VOUCH
Why this project matters
Care work is essential, constant and completely undocumented.
Field research with caregivers and employers showed trust being rebuilt from scratch in every relationship.
Designed a caregiver-owned identity where work history and community validation travel with the person.
Invisible labour becomes a verifiable, dignified economic identity — recognised with Best Technical Depth.
VOUCH gives caregivers a way to make their work visible, build trust, and access better opportunities — converting informal, unrecognised care work into a verifiable, dignified identity.
The project was awarded Best Technical Depth at Hackathon 7.0.
Caregiving and domestic work is essential yet invisible. It happens inside homes, is arranged through word of mouth, and leaves nothing behind: no history, no reference that travels, no proof of reliability.
Caregivers were trusted deeply — by one family at a time. That trust was real, hard-earned and completely non-transferable, so years of reliable work produced no advantage in the next negotiation.
Field research with caregivers and the families who employ them showed how trust is actually established, signalled and lost in care relationships — and where the system fails the person doing the work.
VOUCH layers identity, work history, trust signals and community validation into a single dignified profile — designed so recognition accrues to the caregiver and travels with them.
What I saw
Every new placement began with the caregiver proving themselves from zero.
What it meant
Trust was being stored by employers, not by the person who earned it.
What I changed
Made the trust profile caregiver-owned and portable across relationships.
Why
If recognition does not travel with the worker, the system keeps re-extracting the same proof.
What happened
Work history becomes an asset the caregiver carries into every new opportunity.
What I saw
Caregivers were wary of platforms that expose their movements and personal details.
What it meant
Visibility without control becomes surveillance rather than recognition.
What I changed
Built privacy and safety guardrails into what visibility means, with community validation as the primary trust signal.
Why
Care work is legible enough through community endorsement; monitoring the worker is not required to establish trust.
What happened
A trust model that increases opportunity without increasing exposure.
The flow moves from identity, to work record, to community validation, to opportunity — with safety built in as a first-class touchpoint rather than a setting.
Trust and visibility flows were checked against caregivers' real safety and dignity needs from field research. The trust model was refined to centre community validation over abstract ratings, and to make work history portable across relationships rather than locked to one employer.
What changed
Trust stopped belonging to the employer and started belonging to the caregiver. Work history, verification and community validation became one portable record the caregiver carries into every new relationship.
What I learned
What I would do next
Next project
Decoded DFC
Redesigning learning momentum for working professionals
