We aim to develop and strengthen a decentralised accreditation system which empowers learning providers, permaculturists, farmers, and ecosystem restoration practitioners, and the regenerative field as a whole to issue credentials in the form of ‘open badges’; while also operating as a unifying network for regenerative education.

These badges can replace academic credentials, quality certifications such as ‘Organic’ or ‘Fairtrade’,  attendance certificates for events, and create entirely new streams such as greater recognition of experiential learning, better recognition of indigenous learning practices, and new monitoring and evaluation processes for land or social/community permaculture projects.

One of the most exciting potential outcomes of the iCAAFS project is the ability for learners to carry over credentials from within the iCAAFS ecosystem of un/learning providers in order to build up to ‘Diploma’, or “Degree’ milestone badges which recognise the lifelong learning pathway of an individual and/or community. This objective requires the commitment of a number of key partners, but we intend to test a prototype milestone qualification by the end of this project lifecycle.

iCAAFS is firmly rooted in permaculture ethics, regenerative practices as well as an intention to embrace indigenous and decolonial forms of un/learning and knowing.

iCAAFS is at present developed to a minimum viable prototype which includes basic documentation of philosophy and use, prototype badges design, platform use, basic business plan, and testing of technology needed to implement.

We are now rolling out iCAAFS to stakeholders representing the most diverse use cases we can imagine in order to test its limitations and discover new possibilities; as well as co-design the detailed documentation and strategy with the end users. We are also developing and launching an iCAAFS onboarding course in order to streamline the un/learning process for new badge designers and issuers.

We intend to set up an advisory board of indigenous and decolonial leaders to inform the direction and philosophy of the iCAAFS project. Partners, badge issuers, and un/learning providers will be invited to participate, create autonomous working groups, and propose designs/projects for iCAAFS for the long term direction. In order to do this we need to co-create a functional participatory organisational design and governance.