According to Forbes, the education market currently possesses a net market pull of around US$4.6 – 6 trillion. However, due to escalating tuition fees and increasing student debt, the gap between college training and job requirements has been steadily increasing over the past decade or so.

ODEM, or On-Demand Education Marketplace, is a blockchain-based distributed network that allows university students to seamlessly interact with their professors and academic partners. Through the creation of nuanced digital channels, ODEM makes it possible for users to come together to raise the quality of accessible education at a reasonable cost.

Additionally, the ODEM platform allows qualified and trusted individuals from across the global education scene to create customized curriculums that can help students gain practical knowledge about the market at large and allow them to gain hands-on experience within various industrial sectors. Not only that, ODEM provides students with more choices for housing, transportation, and other necessities, thereby allowing international as well as local students to take ownership of their educations.

Lastly, through the use of its highly interactive UI, ODEM is able to facilitate live, in-classroom experiences that are supported by online modules. All internal transactions are facilitated by Ethereum-based smart contracts which allow for complete transparency in all dealings pertaining to students and their professors.

Overview of the platform

• It helps regulate student fees and brings down the annual cost of four-year and graduate education.
• It creates decentralized channels where academics from diverse fields can come together and interact with one another.
• ODEM addresses the diverse needs of students, educators and service providers by using blockchain technology.
• It increases transparency within educational institutions and helps reduce the cost of higher education.

Key Features

To start off with, ODEM connects students with various educational hubs via a smart contract-based payment platform. As a result, academic scholars can interact directly with one another and participate in the exchange of education and learning, without the involvement of intermediaries.

Overview of the ODEM ecosystem

Also worth mentioning is the fact that this service allows users to access custom-designed courses and educational programs that can help them find a curriculum that meets their particular needs.

Other key aspects of ODEM include the following:

• Helps provide streamlined educational access to both local and international students
• Establishes a uniform community in which students and service providers can communicate with each other in a highly secure environment
• Provides network participants with a highly efficient pathway for sharing and understanding the details needed to meet the specifications of the global student workforce
• Creates a single, real-time system of negotiation, curriculum descriptions, and payments for schedules that have been agreed upon beforehand.

Technical overview of the native platform

Lastly, unlike the educational model used by online service providers such as Coursera and Khan Academy, where all teacher-student interaction is maintained virtually, ODEM creates customized in-person educational programs that prepare students for real-world jobs and businesses. According to the official whitepaper, the majority of ODEM’s current offerings are onsite educational experiences.

How it works

ODEM’s users can participate in a wide variety of educational offerings, whether they are applying for a single lecture or a more extensive week-long training event. Students and educators around the world also have the opportunity to connect with one another at any price point.

Visual representation of how the system works

The ODEM platform serves as a means of buying or selling customized educational and training courses across borders. This is achieved by deploying a set of programs that are based entirely within the Ethereum blockchain.

Thanks to blockchain technology, ODEM delivers a high level of transparency and ease of payment. All one has to do is log in to the platform and then decide which services to purchase. Once this is done, a record of each individual purchase is stored on the blockchain.

Lastly, all functions and activities performed prior to purchasing, like searching for or adding a new curriculum, is handled by an off-chain platform.

About the project

Considering the rich technological offerings that ODEM has to offer, it can be beneficial for the readers of this article to learn more about the people behind this project.

Richard Maaghul is the CEO of this venture. He has been in the startup domain for over two decades and has been involved with a number of emerging/disruptive technologies in the past. In addition to co-founding ODEM.IO, Rich has been involved with Chevron Corporation as an executive.

William Bayrd II is the COO of this project. According to his LinkedIn profile, Bill is the founder of three companies, including big-name establishments such as Excelorators Inc. Bill possesses a D.Pharma from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Lastly, Michael Zargham is the Chief Backend Engineer for ODEM. He holds a Ph.D in Systems Engineering with a specialization in decentralized systems. Also worth mentioning is the fact that Michael possesses more than a decade’s worth of experience in domains such as digital systems and disruptive technology. Michael is also the founder of BlockScience, a firm concentrating on applying rigor to the design of sociotechnical network systems that aim to help build transformative products on the blockchain.

Token Performance

Since ODEM tokens have only been on the crypto market for a little over a week, it is difficult to assess their future market potential.

ODEM lifetime token performance (courtesy of CoinMarketCap)

Introduced into the market at a base rate of around US$0.057, the currency has remained fairly stable in value over the course of the past few days. As of April 17, the price of a single ODEM token stands at a fair $0.096.

Final Thoughts

ODEM’s technological offerings have the potential to completely redefine the way in which education is delivered to students all across the globe. This is done by streamlining the way in which services are delivered within this sector as well as by reducing education fees by a fair margin.

As a consequence of the aforementioned features, it would not be surprising to see ODEM fare extremely well within the crypto market this year.

If you would like to start investing in this service, ODEM trading pairs are currently being exchanged via online platforms such as Ethfinex.