Credentials in Action: Public Innovation Challenge
Real-world solutions using verifiable credentials to power trust, access, and inclusion across society
In today's digital age, data stands as the most powerful catalyst for economic growth and individual empowerment. Traditional institution-centric data sharing models limit this potential, creating barriers that exclude millions from accessing essential services and economic opportunities. Transitioning to a user-centric model powered by verifiable credentials revolutionizes this paradigm by placing secure, trusted data directly in the hands of individuals. This empowers users to effortlessly present verifiable data, drastically reducing verification costs and eliminating dependency on institutions. Such a shift unlocks unprecedented economic value, accelerates innovation across sectors, and directly benefits marginalized populations by providing equitable access to critical services like healthcare, finance, education, and employment. Credentialing enables seamless, trustworthy data sharing, generating economic opportunities at a global scale.
Organized by CDPI in partnership with Red GEALC
About the Innovation challenge
📚 What is it about
The Innovation Challenge invites entities (startups, companies, innovation agencies, tech service providers) to showcase solutions that are open source, user-centric digital credential that empower individuals to access services and provide entitlements across borders and sectors, while ensuring data security, privacy, and interoperability. This initiative supports Latin American and Caribbean governments in advancing digital trust ecosystems, creating new citizen-centered use-cases, and implementing verifiable registries, strengthening digital transformation in the region.
🛤️ Challenge Tracks
Choose one of the following challenges, or propose your own bold idea:
Cross-Border Credential Portability Prototypes using credential flows to recognize identity or qualifications across at least two countries (e.g., worker mobility, student transcripts).
Climate Credentials for Verification & Finance Build secure environmental or agricultural credentials that enable access to green finance or validate ESG efforts.
Education & Skills Recognition Prototype a wallet to store and share skills, transcripts, and certifications across borders.
Open Challenge Got a different idea? Surprise us. We're open to innovative approaches beyond these tracks.
👤 Who should join?
Civic Tech/Gov tech Developers/startups
Government Innovation Units
Policy Designers & UX Experts
Startups in GovTech
🏆 Prizes
Top 10 innovators will receive expert feedback on their solutions from heads of digital entities across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Top 3 innovators will be invited to attend the GEALC Meeting 2025 in Guatemala (October 2025), with all expenses covered.
The top innovator will also attend the IDB’s GET Forum 2025, with all expenses covered.
⏳ Timeline
Registration opens August 8th Registration closes September 1st Selected teams by September 5th Innovation Challenge Virtual Kick off September 8th Mentoring and office hours September 6th - September 26th Prototype testing September 29th - October 4th Announce 3 innovators October 10th Demo Day Execution @ RED GEALC Guatemala 2025 - October 27th
❓ How to participate
Teams selected will receive a confirmation email by September 5th Receive the Innovation challenge brief and attend kickoff September 8th Selection of top 3 teams on Oct 10th Demo Day Execution @ RED GEALC Guatemala 2025 - October 27rd
👀 What is expected from participating teams
To join the Innovation Challenge, teams must present a working prototype and a compelling, well-developed idea that demonstrates clear impact and innovation potential. You don’t need to have a polished product or full deployment plan, but your submission should show you’ve worked critically about the problem, the user, and how verifiable credentials can solve real challenges in the LAC region.
😎 Partners and Organizers
📢 Are you interested in sponsorship opportunities?
Check them out here
📼 Info session recording
You will find the recording of the info session held on August the 22nd on this link
🤩 Top 3 Selected Solutions
The three solutions chosen for the final stage in Guatemala are Blerify, with its digital driver’s license proposal for Panama, showcasing how verifiable credentials can modernize public services and strengthen citizen trust; Sovra, which promotes digital identity interoperability through open standards, enabling regional-scale adoption; and Interfase’s Orchestrated, National and Cross-Border Multimodal Identity, which introduces an innovative approach to integrating multiple forms of authentication and verification across countries. These three solutions will compete for the first place in the CDPI Innovation Challenge.
