## Title
Propellant HR

## Project Background
PropellantHR is an HR platform designed to solve the global problem of unverifiable career data, fake credentials, and costly hiring processes. Instead of relying on traditional CVs, the platform enables individuals to create verifiable career identities that employers can trust. These identities include skills, work history, achievements, and assessments that can later be secured with zero-knowledge proofs and on-chain credentials.

For organizations, PropellantHR reduces the risks of mis-hires and fraud by providing tools to verify talent, manage opportunities, and streamline recruitment with AI-assisted screening and validation. The MVP already supports employer and talent onboarding, opportunity listings,CV generation and optimization, document upload, and authenticated profiles.

The platform also integrates gamified engagement models and AI features to support talent discovery, growth tracking, and retention. As the next stage of development, PropellantHR will leverage Mina Protocol to secure identity proofs, support privacy-preserving verification, integrate zk-based attestations, and tokenize reputation and opportunities. Links to the MVP : www.propellanthr.com, https://x.com/Propellanthr.

## Proposal Overview
### Global Problem
- The global hiring ecosystem faces persistent challenges:
- Fake CVs and unverifiable skills undermine trust.
- Employers lose time and money on mis-hires and inefficient validation processes.
- Talent, especially across Africa and emerging markets, faces barriers to proving credibility and accessing global opportunities.
- Existing HR platforms rely on centralized databases with no privacy-preserving verification or cryptographic attestations.
- There is no standard for portable, tamper-proof, privacy-protected career identities.

These gaps limit economic mobility, create inefficiencies for organizations, and push high-potential talent out of opportunities due to lack of verifiable proof.

### Local Problem
A major barrier in today’s hiring and freelance markets is the inability to trust and verify professional claims. This issue is especially severe in regions like Nigeria and across Africa, where millions of skilled individuals remain underemployed or excluded from global opportunities due to a lack of verifiable credentials.

#### Key challenges include:
- Unverifiable skills and fake CVs: Employers can’t easily prove a candidate’s experience or competence.
- No trusted digital identity for careers: Skilled talent cannot prove credibility across platforms or borders.
- Freelancers lack leverage: They struggle on existing platforms due to limited reputation validation, payment distrust, poor visibility, and underpricing.
- Organizations face expensive, manual vetting: HR teams waste budget and time validating talent without cryptographic trust guarantees.
- Graduates and self-taught individuals are locked out: Despite having the skills, they have no mechanism to prove ability without accreditation or institutional backing.

In Nigeria alone, millions of qualified talents, developers, designers, digital professionals, service specialists, and freelancers — cannot access opportunities because their skills and work histories are not recognized or verifiable. This problem continues to scale globally, costing organizations billions and leaving talent invisible.

### Solution
PropellantHR is integrating Mina Protocol’s zk-native architecture to power verifiable career identities, credentials, and opportunity access using zero-knowledge proofs. Our solution introduces:

- zk-powered career attestations for skills, work history, and certifications.
- Privacy-preserving identity verification using zkLogin and zkEmail.
- Employer validation tools using verifiable compute for candidate screening.
- On-chain proof of experience and reputation as portable zk credentials.
- AI-assisted validation workflow combined with Mina-backed proofs.
- Future expansion into verifiable talent marketplaces and gamified proof-of-growth tools.

The grant will enable us to build and deploy the blockchain layer, security modules, zk-based integrations, and zero-knowledge verification flows as part of our production roadmap.

### Impact on the Mina Ecosystem
This proposal contributes directly to Mina’s vision in multiple ways:

#### 1. Adoption & Ecosystem Growth
- Onboards real users (talent + employers) into the Mina ecosystem through daily interactions involving proof-enabled profiles.
- Extends Mina into HRTech, EduTech, and Future-of-Work markets.

#### 2. Novel Use Cases
- Creates new applications for zkTLS, zkLogin, zkEmail, and verifiable compute in hiring and credential verification.
- Bridges offline records and enterprise systems into on-chain, privacy-preserving proofs.

#### 3. Developer & Partner Enablement
- Introduces reusable zk modules for identity, attestations, and credential portability that other founders can build on.
#### 4. Data Source Expansion (“Feeding the Proof”)
- Connects verified employer-issued data, organizational attestations, and AI screening outputs into Mina-compatible zk credentials.

