Digital Badges: Are You Ready For What’s Next?

This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my full list of disclosures here.

Digital Badges are Resume Worthy Credentials

NOTE: If you want to jump to the Leaderboard, click HERE.

BONUS: If you just want to jump to the 40+ badges you can earn for FREE, click HERE.  Or, Earn a badge in just 20 minutes, click HERE.

I have earned 21 digital badges. They have served me well in my current endeavors of building the Upskill Create Community.  They have helped establish my expertise in this area as well as give me a broad general knowledge of new technologies and skills.

I help others in our community earn badges, learn, share resources and connect with others.

My first two badges were IBM Cloud Essentials and Blockchain Essentials. Both courses are 3 hours long. All of the courses in this blog post are available for anyone to take and are 100% FREE.

The courses were enjoyable with good videos and learn-by-doing exercises. The exercises were easy to follow along with and helped fill in the gaps of my knowledge of Bluemix and Blockchain. Most of the videos are hosted on Youtube. Here’s an example from the Bluemix Essentials Course (if you can’t see the video below, click HERE):

Course Design

Each course was broken up into modules and activities in collapsible sections. I was able to take the course in chunks as my schedule allowed and I was informed of my progress at the bottom of each module (e.g. “completed 7 out of 33 modules”). At the end of each module, I was given a knowledge checkpoint question. At the end of the course, I had to correctly answer 80% of the 10 quiz questions to collect my badge. If I got less than 80%, I was able to re-take the quiz as many times as I wanted to get 80% or better.

Here’s an example of the expandable modules from the Bluemix Essentials course:

Course Requirements: As an example, here are the details for what is required to earn the Blockchain Essentials Badge:

1. Coursework: Successful completion of the Blockchain Essentials course.
2. Demonstration: Successful completion of the associated practical lab demonstrating the ability to create a working chaincode and deploy it to a blockchain network.
3. Assessment: Completion of the end-of-course test and received a score of 80% or higher.

Convenient: I wake up early on most weekend mornings and while the rest of my family is asleep, I thought I could use this time to make a small investment in my career by learning every weekend. Most courses average about 5 hours each so this is easy to complete.

Addictive: As a fan of the highly addictive collection game called Pokemon Go during the summer of 2016 (slogan – “Gotta Catch ’em All!”), I found myself feeling a similar addictive desire to get more IBM badges!

Want to earn a Digital Badge?

Here are several sources for taking courses and earning badges:

• Badges Mindmap (8 categories of courses including Blockchain, Data Science and Cloud): http://bit.ly/uc-mindmap
• Data Science Courses: https://cognitiveclass.ai/badges/
• Popular FREE Badges: https://www.ibm.com/skills/badges/
• Watson Academy: https://bit.ly/uc-watsonacademy
• IBM Skills Gateway: https://bit.ly/uc-ibmskills
• Learn Cloud and AI with IBM Badges by Mihai Criveti

My badges list: LINK

1. IBM Cloud (Bluemix) Essentials (3 hours) ✔
2. Blockchain Essentials (3 hours) ✔
3. Node-Red: Basics to Bots (4 hours) ✔
4. Watson Discovery Service Foundations Badge (1.5 hours) ✔
5. Data Science Foundations (3 hours) ✔
6. Big Data 101 (3 hours) ✔
7. Watson Conversation Service Foundations (3 hours) ✔
8. Hadoop Foundations Level 1 (5 hours) ✔
9. Python 101 for Data Science (5 hours) ✔
10. Data Science for Business – Level 1 (1.5 hours-5 hours) ✔
11. IBM Cloud Garage Explorer (1.5 hours) ✔
12. Docker Essentials: Extend your app with containers (3 hours) ✔
13. Getting Started with Kubernetes (2.5 hours) ✔

BONUS: Here’s a complete list of over 2100 badges you can earn from IBM: LINK. And here’s a list of IBMers that have earned badges: LINK.  Check out the Linkedin Post.

Grab my eBook to learn everything you need to know about earning digital badges.  Click the graphic to learn more about what’s included.

