The problem D-Certify solves

Universities still verify diplomas manually through emails and paper records, which can take days or even weeks. At the same time, fake diplomas are widely used in job applications.

D-Certify solves this by allowing universities to issue diplomas as verifiable digital credentials on Hedera. Each diploma is hashed, stored with metadata on IPFS, minted as an NFT for ownership, and immutably logged via Hedera Consensus Service.

This makes verification instant, tamper-proof, and globally accessible - employers can validate a diploma in seconds instead of weeks.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges was understanding and properly structuring how Hedera’s services work together - especially the difference between Token Service (for ownership) and Consensus Service (for audit logging). Designing a clean architecture where NFT minting and consensus logging clearly serve different purposes required careful planning.

Another challenge was handling document hashing and verification logic in a reliable way. Even small inconsistencies in file processing could produce different hashes. I resolved this by standardizing the hashing process and ensuring that verification always uses the exact same hashing pipeline as issuance.

This helped guarantee deterministic and tamper-proof verification results.

Use of AI tools and agents

AI tools were primarily used during development to accelerate dashboard implementation and improve UI/UX structure. I used AI-assisted coding tools to scaffold React/Next.js components, generate clean dashboard layouts, and refine data models.

AI helped structure reusable UI components, improve form validation logic, and optimize API flow design. While the core backend logic was implemented manually, AI significantly improved development speed and interface polish.