BadgeFed: Open, Decentralized Badges via ActivityPub
- Format: Talk (20 min)
* Difficulty: Intermediate
* Track: Everything Else
* Additional Tags: ActivityPub, Fediverse, Digital Badges, Decentralization, .NET, Linux - Experience: Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft and CTO at SOMOS.tech with 20+ years of software engineering experience.
Description:
Digital badges promise portable, verifiable recognition, but in practice, they are often locked behind proprietary platforms, expensive subscriptions, and rigid workflows. For many nonprofits and open communities, these barriers make digital credentialing practically unusable.
BadgeFed rethinks digital credentials for the open web. By combining the Open Badges standard with the ActivityPub protocol, BadgeFed moves badge issuance, sharing, and verification into the Fediverse. This open-source, self-hostable .NET application is designed to run on Linux, treating credentials as federated objects rather than siloed data. This approach ensures that organizations fully own their infrastructure and that recognition persists beyond any single platform or issuer.
Project URL: https://badgefed.org
Target Audience:
- Nonprofit and community organizers
* Fediverse enthusiasts and developers
* Advocates for decentralized identity and open standards
* Developers interested in .NET on Linux implementation