### Audience
Our proposal targets multiple beneficiary groups:

#### 1. Primary Users:
- Job seekers
- Freelancers
- Graduates.
- Professionals needing verified identities.
#### 2. Organizations & Recruiters:
- Companies
- HR departments.
- Platforms seeking trusted talent and proof-backed hiring workflows.
#### 3. Ecosystem Partners:
- EdTech platforms
- Skills assessment providers.
- Verification bodies.
- Credential issuers.

#### Why Mina?
PropellantHR requires zero-knowledge infrastructure to verify skills, credentials, employment history and AI-assessed competence without exposing sensitive user data.

Mina’s lightweight architecture, zkApp tooling (o1js / SnarkyJS), and native zkLogin/zkEmail make it uniquely suited to power privacy-preserving identity and credential attestations at scale. Other chains lack Mina’s recursion, low-cost proofs, and verifiable compute capabilities, which are essential for adoption in emerging markets where users cannot afford heavy gas fees.

#### Alignment with Mina Growth Tracks
**Feeding the Proof:**
We convert employer attestations, learning credentials, and certification documents into zk-verifiable proofs. Offline and Web2 credentials (e.g., universities, employers, talent networks) will be ingested using zk-friendly verification flows.

**Verifiable Compute:**
AI-based fraud detection, competency scoring, and identity validation will be executed off-chain with proofs submitted on-chain via Mina zkApps.

**zkLogin & zkEmail Integrations:**
To simplify onboarding, PropellantHR will support zkLogin for account access.

**Attestations of Assets (Human Capital):**
Employment history, portfolio work, and verified skillsets will be minted as zk credential NFTs, enabling new economic and hiring use cases within the Mina ecosystem.

This project directly aligns with Mina Season 3 priorities, focusing on Feeding the Proof through verifiable career attestations, and Verifiable Compute via AI-powered credential validation submitted on-chain with zkApps, as documented [here](https://forums.minaprotocol.com/t/navigators-season-3-request-for-start-ups/6789)

## Architecture & Design
PropellantHR currently operates as a functional MVP with the following architecture:

#### 1. Existing Stack (MVP Layer)
- **Frontend:** Web-based user interface for talent and organizations (React).
- **Backend:** Centralized server handling authentication, talent profiles, job postings, and AI-CV Optimization, Credential uploading (Node.js setup).

- **Database:** Traditional cloud storage (MongoDB) holding user records, applications, and organizational data.

- **AI Modules:** CV parsing and validation.

#### 2. Proposed Mina-Powered Enhancements
Under the grant, we will add a zk-enabled blockchain layer that integrates directly with our talent identity and verification features:

1. Identity & Credential Layer (Mina zkApps)
- Convert user profiles into zk-verifiable career identities
- Use zkLogin & zkEmail for privacy-preserving authentication
- Store verifiable claims for:
- Skills
- Work history
- Freelance engagements
- Employer-issued attestations

2. Attestation & Proof Engine
- Employer and institution-issued credentials converted to zk proofs
- o1js used to build modular circuits for:
- Experience verification
- Education records
- AI-scored assessments
- zk-offchain storage with on-chain hashes for reference

3. zkMarketplace & Opportunity Layer
- Employers interact with talent using Mina-verified identities
- Smart contracts for:
- Opportunity validation
- Proof-backed applications
- Reputation scoring

4. AI + zk Synergy Layer
- AI performs evaluation (skills, CV, tasks)
- Output is hashed and referenced via zk proofs for integrity
- Supports zkTLS for API-level verification

5. Future zkGamification & Rewards
- Skill tokens / badges backed by zk attestations
- Micro-incentives for on-chain engagement
- Talent growth quests tied to proofs

### Vision
With Mina integrated, PropellantHR becomes the default infrastructure for verifiable careers, starting from Nigeria and expanding globally.

**Long-term outcomes:**

- A portable proof-of-skill economy built on Mina
- Cross-platform zk-verified digital CVs replacing static resumes
- A decentralized talent credibility network accessible to Web2 and Web3 employers
- Partnerships with universities, freelancer platforms, DAOs, and governments
- Launch of a zk-powered opportunity marketplace and talent DAO
- Expansion into zkDeFi primitives for income-backed identity and microloans
- Play-to-learn style career quests tied to verifiable work achievements
- Mina becomes the identity and attestation backbone for a multi-billion-dollar workforce layer.

