VALID-8

Close the Skills Gap

Raise the Standard

Prove What People Can Do

Welcome to the evolution of assessment. Whether you’re training surgeons, tradespeople, teachers, or soldiers, VALID-8 makes skills visible, verifiable, and transferable.

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Solving the Skills Deficit

By aligning learning with real-world competency, VALID-8 bridges the gap between education and employment. It’s the solution to the global competency crisis. 

The Problem: Credentials vs. Competence 

Across nearly every industry, the same pattern is unfolding: 

  • Workforce shortages are rising
  • Training investments aren’t translating into results
  • Traditional qualifications fail to capture real-world ability
  • Skills are invisible, fragmented, or unverified

Sectors such as apprenticeships, healthcare, education, compliance, and Indigenous Knowledge, are all facing the same urgent question:  How do we prove someone has the actual skills to do the job, not just talk about it?

The Solution: VALID-8 

VALID-8 is a patented, Canadian-built e-portfolio platform that replaces outdated assessment models with modern, transparent, and defensible skills validation. 

It allows learners and professionals to: 

  • Capture evidence of their real work — video, photos, audio, documents
  • Map it to competencies or standards across any occupation
  • Get assessed by experts who verify what’s been demonstrated
  • Earn recognition for skills — regardless of how or where they were learned
  • Create showcase Resumes to send to possible employers

This isn’t theoretical. VALID-8 has been used by over 1.5 million users in 27+ countries — achieving 90%+ success rates where systems were once failing.

We Serve Every Industry Where Skill Matters

VALID-8 is used in every domain where practical ability needs to be proven: 

Apprenticeships & Skilled Trades

Boost achievement rates, track real progress, and ease supervision pressure with evidence-based competency portfolios. Proven to cut drop-out rates and create more apprenticeship seats without changing regulations. 

Medical & Healthcare (Doctors, Nurses, Surgeons, Veterinarians)

Validate both academic and clinical competencies. Used to fast-track foreign-trained surgeons in Canada — reducing the time taken to obtain a licence from 6 years to 40 hours (2025).

Education (Colleges, Universities, Work Placements)

Enable work-integrated learning, real-time assessment, and industry-aligned portfolios.

Military

Track skills gained through service. Create secure, exportable portfolios for redeployment, cross-training, or transition into civilian work. 

Human Resources

Track skills gained through service. Create secure, exportable portfolios for redeployment, cross-training, or transition into civilian work. 

Regulatory & Awarding Bodies

Ensure standards are met and documented. VALID-8 enables fair, transparent, and legally defensible validation of qualifications — supporting audits, appeals, and certifications. 

Construction & Industry

Manage portfolios across massive, multi-site teams. Reduce training risk, prove safety compliance, and increase journeyperson-to-apprentice ratios by validating skill, not hours.

Audits & Compliance

Capture and track compliance evidence in real time. Avoid costly penalties by proving tasks were done to spec — with embedded media, signatures, and timestamps. 

Legacy Skills

Protect traditional trades and cultural knowledge through secure digital portfolios. VALID-8 preserves how something is done — not just that it was done. 

Fairness & Opportunity for All

Enable equitable pathways for non-traditional learners by letting them show competency in their own way — visual, verbal, practical, or performance-based. 

Indigenous Knowledge

Respect oral, visual, and land-based learning methods. VALID-8 supports video/audio evidence and alternative assessments, affirming Indigenous teaching and validation traditions.

Why it Works

VALID-8 replaces assumptions with proof.  Not implied, not theoretical, but real proof.
Rather than relying on hours, tests, or paper certificates, VALID-8 delivers: 

Transparent skill verification

Faster achievement & credentialing

Portability across provinces and occupations

Support for multiple languages, cultures, and accessibility needs

Legally defensible evidence of competence

When you can see the skill, everything changes.

Simple. Scalable. Affordable. 

  • Can cost as little as a cup of coffee a week
  • Covers full access, secure storage, and unlimited support
  • Fully bilingual, mobile-friendly, and customizable
  • Eligible for government training & placement funds

Created by Global Experts. Proven by Results. 

VALID-8 is built by Robert Smart, the original architect of online competency-based assessment, with: 

  • 30+ years of impact
  • Implementation in 27+ countries
  • Track record of 90%+ achievement rates
  • Recognition by the OECD, UK Parliament, U.S. Senate, and multiple awarding and regulatory bodies.

“If VALID-8 can be used to assess surgeons, why not tradespeople, students, or employees?”

Let’s Build a Skilled Future, Together. 

VALID-8 is the solution we’ve been waiting for. It doesn’t just track progress — it proves it. 

 

Whether you’re building homes, healing patients, teaching learners, or shaping policy, VALID-8 lets you see competence in action.