  Submitting fake certificates is a common problem in Southeast Asia, which
prevents qualified candidates from getting the jobs they deserve. When applying
for a job, students must provide academic credentials as proof of their
qualifications, acquired both inside and outside the classroom. Verifying
academic documents before hiring is crucial to prevent fraud. Employing
blockchain technology has the potential to address this issue. Blockchain
provides an electronic certificate that is tamper-proof and non-repudiable,
making it difficult for students to manipulate their academic credentials. This
paper presents a prototype for an academic credential verification model that
leverages the security features of blockchain and IPFS (Interplanetary File
System). Certificates are temporarily stored in a database before being
transferred to IPFS, where a unique hash code is generated using a hashing
algorithm. This hash code serves as the certificate's unique identity and is
stored in the blockchain nodes. Companies can verify an applicant's credentials
by searching for the applicant and accessing their already verified
certificates. Utilizing IPFS as a middleman storage platform lowers the
expenses of directly storing massive data on the blockchain. To sum it up, the
proposed solution would make the process of certificate verification more
efficient, secure, and cost-effective. It would save time and resources that
would otherwise be used to manually verify certificates.
