TradePass

Inspiration

Canada's construction sector faces a massive labor deficit, projecting a need for over 300,000 new workers by 2034. Yet, thousands of skilled tradespeople already live in Canada, working below their level as general labourers simply because they lack local credentials. An experienced electrician from abroad can stand on an Ontario job site unable to legally touch wiring due to compulsory trade regulations, while contractors scramble to recruit. We built TradePass to solve this paradox: transforming the hidden talent already on payroll into certified journeypersons.

What it does

TradePass bridges the gap between international tradespeople and provincial regulators (such as Skilled Trades Ontario for the 309A Construction & Maintenance Electrician compulsory trade). It features a multi-sided workflow:

1. Worker Voice Intake: Workers describe their past work history naturally in their native language (e.g., Turkish) via an ElevenLabs conversational voice agent, which structures the raw data into a claim file.
2. Asynchronous Employer Verification: Former overseas employers receive secure tokens to complete a verification form in their own language and time zone, eliminating missed phone calls across international boundaries.
3. In-Browser Video Audits & Consent: Supervisors verify facts on camera via an automated voice agent that reads back their independent entries, logging tamper-evident audit trails.Automated Evidence Bundling: TradePass tracks required hours against the $9,000$-hour standard, maps tasks to official skill sets, and generates a structured, audit-ready PDF package.

How we built it

Framework: Next.js 14 (App Router) with TypeScript and Tailwind CSS.

Data Layer: Lightweight JSON store (data/db.json) handled locally via custom store logic.

Voice & AI: Powered exclusively by ElevenLabs voice agents (@elevenlabs/react) and server-side REST analysis to parse conversational transcripts and data-collection objects.

Video & Audit: Browser getUserMedia and MediaRecorder APIs capturing secure webm files with audit logging (IP, user agent, timestamps).

PDF Generation: Server-side PDF rendering via @react-pdf/renderer using custom fonts for multilingual compliance.

Challenges we ran into

Asynchronous Time Zones & Communication: Coordinating verification across international borders typically results in missed calls. We solved this by moving to an asynchronous, form-plus-video model where former employers complete verification on their own schedules.

Strict Data Boundaries: Ensuring the AI never "hallucinates" or injects facts into the worker's history. We enforced a strict architecture where worker claims are kept distinct, and employer forms are filled independently before being audited on camera.

Regulatory Compliance: Structuring unstructured foreign job descriptions to cleanly map against complex, rigid provincial trade standards (like Ontario's 309A skill sets) without overwhelming the regulator with messy paperwork.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

End-to-End Multilingual AI Pipeline: Successfully integrating ElevenLabs voice agents to handle native Turkish conversational intakes and asynchronous employer verifications without falling back to other AI providers.

Solving a Real Regulatory Bottleneck: Designing a frictionless system that turns weeks of bureaucratic back-and-forth and missed international phone calls into a structured, tamper-evident 2-minute video and PDF evidence package.

Rigorous Data Separation: Architecting a foolproof data flow where the AI never hallucinates facts, keeping worker claims strictly separated from independent employer verifications and live discrepancy checks.

What we learned

Designing for Asynchronous Workflows: Building across international time zones taught us that synchronous requirements (like phone calls) break verification pipelines; asynchronous forms combined with automated video audits are far more resilient.

Balancing AI and Trust: Regulators and enterprises don't want black-box AI decisions; they want transparent audit trails, verifiable timestamps, and structured proof that human supervisors actually confirmed the facts on record.

What's next for TradePass

Piloting with Regional Contractors: Launching localized pilots with electrical contractors and newcomer employment agencies across the Waterloo Region and the Greater Toronto Area.

Expanding Trade Coverage: Scaling beyond the 309A Electrician trade to include other compulsory provincial trades like plumbing and HVAC.

Regulator Integration: Collaborating with industry stakeholders and regulatory bodies to refine the evidence package format for smoother, faster Trade Equivalency Assessments.

Built With

• artificial-intelligence
• b2b
• developer-tools
• elevenlabs
• json
• mediarecorder-api
• next.js
• node.js
• pdf-generation
• productivity
• react
• rest-api
• saas
• tailwind-css
• typescript
• voice-ai
• webrtc