In later phases, zk credentials generated on Mina can be composable with other chains and platforms. This positions Mina as the root verification layer for decentralized work identity, enabling interoperability with DAOs, DePIN, recruitment platforms, global freelance networks, and gig economy apps.

### Existing Work
The MVP is live and already onboarding both talent and organizations. The frontend, backend, and AI-CV Optimization modules are functional.

**GitHub repo : [Propellant HR Repo](https://github.com/Alpha-Sight/propellant-backend.git)**

### Production Timeline
Development phases with Mina integration:

**Month 1:**
- Architecture refactoring & Mina zkApp environment setup
- Identity proof schema & zkLogin integration
- Smart contract scaffold (o1js)

**Month 2:**

- Credential attestation engine
- Employer-issued zkProof flows
- Integration with existing onboarding stack

**Month 3:**

- Marketplace linking (proof-backed opportunity access)
- zkGamification model
- Production deployment + user testing
- Marketing and pilot rollout (Nigeria + Africa)

The MVP will remain live while zkLayers deploy in parallel, moving to production-ready status within 3 months of funding.

## Milestones
Project Timeline (3 Months)
Phase Breakdown
**Month 1** : Foundations & Core Integrations

**Deliverables:**
- Mina zkApp setup & wallet-based onboarding (zkLogin, zkEmail)
- Gasless transaction implementation(to remove the bottleneck of adoption.)
- AI Interview System (Phase 1):
- Automated skill assessment prompts
- Voice/Text AI interview setup for talent
- Service/Gig Page Module (Talent Offerings Page)
- Talent can list services, skills, and rate cards
- Smart Contract Scaffold for:
- Credential NFTs
- Attestations
- UI/UX improvement and integration with existing MVP

**Month 2** : Features, Marketplace & Gamification

**Deliverables:**
- Credential Attestation Engine
- Employer-issued zk credentials
- Education/experience proofs
- AI Interviewing (Phase 2)
- Scoring + report generation
- AI-assisted employer screening
- Gamified Engagement System
- Points/badges
- Growth quests
- Microtasks and rewards
- Talent Marketplace Integration
- Gig visibility
- Service requests
- zk-Reputation Tracking

**Month 3** : Deployment, GTM & Scaling

**Deliverables:**
- Testnet → Production Migration
- Pilot Launch (Nigeria):
- Target: 5,000 users
- 30 hiring companies
- 10 credential issuers/verification partners
- Community & marketing deployment
- Gamified rewards live
- AI recruitment dashboard for employers
- Feedback loop + dashboard improvements
- Security testing, QA.

Mid-Point Milestones (Halfway Progress)

1. Core Mina Integration Live (Testnet Stage)

- zkApp development environment fully set up
- Wallet onboarding using zkLogin / zkEmail connected to the MVP
- Gasless transaction flow implemented for users
- Smart contract skeletons deployed:
- Credential NFTs
- Attestations
- Identity proofs

2. AI Interviewing System – Phase 1 Complete

- Voice/Text interview flow live for talent
- Automated question prompts based on skills and roles
- Screening output recorded in database (not scored yet)

3. Service & Talent Gig Pages Live (Basic Version)
- Talent can list gigs/services they offer
- Rate cards + skills displayed
- UI integrated into dashboard

4. Credential & Attestation Engine – Prototype Ready

- Prototype of issuing zk-based credentials by employers
- Education/work proof data structures defined
- Off-chain → on-chain hash linkage prepared

5. Proof of Skill Mini-Game – Alpha Build

- Gameplay prototype developed (quiz-task format)
- Score/attempts tied to user profiles
- Ready for Phase 2 (rewards + integration)

6. Initial Onboarding Toward Pilot Targets
- 50 talents onboarded (test users)
- 10 companies pre-engaged
- 2–3 credential issuers in discussions or test mode

7. Architecture & Security Foundation

- Data encryption and wallet auth modules functional
- Backend refactored for mina-layer integration
- Middleware for zk-proof requests connected

**GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY (Month 3 Deliverables)**
1. Adoption Targets in 90 Days:
- 5,000 users (talent/freelancers/professionals)
- 20 hiring organizations
- 10 credential/verifying institutions

2. Acquisition Channels:
- Tech hubs & institutions, ALX, Andela etc.
- Freelancer communities
- Upwork groups, Telegram, Twitter, WhatsApp workspaces
- HR networks & recruiters
- Micro-task challenges + gamified referral loops
- Mini-Ads

3. Market Incentives:

- Free zk-verified identity for early users
- Referral rewards (badges/ Platform features)
- Organizations get:
- Verified talent pool
- AI screening tool
- Free onboarding credits

4. Verification Partners:
- We onboard 10 institutions to issue credentials:
- EdTech platforms
- Skill academies
- Training orgs
- HR firms

Budget Breakdown:
The budget is broken down into different sections.

1. Core Development

- Blockchain Dev
- Frontend + Backend
- DevOps
- Security

2. AI & Verification Systems

- AI Engineer
- CV Artist
- AI credits

3. Mini Game (Proof of Skill)
- Game Dev
- Game UI/UX
- Environment + 2D Artist

4. Platform Experience

- UI/UX (main platform)
- QA
- Payments + Gas fees
- Hosting + Servers + Database

5. Marketing & Growth
- Marketing Team (3 members)
- Community acquisition
- Pilot expansion

**Achievements**:
- Propellant HR MVP : www.propellanthr.com
- Nomentral Land Registry : nomentral.com
- KarriGo : A delivery app, built with java.

## Risks & Mitigations
1. Technical Integration with Mina’s zk Infrastructure
**Risk:**
Integrating Mina zkApps, on-chain identity proofs, and credential attestations may require specialized expertise and less time to align with protocol standards.

**Mitigation:**
- Collaborate with Mina ecosystem engineers and community devs
- Use existing tooling (SnarkyJS, zkApp templates, o1js) to accelerate integration
- Allocate grant resources to blockchain-specific developers and audits

2. User Adoption & Market Education
**Risk:**
Target users (talent and employers in emerging markets like Nigeria) may be unfamiliar or do not understand the purpose of zk-based credentials or blockchain-powered identity systems.

**Mitigation:**

- Provide a seamless Web2-friendly onboarding flow (email/social login + Mina wallet abstraction).
Run targeted onboarding campaigns with partner organizations, hubs, and talent networks.
Incentivize users via gamification, proof-based rewards, and partnerships.

3. Data Privacy & Regulatory Sensitivities
**Risk:**
- Handling sensitive user credentials, employment history, and
- Identity data may raise compliance concerns as blockchain
- Adoption increases in regulated sectors.

**Mitigation:**

- Use zero-knowledge proofs to validate credentials without storing sensitive data on-chain
- Maintain off-chain encrypted storage with zk verification layers
- Align with emerging GDPR and NDPR (Nigeria Data Protection Regulation) guidelines

4. AI Security & Accuracy
**Risk**:
AI-based CV screening, skill validation, and fraud detection may produce false positives or bias if not optimized.

**Mitigation:**

- Continuously fine-tune models/improve prompting using anonymized and diverse datasets
- Allow appeals or dispute resolution mechanisms through dashboards

5. Funding & Development Timeline
**Risk:**
Without grant funding, the blockchain features (zk credentials, wallet login, NFT proofs) cannot be delivered on schedule.

**Mitigation:**

- Work with the team and the mina community to improve the bankability of the project for smooth funding.

6. Platform Scalability
**Risk:**
As user numbers scale (freelancers, employers, skill platforms), verification logic and zk interactions could slow or overload systems.

**Mitigation:**
- Use off-chain computation with zk rollups for heavy operations
- Design modular architecture: Frontend ↔ Middleware/Backend ↔ Mina zk layer
- Optimize with batch proof generation

7. Dependency on Third-Party Partners
**Risk:**
Some platform features such as verifiable skills, certificates, or payments depend on integration/ or partners (APIs, companies, institutions).

**Mitigation:**
- Establish multiple partner channels to avoid single-point dependencies
- Implement fallback systems for credential ingest and data verification
- Use modular integrations that can be easily replaced