IBM Badges Wall of Fame (minimum badges required = 29)

Last update: 11-May-2020.  Badge Count increase (+x) is based on badge increase from 13-Feb-2020.  127 members, +24.

400+ (1 member)

• Osamu Iwata – 441 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/osamu-iwata/badges

300+ (1 member)

• Oliver Bodemer (300 badges achieved 1-Mar-2020) – 303 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/oliver-bodemer

200-299 (0 members)

• no members (yet!)

100-199 (19 members, +4)

• Gourav Banerjee – 181 badges (+40): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/gourav-banerjee.651b536a
• Georges Maamari – 179 badges (+28): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/georges-maamari
• Sudip Lamichhane – 170 badges (+8): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/sudip
• Bernd Schlosser – 143 badges (+19): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/bernd-schlosser/badges
• Giulio Montenero – 133 badges (+15): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/giulio-montenero
• Mauricio Cadavid – 132 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/mauricio-cadavid
• Hossam AlTurkey – 127 badges (+14): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/hossam-alturkey/badges
• Santiago Lovera – 121 badges (+17): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/santiago-santiago-lovera-gmail-com/badges
• Siddhartha Sood – 120 badges (+10): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/siddhartha-sood
• Alain Airom – 115 badges (+19): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/alain-airom/badges
• Mariya Gul Khand – 114 badges (+9): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mariya-gul-khand/badges
• Mihai Criveti – 113 badges (+9): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/mihai-criveti
• Tanut Karnwai – 110 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/Tanut-Karnwai
• Martin Dvorsky – 110 badges (+7): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/martin-dvorsky
• Tom Halvorson – 103 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/tom-halvorson
• Omar Dasser – 102 badges (+7): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/omar-dasser/badges
• Ludmila Kantova – 101 badges (+10): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ludmila-kantova
• Ranjith Radhamananohar – 101 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/ranjith-radhamanohar
• Elez Bislim-Jonny – 101 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/elez-bislim/badges
• Alessandro Rodrigo Marialva – 100 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/alessandro-rodrigo-marialva/badges

70-99 (15 members, +3)

• Kenneth Cheung – 92 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/kenneth-cheung.6c69552d
• Catalin Modovan – 92 badges (+15): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/catalin-moldovan/badges
• Cristiano Borges – 88 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/cristiano-borges-de-oliveira/badges
• Samer Fouad – 86 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/samerfouad/badges
• Neil Dick Beltran – 85 badges (+9): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/neil-dick-beltran
• Mihail Stanescu – 84 badges (+14): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mihail-stanescu/badges
• Muhammad Ali Raza – 82 badges (+17): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/muhammad-ali-raza/badges
• Afroz Khan – 78 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/afroz-khan.fa210bcc/badges
• Francisco Naranjo – 78 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/francisco-naranjo
• Gabriel Pessine – 77 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/gabriel-pessine/badges
• Rafael Mello – 76 badges (+5): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/rafael-mello.72d25238
• Raydo Matthee – 76 badges (+9): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/raydo-matthee/badges
• Andrea Weber – 75 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/andrea-weber/badges
• Nandan Kumar – 74 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/nandankumar/badges
• Theo Thomas – 74 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/theo-thomas
• Juha Ekstrom – 71 badges (+10): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/juha-ekstrom/badges

50-69 (30 members, +5)

