to achieve the
strategic goal of transforming Technical University of Sofia
into a leading competitive innovative and hi-tech
university.
The Objective: to perform applied scientific industrial
researches, according to the Bulgarian national priorities,
as well as to the trends of the worldwide science
development; to develop open-source products; to
collaborate with business and manage business projects;
to support implementing scientific results into the practice;
to develop and offer innovative approaches and
methodology in the field of education.
Universities
BusinessGovernment
Education
Entrepr
eneurs
hip
Science

3. Center for Shared Science & Business
Main activities:
 Conducts research, analysis and design of
innovations and business development
guidelines of different actors in contemporary
market economies and industries;
 Elaborates targeted research methodologies
and tools and stimulates TU-Sofia academic
staff personal development and R&D activities;
 Initiates innovative applied projects in TU-Sofia
in the context of Industry 4.0; introduces new
educational technologies and approaches
(Education 4.0), customized curricula and
syllabii;

4. Competence Passport on the Blockchain
An award-winning spin-off research project of
TU-Sofia Center for Shared Science & Business

5. Academic Team
We are coming from various backgrounds - academic, entrepreneur, development - from large tech
companies to startups. Different, yet united, the Open Source University team forms a unique blend of
technology R&D and business development talent.

6. Development Team

7. Partners

8. Project inception
When introduced, OS.University project of TU-Sofia’s
Centre for Shared Science and Business was aimed at
introducing the worldwide approved model of Massive Open
Online Courses (MOOCs) into Bulgarian Higher Education
System with incremental innovations to boost credibility
of achievements.
MOOCs are an educational approach for over 81 milion
students, enrolled under more than 9 400 free academic
online courses offered by over 800 leading HEIs worldwide
through educational platforms such as Coursera and edX.

9. Open online learning

10.  The OS.University Dapp (distributed application)
bridges the gap between businesses and education
through:
o Blockchain, which is used for validating and
verifying learners’ credentials;
o Smart contracts managing educational content
purchases and organization, among other
stakeholder transactions, as well as HR processes.
 We apply principles of open source to re-engineer
the current-state educational model by building a
system to enable better business and education
collaboration.
The project today

11. Blockchain’s use case

12. OS.University’s platform provides a searchable catalogue of
a broad range of courses and programs.
Global Catalogue of Courses
Businesses can reach out to content providers through a
marketplace, powered by reputation system. An “Amazon for
Learning” without “Amazon”, i.e. the middleman.
Tokenized Marketplace
Access to a new, higher quality educational model with
option to curate and customize programs, optimised for
results.
Flexibility & Modularity
Learner’s profile contains verified educational, work
experience, skills & qualifications track record,
Credentials Wallet
Lack of organization in the online ocean of
education and development opportunities.
Dispersion of Content
A decades-old problem that can be solved
by information coordination, trust, and smart
contracts between the parties.
Business & Education Gap
Universities lack modernization & respond
slowly to job market needs; MOOCs gain
popularity, but lack credibility.
Strained Existing Model
Issues with fake diplomas, certifications,
unverified CVs and skillset claims.
Trust & Transparency
Problems & solutions

13. Accreditation
Verification of Skills & Certificates1 Recruitment
Access to verified talent pool2
Corporate L&D
Rising Employee Qualification3

14. Alpha Release
78%UI/UX
70%Front-End
61%Blockchain & Smart Contracts
47%Business Development & Partnerships
14%Onboarding Users
www.dapp.os.university
The first release of the OS.University DApp was
scheduled for June 2018. Stats from the current
progress report can be found below:

15. Technology Stack

16. International Recognition
 We were invited to join the 5th cohort of the
London-based edtech incubator "EDUCATE“,
run by UCL - university number one globally in the
subject of education, together with BESA (British
Educational Suppliers Association) & NESTA.
 We were nominated and became the runner-up for
the “Most innovative Use of Blockchain for Social
Good” 2018 award as part of ''The Blocks" awards
ceremony by the European Blockchain Expo in
Amsterdam.

17. National Recognition
 In the “Outstanding Projects with Social Value-Added”
category of the annual Presidential Awards for IT
research & development excellence, three initiatives
were awarded for their drive to make our citizens’ lifes
easier by offering various services. Among them was the
Open Source University. Jordan Jambazov, a student of
the Technical University, received the prize as the chief
software developer of the platform.
 The research project started a new chapter in its
commercialization journey as part of the „Founder
Institute“ accelerator, which the software development
team joined after winning a pitching competition at
“Betahaus” (Sofia).

18. Knowledge Sharing
 We published the first academic book on the
subject of the application of blockchain in
education. We presented it on conferences at a
number of prestigious universities across Europe
and beyond, including at Tsinghua University.
 The book looks into the theoretical and practical
aspects of the “Open Source University” project that
turns potentially disruptive scenarios into real-life
opportunities for modernization of Academia,
enablement of businesses and empowerment of
students, employees, life-long learners.
Download link: https://bit.ly/2FDUArS

19. Thank you!
oandre@tu-sofia.bg
www.tu-cssb.org
www.os.university