Trust and safety

Why Powstik exists

AI can now write a résumé, an essay or a cover letter in seconds. So words alone stop meaning much. What still means something is work you really did, confirmed by the people who saw it. Powstik is a place to keep that work and show it.

Powstik was started by Vamsee Kiran. He trained as a physician at CMC Vellore, earned an MBA at St. Gallen and an M.Tech in biomedical informatics, and has built and sold five companies. Powstik is run by Powstik Innovations Private Limited in Bengaluru, India, and is part of the Lean Rocket Lab Fall 2026 cohort in Michigan.

How verification works

You do something real, then add proof: a link, a photo, a file or a short write-up.

Then the people who saw the work confirm it. A teacher, a coach, a teammate, a client. Each confirmation is a real person, signed in with their own account.

Every confirmation gets a Proof Seal. A seal is a digital signature. It records who confirmed, how they signed in, what proof they looked at and when. If anyone changes the record later, the seal no longer matches.

Our public signing keys are at /.well-known/powstik-signing-keys.json. Anyone can use them to check that a seal was made by Powstik and has not been changed.

How we stop fakes

• You can never confirm your own work.
• A step in a path counts only when 3 different people have confirmed its proof. One person confirming twice counts once.
• A badge needs 3 different people too. If a confirmation is taken back, the badge shows that.
• Each person can send up to 20 verifier invites and make up to 60 confirmations a day. We also limit how many new accounts can be made from one network in an hour (40).
• Our system flags patterns worth a second look, such as two people confirming each other, many confirmations in one day, or an account that changes its name between confirmations. A person, not a machine, then reviews them. Nobody is removed automatically.
• While a flag is open, that person is kept off the contest boards.
• If a confirmation turns out to be wrong, our team can take it back. We keep a record of who did it and why.

Who can verify

• Every verifier signs in with Google, GitHub or LinkedIn. No anonymous confirmations.
• If you invite someone to check your work, they can confirm it as soon as they sign in.
• Someone you did not invite can confirm only if their own account is at least 7 days old and they have their own checked work on Powstik (5 checked outcomes, or a full path).
• Some outcomes involve working with children or other people who need care. For those, only verifiers the person invited can confirm, and each must add a link that shows their professional role, such as a teaching registration. The verifier gives us this link. We do not check it ourselves.

Children and privacy

• We ask for your birth year once. You can skip it.
• Only accounts we know belong to adults (18+) are public. If you are under 18, or have not told us your age, your profile and proofs are seen only by you and people you approve. You never appear in search, suggestions, feeds or leaderboards.
• Under 13: posting, replying and following are off.
• 13 to 17: anyone who wants to follow you needs your approval first.
• Share buttons and "Add to LinkedIn" are not shown on accounts under 18. Links we make never include a minor's name.
• People under 18 never receive hardware prizes.
• When a school uses Powstik, the school confirms it has consent before students join.

We follow the ideas in India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act: we collect only what we need to run Powstik, we never sell your data, and you can download or delete your data at any time. Read our Privacy Policy for the details.

What we never do

• No ads. We do not show ads and we do not sell your data to advertisers.
• No public follower counts. Only you can see who follows you. Your profile shows what you have done, not how popular you are.
• No infinite scroll. Lists load more only when you press a button. Your feed has an end.

Questions or a concern about a proof? Contact us. You can also report any proof with the Report button on it.