• Vincent Perrin – 68 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/vincent-perrin/badges
• Marshal V. Khosa – 66 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/marshal-v-khosa
• Somnath Das – 65 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/somnath-das.ebbce072
• Roy Bruijns – 65 badges (+8): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/Roy-Bruijns/badges
• Scott Kennedy – 64 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/scott-kennedy
• Wayne Kimble – 64 badges (+22): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/wayne-kimble/badges
• Derek Hubbard – 63 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/derek-hubbard
• Luis Alejandro Valle – 62 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/luisvalle
• Andre Gusmao – 62 badges (+10): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/andre-gusmao
• Radek Volf – 61 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/radek-volf/badges
• Chris Phillips – 60 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/chris-phillips.bdd87ec5/badges
• Daria Korenkova – 60 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/daria-korenkova/badges
• Francisco Gomeztagle – 60 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/francisco-gomeztagle
• Tom Bosmans – 59 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/tom-bosmans
• Chip Van Alstyne – 59 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/chipva
• Johnnie Ng – 59 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/johnnie-ng/badges
• Leslie Rodriguez – 56 badges (+7): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/leslierodriguez
• Nilabja Haldar – 56 badges (+8): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/nilabja-haldar/badges
• Marko Ekelo – 56 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/marco-ekelo
• Handoko Lie – 55 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/handoko-lie
• Claudia Degli Esposti – 54 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/claudia-degli-esposti.0239309b
• Ashraf Ali Tajudeen – 53 badges (+5): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ashraf-ali-thajudeen/badges
• Shreyas Mulay – 53 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/shreyasmulay23
• Victor Kazuyuki Shinya – 53 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/vshinya/badges
• Soumyajit Goswami – 52 badges (+18): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/soumyajit-goswami/badges
• Carlos Matos – 52 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/carlos-matos.2e614c04/badges
• Kimmo Kaskikallio – 51 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/kimmo-kaskikallio
• Juan Montalvo – 51 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/juan-montalvo
• Paulo Uecho – 51 badges (+11): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/paulo-uechi/badges
• Jeffrey Curtiss – 50 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/jeffrey-curtiss

40-49 (28 members, +11)

• John McNamara – 49 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/john-mcnamara.1ef76c24
• Pramod Singh – 49 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/pramod-singh.f475cea1
• Kavitha Suresh Kumar – 49 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/kavitha-suresh-kumar/badges
• Long Truong – 49 badges (+18): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/long-truong.2af92a07/badges
• Andreas Graef – 49 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/andreas-graef
• Bedang Sen – 48 badges (+15): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/bedang-sen/badges
• Amit Srivastava – 48 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/amit-srivastava.d0435a52/badges
• Patricia Miranda – 48 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/patricia-miranda/badges
• Rafael Arturo Ramirez Sus – 47 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/rafael-arturo-ramirez-sus
• Alexandre Figueiredo – 47 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/alexandre-figueiredo.f53b8b5a/badges
• Indradeep Kama – 46 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/indradeep-kama
• Anchal Bhalla – 44 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/anchal-bhalla.738b5c5d/badges
• Laurent Sene – 43 Badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/laurent-sene/badges
• Jody Burks – 43 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/jody-burks
• Ayan Roy Chowdhury – 43 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ayan_roy_chowdhury/badges
• Rishabh Chandak – 42 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/rishabh-chandak/badges
• Somak Banik – 42 badges (+3): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/somak-banik/badges
• Subrata Chakraborty – 42 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/subrata-chakraborty/badges
• Giovanni Triunfo – 42 badges (+5): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/giovanni-triunfo/badges
• Ganbadrakh Danzan-Ayush – 40 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ganbadrakh-danzan-ayush/badges
• Felipe Gama – 41 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/felipe-gama/badges
• Juan Carlos Gonzalez Bosque – 41 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/juan-carlos-gonzalez-bosque/badges
• Shikhar Kwatra – 41 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/shikhar-kwatra/badges
• Stanley Soman – 41 badges (+5): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/stanley-soman/badges
• Deepak Koshal – 40 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/deepak-koshal/badges
• Lutz Marten – 40 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/lutz-marten/badges
• Hycind Santhibhavan – 40 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/hycind
• Hema Cherukuri – 40 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/hema-cherukuri/badges
• Sorin Mihailescu – 40 badges (+9): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/sorin-mihailescu/badges

29-39 (35 members, +2)