🌍 CDPI Challenge 2025 – Selected Teams & Honorable Mentions
We are thrilled to share the 10 teams selected from 24 applications to move on to the next phase of the CDPI Challenge.
These teams will participate in a short mentorship process to refine their solutions and prepare for the next stage. From these 10, 3 finalists will be chosen to present at the XIX Red GEALC Meeting in Antigua, Guatemala, from October 27–29, 2025.
🏅 Selected Teams
IDENTI - Digital ID Ecosystem– IDENTI develops a voice-first digital identity wallet that empowers digitally illiterate rural populations to securely prove their identity, approve transactions, and access services without needing internet or smartphones. By integrating with WHISP’s deforestation monitoring oracle, IDENTI issues Zero Deforestation Verifiable Credentials that farmers can share to unlock climate finance, ESG-linked incentives, and sustainable supply chain opportunities. This solution bridges digital exclusion with climate action, enabling smallholder farmers to participate in green finance ecosystems while ensuring privacy, interoperability, and trust. More info www.identi.digital
SovraID: Credenciales Soberanas para la Portabilidad Regional – SovraID is an institutional engine for verifiable credentials that allows citizens to carry their digital identity across countries and sectors. It addresses fragmentation and reliance on centralized databases, enabling labor, financial, and academic mobility in Latin America with privacy by design. More info https://sovra.io/es/
Darshana– Darshana is a platform that issues and verifies trusted digital credentials for education and work experience, integrated with AI tools to match talent to opportunities faster and more accurately. By aggregating and validating data from verified sources, we reduce hiring friction, combat credential fraud, and enable cross-border employability. More info https://darshana.ai/
IOVF Digital Identity – IOVF Digital Identity is a digital public infrastructure developed by Fundación IOV to guarantee the right to identity in contexts with low connectivity and no complex infrastructure. It addresses the lack of reliable digital identification systems in rural or vulnerable areas, enabling people to issue, store, and verify secure, portable credentials without an internet connection. More info
Tan Tan – Tan Tan is a verifiable credentials wallet and digital identity platform with built-in anti-spoofing AI and biometric verification. It empowers individuals to securely store and share their identity and academic certificates, reducing fraud and friction in verification processes. By putting trusted data directly in users’ hands, Tan Tan addresses inclusion gaps while enabling governments, employers, and institutions to validate credentials instantly and across borders. More info
Gob OS: Operating System for Government– GOB-OS is an open-source, centralized identity platform designed as public infrastructure for government services. It solves the current fragmentation where each ministry manages its own identity systems, leading to duplicated data, slow manual processes, and vendor lock-in. By unifying user management, roles, and access across all agencies, GOB-OS reduces operational complexity, enables cross-agency digital services, and creates a foundation for citizen portals, AI assistants, and paperless processes. More info https://publicintelligence.ai/
Blerify Licencia de conducir digital de Panamá – Blerify creates the first driver’s license in LATAM compliant with ISO 18013-5 and OpenID4VP, and uses blockchain. It also incorporates various value-added benefits. More info here
Municipio Activo – “Municipio Activo” is a platform that automates the verification of municipalities’ tax compliance, issuing a verifiable digital credential called the “Fiscal Trust Seal.” It addresses the slowness and bureaucracy of manual controls, radically speeding up the transfer of public funds. In this way, it proactively promotes good management and transparency.
Identidad digital multimodal – An orchestrated multimodal identity solution that allows issuing and managing a mobile credential through multiple onboarding channels: derivation from a state account (national IdP) and/or identity document (ID card or passport) with biometrics and liveness check. The resulting credential can be presented in person (proximity) and optionally remotely, and is linked to the holder’s online, mobile, and biometric identity. It addresses the fragmentation of identity proof and reduces fraud and friction in authentication, cross-border in-person verification, and the authorization of legally binding signatures (according to applicable regulations). More info grupointerfase.com
UNRN MicroCred: The proposal from the National University of Río Negro (UNRN) aims to implement a verifiable microcredential system to recognize students’ and graduates’ skills and learning achievements. It seeks to enhance educational and labor interoperability, enable recognition of competencies beyond formal degrees, and promote a trustworthy digital infrastructure across Latin America.
