As the global economy evolves at the speed of AI, the challenge for nations has shifted from providing access to education to ensuring alignment with the workforce. Governments are now treating learning platforms as critical national infrastructure. To achieve this at a scale of millions, they are looking for solutions that embrace flexibility, data sovereignty, and open-source resilience.
At the upcoming Open edX Conference 2026 in Salt Lake City, we are bringing together the architects of the world’s most ambitious national upskilling initiatives for a plenary discussion.
The Architects of Scale
From Ethiopia’s e-She initiative to IBM SkillsBuild and Santander Open Academy, these leaders are building sovereign, scalable skills pipelines. They haven’t just “installed” a platform; they have customized their technology ecosystem to meet unique cultural, economic, and technical needs.
What We Will Explore:
- The 150M+ Learner Blueprint: The technical architecture required to support massive national instances without compromising performance.
- Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI): Why sovereign ecosystems—where the nation owns its data and its future—are becoming the global standard.
- The Skills-to-Jobs Pipeline: Real-world examples of platforms integrating directly with labor market analytics and employer databases.
- Resilience in Crisis: Lessons from Ethiopia on maintaining educational continuity when the stakes are highest.
Featured Panelists:
- Dr. Zelalem Assefa | CEO of ICT and Digital Education, Ministry of Education, Ethiopia
- Javier Pozo | Santander Open Academy
- Lydia Logan | VP, Global Education and Workforce Development, IBM
Join us in Salt Lake City this May to see how high scale, high quality upskilling is paying off for millions of learners worldwide.
[Register for the 2026 Open edX Conference]
