PRESS RELEASE: San Jose, California USA, 15 November 2018
European blockchain entrepreneurs are using Crowd Machine’s Crowd App Studio development environment to create a next-generation recruitment platform for freelancers.
Project Crowd is automating and building transparency into the recruitment and contracting process with AI-enabled job matching and distributed ledger technology, which will be used to create smart contracts and to verify and secure members’ personal information.
A recent OECD report revealed that around 15.5 percent of the EU workforce are self-employed (roughly half of whom are freelancers and business owners/employers), while in the United States the Edelman Intelligence study Freelancing in America 2018 estimated that 35 percent of workers freelanced this year. A SAP Fieldglass and Oxford Economics survey found that worldwide, roughly 44 percent of large corporations’ employment budget is spent on external talent.
Dennis and Kathrin Hauck, who are based in Germany, experienced the challenges of the freelancer staffing process first-hand during their IT and consulting careers. They envisioned a blockchain application to empower the growing ranks of freelancers, leading to the founding of Project Crowd.
The Haucks took their idea to the Oxford Blockchain Strategy Program(OBSP), run by the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, which is where they met Craig Sproule, CEO and Founder of Crowd Machine. Craig is a leading voice of business at the OBSP, and was a judge at the start-up competition in Oxford this past June. He was impressed by the Hauck’s pitch and agreed to mentor them.
Kathrin is now in the final stages of graduating as a certified Crowd Machine Developer from the Crowd Academy. In only a few months Kathrin has developed the skills to build and run the Project Crowd app with the Crowd App Studio, which uses a visual interface rather than time-consuming traditional coding-based methods.
“I’m a business person and I was sure I’d never develop software by myself,” said Kathrin. “Now, I’m not just watching the guys developing, I’m really into it as well,” she added. “In addition, we have a full stack developer on the team and you can see how easy for him it is to get into Crowd Machine, it just comes naturally to him.”
According to the 2018 MBO Partners State of Independence in Americareport, “The rise of digital technologies, social media, and communication technologies enable people to build networks, establish a professional presence and work with people they have never met and may never see.”
Dennis commented, “Blockchain and AI are key technologies for the future of human resource management. They enable companies to find the best talents faster than their competitors, provide trust and bring transparency to the job market.”
“Distributed ledger technologies like blockchain are still in their youth,” Dennis continued. “This leads to problems in the commercial environment, like slow transaction speeds and costs that are hardly predictable. We are developing Project Crowd with Crowd Machine because their solutions are solving these issues.”
To find out more about the Crowd Academy or start learning today, visit the Crowd Academy webpage.
