Student quickstart
Open an Ewance account, pick a challenge that matches your studies, and ship your first deliverable — typically an afternoon end-to-end. No credit card, no upfront commitment.
You can be inside your first challenge in under five minutes. Earning the certificate takes longer — that depends on the brief — but signing up does not.
What you need before you start
- An email address. A university one is fine but not required.
- A rough idea of what you're studying, so the catalogue can recommend challenges that map to your discipline.
- A web browser. That's it.
You don't need:
- A credit card. The Free tier covers your first verified credential.
- An invitation code, university partnership, or letter of reference.
- A team. You can work solo if that's how you want to start.
1. Create your account
Head to ewance.com/sign-up and create an account. The Free tier lets you earn one verified credential at no cost, for as long as you need to ship it.
If you want more credentials over time, the Student plan ($10/month or $100/year) unlocks five verified credentials lifetime, and the Pro plan ($30/month or $300/year) is unlimited. You can upgrade at any point — there's no need to decide now.
2. Pick a challenge
When you land in the catalogue, filter by:
- Discipline — e.g. engineering, business, life sciences, design, computer science.
- Time commitment — short challenges (an afternoon) through to capstone-style projects (several weeks).
- Team format — solo, classmate-pair, or mixed-discipline squad.
Read the executive summary first — that's the one-paragraph version of the brief. If it sounds like the kind of work you'd want to talk about in a job interview, open the full description.
Tip: A challenge that's slightly outside your comfort zone produces a more credible portfolio piece than a challenge you could do in your sleep. Recruiters can tell the difference.
3. Move through the journey
Every challenge has the same shape:
- Scoping — you write a short scoping document. What's the problem really asking? What are you in/out of scope on? This is where most strong submissions are won.
- Pitching — you present an early-stage solution direction so reviewers can flag dead-ends before you sink time into them.
- Collaboration — actual work. If you're in a team, this is where coordination matters.
- Final submission — you upload the deliverable. Format depends on the challenge: a slide deck, a written report, a code repo, a CAD file.
Each step is covered in detail in How challenges work and onwards.
4. Get reviewed and earn your credential
Submissions are reviewed against the rubric stated in the challenge brief. When accepted, Ewance issues your verifiable credential — see Certificates for what that means and how it works.
Your certificate is anchored on a public blockchain (Base) and is verifiable forever by anyone with the URL. Even if Ewance disappears tomorrow, the cryptographic proof stands on its own.
What's next?
- If you're curious about how a challenge actually unfolds: How challenges work.
- If you're already in one and want to nail the early milestones: Scoping and pitching.
- If you want to see how recruiters will read your credentials: the Recruiting track.
Introduction
Ewance is a challenge-based Learning & Recruiting platform. Students solve realistic industry challenges that relate to their studies and earn verifiable, blockchain-anchored certificates. Recruiters discover talent by what people actually shipped — not by what they wrote on a CV.
Core concepts
Plain-language definitions of the building blocks the rest of the docs assume — challenges, verifiable credentials, rubrics, team formats, sponsored challenges, and the recruiting layer.