✨ Honorable Mentions
We also wish to acknowledge the following teams for their inspiring proposals and innovative approaches:
UPYOG– UPYOG (Urban Platform for deliverY of Online Governance) is an open source, configurable extendable platform developed under the National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM) to leverage the digital opportunities for sustained improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of municipal service to citizens. UPYOG is certified as a DigitalPublicGood by the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA). more info here
Authorship Passport: DPI for Cross-Border Recognition– Authorship Passport is a cross-border credentialing system that lets creators, estates, and institutions carry verifiable proof of authorship and consent across jurisdictions. Today, cultural IP rights often break down at borders, leaving archives, artists, and indigenous communities without enforceable recognition or payment. By embedding portable, sovereign-compliant credentials into digital public infrastructure, Authorship Passport ensures that cultural ownership and licensing rules travel with the work — unlocking fair use, trust, and economic opportunity globally. More info http://axm.global
BIOCOMPOST 2 - The Biocompost 2 project aims to establish a pilot composting and vermicomposting plant using advanced electromechanical equipment to optimize organic waste decomposition and produce natural fertilizers. Designed as a sustainable and replicable model, the plant transforms organic waste into valuable compost and vermicompost, reducing landfill waste and greenhouse gas emissions while improving soil health and agricultural productivity. By promoting the use of eco-friendly fertilizers and sustainable farming practices, the project supports both environmental stewardship and economic benefits for local communities, serving as a benchmark for sustainable waste management in the region.
TaxBot - TaxBot is a conversational AI platform that simplifies tax compliance for citizens while issuing verifiable digital tax credentials (e.g., proof of tax payment, tax residency). It empowers individuals to securely store and share trusted tax records across institutions and borders. By reducing paperwork and verification costs, TaxBot builds digital trust between governments, banks, employers, and citizens.
Analog Digital Credentials - Team Vaultie has build a digital printer that augments regular documents into verifiable documents. This means that users get to keep using formats they're familiar with (e.g. Word, PDF), while public servants save time on administrative tasks without heavy change management to existing processes. More info here Thank you to all applicants for their creativity, commitment, and vision. The level of innovation across every submission shows the global momentum for digital public infrastructure.
🧑🏫 / 👩🏫 Mentors
Our mentors will guide the selected initiatives throughout this process, sharing their expertise and knowledge to strengthen their projects and increase their chances of success.
Manuel Aguilera Manuel leads the regional strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean at CDPI. He is a sociologist with a master’s degree in public policy. Before joining CDPI, he co-founded a technology organization for human rights. He can support you in defining your project’s narrative, identifying strategic allies, and anticipating key risks. He can also help you design adoption and sustainability strategies, connect your proposal with public policies, and leverage lessons from experiences in other countries across the region.
Rocío Suanzes Rocío specializes in ecosystem building, open innovation, and GovTech. For more than ten years, she has connected startups and entrepreneurs with institutions and corporations to create positive impact and build fairer, more equitable models of collaboration. Over the past three years, she has led Govtech LATAM at IDB Lab, an initiative that connected emerging companies’ innovation with cities in the region, achieving 8 paid pilots. She can help you with your B2G (Business to Government) sales strategy, pilot design and implementation, navigating the region’s innovation ecosystem, scaling and sustainability strategies, and even incorporating accessibility criteria into your solution design.
Jimena Aucique Jimena is an innovation consultant working on technology-driven impact projects in the public sector. She is a designer with a master’s degree in Technology Innovation Management. She was previously the design lead for the GovTech LATAM program at IDB Lab. She can support you in better understanding user needs, as well as methods to consult and test technology solutions with people. She can also help you understand your solution’s fit in the market, especially with public clients.
✉️ Contact
If you have any questions reach out to Juan Camilo Mejia at juancamilo@cdpi.dev
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