TammyBriggs/EduTrust-Africa

A decentralized Web3 application for securely issuing, managing, and instantly verifying cross-border academic credentials across African institutions using Ethereum smart contracts. # EduTrust-Africa 🎓🌍 Decentralized Cross-Border Academic Credential Verification Infrastructure. ## 📖 Project Overview EduTrust-Africa is a decentralized Web3 application (dApp) designed to eliminate academic credential fraud and streamline cross-border verification across the African continent (e.g., between Nigeria and Rwanda). By anchoring cryptographic hashes of academic certificates to the Ethereum blockchain, the system allows universities to securely issue and revoke credentials, while empowering employers to instantly verify authenticity without relying on centralized, slow institutional databases. ### How the Frontend Connects to the Smart Contract The frontend is a single-page React application that utilizes `ethers.js` to bridge the user interface with the deployed Solidity smart contract on the Sepolia Testnet. * **Read-Only Operations (Verification):** When a user verifies a credential, the frontend uses an `ethers.getDefaultProvider("sepolia")` connection. This allows anyone to verify a document for free, without needing a MetaMask wallet installed. It also queries blockchain event logs (`queryFilter`) to fetch the exact Etherscan Transaction Hash for maximum transparency. * **Write Operations (Minting/Revoking):** For state-changing transactions, the frontend uses `ethers.BrowserProvider(window.ethereum)` to request the user's MetaMask wallet connection. It checks the connected address against the smart contract's `accreditedIssuers` mapping to ensure strict access control before allowing the wallet to sign and pay gas for a transaction. --- ## 🛠️ Tech Stack & Versions * **Smart Contract Framework:** Hardhat (v2.29.0) * **Network:** Ethereum Sepolia Testnet * **Frontend Library:** React (via Vite) * **Web3 Library:** Ethers.js (v6) * **Styling:** Tailwind CSS (v3) * **Environment:** Node.js (v18.0.0 or higher recommended) --- ## ⚙️ Installation & Setup ### 1. Clone the Repository ```bash git clone github.com …