SkillLink Lanka
A secure mobile-first marketplace and verified skill portfolio for informal tradespeople in Sri Lanka, connecting workers with customers through identity and skill checks, protected communication, payments, and dispute resolution.
The Challenge & Core Problem
High-Level Briefing
The proposal identifies a trust gap affecting informal tradespeople and customers: workers lack portable proof of skills and income, while consumers have limited ways to verify providers, communicate safely, or resolve disputes.
"Create a secure marketplace that connects customers and tradespeople while supporting worker verification, private communication, protected transactions, and accountability."
Hard Timebox & Rules
- The proposal targets skilled informal trades such as masonry, carpentry, electrical work, plumbing, tiling, and painting.
- Worker access is designed for low digital literacy through voice-first Sinhala and Tamil onboarding and app-free SMS links.
- Identity and skill checks, masked communication, LankaQR escrow, ratings, and dispute resolution are proposed as one closed-loop service.
Open Risks & Pressure Factors
- The concept must serve workers with entry-level devices, limited digital confidence, or changing phone access.
- Identity, payment, and communication safeguards must protect both customers and workers across multi-day jobs.
Leadership & Personal Contribution
Team Member
Real-Time Architectural Dilemmas Under Clock Pressure
The Technical Solution
SkillLink Lanka proposes a mobile-first service marketplace with geospatial discovery, tiered identity and skill verification, masked chat and voice, LankaQR escrow, and dispute resolution.
Data Flow & Architecture
The proposed PWA supports worker portfolios and customer discovery. FastAPI handles matching, booking, WebSocket chat, and payment orchestration, with PostgreSQL/PostGIS for jobs and geospatial queries. Object storage holds portfolio media, while WebRTC, one-time SMS links, identity checks, skill verification, and LankaQR escrow are proposed to support protected end-to-end transactions.
Critical Data Pipelines
The Retrospective: What Worked & What Needs Work
What Worked
- ✓The proposal addresses discovery, verification, communication, payment, and dispute resolution as one trust workflow.
- ✓Tiered evidence allows both community-validated experience and formal credentials to contribute to worker profiles.
- ✓Voice-first onboarding and one-time SMS links consider workers with lower digital access.
What Still Needs Work
- ✕SkillLink Lanka is presented as a proposal; integrations with identity, TVEC/NVQ, and payment services are proposed rather than confirmed as operational.
Hard-Won Engineering Takeaways
Verified Skills and Safer Service Transactions
SkillLink Lanka proposes linking worker discovery to evidence of skills, protected communication, and payment handling so that both parties have accountability throughout a job.