ASU Pocket and Trusted Learner Network featured in new market scan
In Jobs for the Future (JFF)’s recently released market scan, Verifiable Credentials Wallets in a Skills-First Talent Marketplace, both ASU Pocket and the Trusted Learner Network were recognized for their efforts in helping to build a large-scale verifiable credentialing ecosystem in higher education.
"We are truly honored to be recognized and represented in this outstanding market scan,” said Kate Giovacchini, executive director, TLN and ASU Pocket. “At ASU, we believe strongly in the transformative potential of verifiable credentials, not just for our university, but for the future of education and workforce development on a global scale.”
About the market scan
This updated market scan builds upon the 2022 market scan, Building a Skills-Based Talent Marketplace, highlighting the significant progress of digital wallets and examining their role in driving system-wide changes in education and workforce development. These transformations are essential to overcoming the current challenges faced by learners and jobseekers.
Last year, JFFLabs surveyed more than 2,000 individuals looking for jobs and found that “75% of the respondents said they would find a digital wallet to be helpful in their job searches, and 58% said they would likely include digital credentials as part of their job applications, regardless of whether or not they were required to do so”.
Authored by Sharon Leu, Executive in Residence, and Joan Lee, Consultant, the scan was published in March 2025 and highlights advancements in digital wallet technology, particularly those using the W3C’s Verifiable Credentials Data Model (VCDM 2.0), which supports a decentralized ecosystem aimed at expanding economic opportunities.
It also focuses on four key priorities: lifelong learning, individual agency and control, privacy and universal accessibility. JFF has found that advancements in these four priority areas enable the evolution of an ecosystem in which digital wallets facilitate connections between wallet vendors, credential issuers, employers and jobseekers. Additionally, the scan discusses how progress in digital wallet adoption could lead to systemic transformations in education, workforce development and economic advancement.
Shining the spotlight on ASU
While the market scan covers important topics like how digital wallets are powering a skills-first talent market and accelerating system-level transformation, the scan also features successful case studies, including ASU Pocket and the TLN.
The spotlight includes a brief introduction to both ASU Pocket and TLN, and the university’s effort to create a verifiable credential ecosystem for the ASU community and beyond. The market scan also mentions ASU Pocket’s partnership with Center for the Future of Arizona to issue skills as verifiable credentials into ASU Pocket, and how the TLN is ready to issue student verifiable digital credentials (which could then be exported to ASU Pocket).
“The cornerstone of the effort is the technology stack that the TLN team — in collaboration with architecture advisors from multiple institutions, a graph database development firm, and ASU software engineers — has built to enable institutions of all kinds to deploy verifiable credentials utilizing their existing data,” the scan states. “Through these efforts, ASU is fostering a transformation in both education and the workforce, reshaping how credentials are issued, accepted, and utilized to unlock new opportunities.”
View key insights and download the market scan now.