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WATCH: Tim O’Brien on the origin of ICanProveIt and the problems with skill validation in the enterprise.

I sat across from Tim O’Brien, founder and CTO of ICanProveIt, watching as he leaned forward with the focus of someone who’s identified a problem that’s been on his mind for over a decade.

“The sort of recognition that goes for continuous learning is nowhere near on par with the recognition that comes from formal learning. I would say 98% of what we know comes from our own learning experiences, our own journey, and none of that is demonstrable in the sense that they are not going to help you get a new job. It’s not going to make you confident walking into your bosses’ office and saying, hey, give me a raise because I read 3 blogs, and I read a book last week. That’s not going to cut it.”

This paradox sits at the heart of our modern knowledge economy. We have unprecedented access to information through open-access university courses, expert blogs, and readily available e-books. Yet despite this wealth of learning opportunities, there remains a fundamental disconnect between knowledge acquisition and professional recognition.

A growing enterprise challenge

For tech leaders and hiring managers, this knowledge verification gap creates a persistent headache. How do you actually know what candidates or current employees truly understand?

“It’s crucial to know exactly what skills people have, what they know, and to convey that accurately to others, whether it’s in a hiring decision or any other context,” Tim explains, drawing from his experience as a CEO of Silicon Valley-funded startups. “My experience has shown me just how difficult it is to make the correct judgment on people’s skill sets.”

The challenge intensifies for specialized knowledge areas. When recruiting for technical positions that require niche skills — like programming in CUDA for GPUs rather than more common languages like Java or Python — how can you efficiently assess candidates’ capabilities? Traditional credentials often fail to capture these specialized competencies.

This problem is especially acute for enterprises working with consultants. As Tim points out, “You kind of become captive to the Accentures and Big Four because if they leave, they walk out with all of your knowledge. It’s an extreme case of knowledge management, where the critical information isn’t necessarily in the documentation, but in the minds of the people who built your system.”

The looming AI disruption

The timing of this challenge couldn’t be more critical. With AI set to transform the job market, the ability to verify non-traditional learning will become even more important.

“The WTO and UN estimate that 40% of working hours will be eliminated,” Tim shares. “That doesn’t mean the jobs will disappear, but it means one person could do the work of two. This will create a lot of pain.”

Organizations will soon face a wave of workers needing to reskill. “I think a lot of people will be driven to areas to re-educate themselves in non-traditional areas, areas not covered by universities.” Yet traditional education systems lack the capacity to handle this volume, and companies need efficient ways to validate these newly acquired skills.

Retention in an age of mobility

Beyond hiring, there’s the challenge of employee retention. “The data is dramatic,” Tim notes. “I think something like 40% of Gen Z are considering leaving their company within six months. The reason given is that they don’t see the upward mobility; they don’t see the path forward. They feel stuck in their jobs.”

For enterprises, this creates an urgent need for better knowledge management systems.

“It’s incumbent on these large corporations to show upward mobility to their employees if they want to keep top-skilled people and be competitive in the market. They must address their employees’ need for upward mobility."

A new approach to knowledge validation

This is precisely where Tim’s solution aims to make a difference. ICanProveIt is building technology that democratizes the ability to prove what you know, regardless of how you learned it.

“The ability to put it back in the hands of the individual in an empowering, democratic way — saying, the world is still your oyster, but you must go out and find unique things to learn, but we will give you ways to prove it once you do.”

For tech leaders and HR departments, this approach offers a potential solution to one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: matching capable talent with opportunities regardless of their educational background.

The gap between informal learning and tangible recognition isn’t just unfair — it’s inefficient. It keeps talented people trapped in roles below their capabilities and prevents organizations from fully leveraging the knowledge within their ranks. As AI transforms the workplace, the tools that bridge this gap may very well become essential to both individual career growth and organizational success.