• Sheree Little – 39 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/sheree-little/badges
• M. Ahmad Shazad – 39 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/muhammad-ahmad-shahzad/badges
• Ahmed Khaled – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ahmed-khaled-abdalla/badges
• Kuber Alagh – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/kuber-alagh/badges
• Michele Nicosia – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/michele-nicosia/badges
• Adam Nowotarski – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/adam-nowotarski
• Vicky Rose – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/vicky-rose/badges
• Pedro Soares – 38 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/pedrosoares/badges
• Alex Fleischer – 38 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/alex-fleischer/badges
• Christian Relling – 38 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/christian-relling/badges
• Michael Rocha – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mikejrocha/badges
• Nageswara Sastry Renduchintala – 38 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/nageswara-sastry/badges
• Srinivas Cheemalapati – 37 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/srinivas-cheemalapati
• John Martin – 37 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/john-martin.71ebc4be
• Manikanda Prabhu – 37 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/manikanda-prabhu-r/badges
• Sbuhash Sardana – 37 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/subhash-sardana/badges
• Kadir Meric – 37 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/kadir-guray-meric/badges
• Muhammad Gad – 37 badges (+5): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/muhammad.gad/badges
• Emily Marucci – 37 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/emily-marucci/badges
• Elena Fernandez – 37 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/elena-fernandez-garces
• Kodiginti Rajesh – 36 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/kodigintirajesh
• Pal Krogdahl – 36 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/pal-krogdahl/badges
• Bartholomew Zhang – 36 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/bartholomew-zhang/badges
• Yogeswaran Govindarajah – 36 badges (+4): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/yogeswaran-govindarajah/badges
• Ivaylo Bozhinov – 36 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ivaylo-bozhinov/badges
• Ayan Mukherjee – 35 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/ayan_mukherjee
• Alexander Felbeck – 35 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/alexander-felbeck/badges
• Laio Curi – 35 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/laio-curi/badges
• Brian Wilson – 35 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/brian-wilson.99f6a03d/badges
• Dusin Duran – 34 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/dustin-duran/badges
• Baltazar Rodriguez – 34 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/baltazar-rodriguez
• Surya Kiran Purvada – 34 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/surya-kiran-puvvada/badges
• Bobbi Grace Hebermehl – 33 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/bobbi-hebermehl/badges
• Leonardo Kenji Shikida – 32 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/leonardo-kenji-shikida
• Gaurav Bhargava – 31 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/gaurav-bhargava-19/badges
• Abhiroop Ghosh – 31 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/abhiroop-ghosh
• Yassine Sarsari – 31 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/yassine-sarsari/badges
• Santosh Dash – 30 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/santosh-dash/badges
• Gustavo Barrientos – 30 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/gustavo-w-barrientos/badges
• Mahmoud Helmy – 30 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mahmoud-helmy.095f5618/badges
• Narendran Subramanian – 29 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/narendran-subramanian.9346ea89/badges
• Kolla Ravikanth Yadav – 29 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/kolla-ravikanth-yadav/badges

Non-IBMers Badges Wall of Fame (minimum badges required = 15)

Last update: 11-May-2020.  Badge Count increase (+x) is based on badge count increase from 13-Feb-2020.  14 members

200+ (1 member, Congratulations Wes!)

• Wes Morgan – 212 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/wes-morgan

100-199 (1 member, +1)

• David Llerena – 180 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/bdllerena/badges

50-99 (3 members, +3)

• Ahmed Alsareti – 83 badges (+34): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ahmed-alsareti/badges
• Mostafa Nabieh – 66 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mostafa-nabieh/badges
• Jochen Meixner – 55 badges (+6): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/jochen-meixner
• Christian Brandlehner – 50 badges (+11): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/christian-brandlehner

40-49 (4 members, -2)

• Juan Francisco Martin Garcia – 48 badges (+1): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/jfmartin/badges
• Mohamed Gamal – 44 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/user/mohamed.gamal
• Ahmed El Sayed – 44 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/ahmed-el-sayed/badges
• Luciano S. Mori – 41 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/luciano-s-mori
• Martin Anderson – 41 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/martinanderson/badges

30-39 (3 members, -1)

• Marcus Pinto – 35 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/marcus-pinto/badges
• Robert Mariano – 31 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/robert-mariano/badges
• Brandon Kutsch – 31 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/brandon-kutsch

15-29 (3 members)

• Sayan Chakraborty – 26 badges (+2): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/sayan-chakraborty.0f07ec11/badges
• Mohamed Marhabi – 23 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/mohamed-marhabi/badges
• Robert Mapstead – 21 badges (+0): https://www.youracclaim.com/users/robert-mapstead/badges

 

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