CHICAGO – May 13, 2021 – Certiverse, the first-of-its-kind online exam development system, received the IT Certification Council (ITCC) 2021 Innovation Award, presented May 12 at ITCC’s Spring Member Meeting. This annual award recognizes organizations making transformational changes to an IT exam, company or the industry as a whole.
This is the seventh year the award has been given, with past winners including Microsoft, IBM, SAP, HPE and Certiverse’s inaugural certification client, The Linux Foundation. Launched in 2020, the start-up is the first company at this stage of growth to be honored for its ground-breaking contribution to IT testing.
Certiverse’s online exam development platform applies proprietary, AI-guided tools to help subject matter experts (SMEs) around the world contribute test content asynchronously. Traditionally, this process has involved travel and days-long, in-person workshops, which in the last year have pivoted to extensive virtual meetings. Certiverse’s solution provides greater flexibility and inclusiveness with lower costs, enabling test sponsors to bring relevant exams to market in a fraction of the typical timeframe of 12 to 18 months and pass the cost savings to test-takers.
The effectiveness of this innovation was demonstrated with The Linux Foundation Certified IT Associate exam (LFCA), a new, preprofessional certification testing knowledge of the most current topics in today’s IT workforce. Using Certiverse, The Linux Foundation deployed contributors from 13 countries with no upfront costs and brought the LFCA from concept to launch in 12 weeks. The system’s gamification and revenue-share model encouraged high-quality content to be submitted quickly, and the automated transfer of data streamlined the process from job task analysis to test form creation. Following this implementation, Certiverse signed multiple new clients and closed a $2M series seed financing round.
“We are excited to recognize Certiverse for their incredible work improving exam development tools and processes in a significant and new way,” said Jedi Hammond, ITCC Board of Directors Chairperson. “By building a platform that brings together crowdsourced SMEs, AI and automation, they are able to reduce development time and potential cost for exam development. Now crowdsourcing can be efficiently used for IT certifications as well as IT development!”
“IT certifications have shaped my life and career, and I know how important it is for them to be relevant and within reach to test-takers,” said Certiverse CEO and co-founder Ruben Arturo Garcia. “We built Certiverse so that organizations of any size or testing experience can bring something valid and respected to the certification market, whether that’s a microcredential or a brand-new exam.”
