ILP Pathways (Benedict College) — ILF Grant Progress Report

Brief Project Description

ILP Pathways brings Interledger Protocol education to Benedict College, a historically Black college in Columbia, South Carolina. Through a three-tier cascade model, twelve students (the "Benedict 12") learn the Interledger Protocol and Open Payments in a FinTech course and on a Rafiki deployment in our Business Innovation Lab. They then consult with 15–20 Black- and minority-owned Columbia businesses and mentor 60 youth, ages 8–18, at a Digital Finance and Innovation Summer Camp. All curriculum will be released under a Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) license so other HBCUs can adopt the model.

Project Update

The grant began in March 2026, and the foundation is in place. Our biggest win this fall: the Benedict 12 cohort has been selected, and our FinTech course, BA 439 FinTech Strategy and Management, is approved for Spring 2027. Dr. James Ross is now building it in Canvas, the College's learning management system.

Our main struggle has been timing. Institutional course approval and procurement move on the academic calendar, not the grant calendar. At our kickoff with the ILF Program Team, we agreed to move the summer camp to 2027, and a no-cost extension set the project end date at September 1, 2027. In September we recalibrated the full timeline with the Program Team: Fall 2026 is our build-and-recruit semester, the course launches in Spring 2027, and the camp runs in June–July 2027.

Project Impact & Target Audience(s)

ILP Pathways serves Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities at every tier:

• Benedict College students. Benedict is a historically Black college, and most of our students are first-generation college attendees. Few have had exposure to payments infrastructure or open financial standards. The Benedict 12 gain technical skills in Interledger and Open Payments, paid stipends, and consulting experience.
• Black- and minority-owned small businesses in Columbia. Student consulting teams will help 15–20 businesses explore lower-cost, interoperable payment options through Open Payments.
• K-12 youth from underserved Columbia neighborhoods. Sixty youth, ages 8–18, will learn digital finance from near-peer college mentors who look like them.

The project supports the Interledger Foundation's mission by growing awareness of Interledger in communities that have been left out of financial technology, training a new group of HBCU students on Rafiki and Open Payments, and releasing open curriculum other institutions can reuse. The project is in its foundation phase, so outcomes will be measured starting with the Spring 2027 course, with pre/post assessments of technical proficiency and financial literacy running through the summer 2027 camp.

Progress on Objectives, Key Activities

How our plan has evolved:

• One course instead of two. Our proposal described an Interledger internship and a separate FinTech course. Working with our dean, we consolidated both into BA 439, the School of Business's special-projects course. This avoided a new-course approval cycle and keeps the Interledger content, hands-on Rafiki work, and consulting projects in one place.
• Faculty capacity-building. At ILF's direction before award, capacity-building is provided by ILF contractor Casey Ariel Diké at no cost to the grant, in place of the outside consultant in our original budget.
• Summer camp moved to 2027. Agreed at kickoff, so the camp can build on a fully trained Benedict 12.

Lab infrastructure specifications: two servers running Ubuntu Server LTS, a managed network switch, battery backup, and encrypted backup storage. One server will sit in the Innovation Lab and one in our Cybersecurity area.

Communications and Marketing

Recruitment for the Benedict 12 was carried out across the Tyrone Adam Burroughs School of Business and Entrepreneurship. Our budget does not include paid marketing. Broader public sharing will begin with the Spring 2027 course launch and the release of our first open curriculum modules.

What's Next?

Over the rest of the grant period we will:

• Install the lab infrastructure and bring our Rafiki node online
• Begin the Benedict 12's hands-on training and baseline assessments
• Finish building BA 439 and launch it in Spring 2027
• Recruit 15–20 minority-owned business partners and match them with student consulting teams
• Develop the K-12 camp curriculum for three age groups, then recruit 60 youth and deliver the camp in June–July 2027
• Award FinTech Certificates, host a community showcase, and publish our open curriculum

Community Support

We would welcome connections with ILF grantees who have deployed Rafiki in a university or teaching-lab setting, especially anyone who has built student exercises around Open Payments. We are also interested in guest speakers from the Interledger community for our Spring 2027 cohort, and in introductions to organizations running youth financial-literacy programs.

Additional Comments

We are grateful to the ILF Program Team for their flexibility in aligning the project with the academic calendar.

Relevant Links/Resources (optional)

• Benedict College