Announcing the 2016 Badge Summit!

I am so excited to share this invitation to join us in Aurora, Colorado on June 24 for the 2016 Badge Summit. This one day event is bringing together some of the brightest and most inspiring Digital Badge thought leaders on the planet for highly interactive learning and sharing. Attendance is limited to 300 attendees.

What it is

In addition to providing breakfast and lunch, the Badge Summit will offer attendees electronic poster sessions, two keynotes, a Dream Maker’s Lounge and concurrent sessions and panels along four curated strands:

• K-12 Implementation
• Higher Ed and Teacher Professional Development Badging
• Hot Topics in Badges and Micro-credentials
• Industry Badging and Micro-credentials (including folks who’ve worked on internal projects at Google, Salesforce, IBM and one of the creators of Oregon Trail!)

Who is curating the strands

The sessions and panels in these four strands are being curated by a Dream Team of thought leaders who I am thrilled to name drop: Executive Director of the Badge Alliance, Nate Otto, University of Indiana Professors Dan Hickey and James Willis, 30 Goals author Shelly Terrell, #BadgeChatK12 co-founder Sarah Thomas, Terry Z. Martin of SemanticPress, Lisa Tenorio of Salesforce, Colorado State University’s Mike Macklin and me, Noah Geisel. Helping us to flatten the globe, curation is also in collaboration with Don Presant in Canada, Serge Ravet in France and Bryan Mathers in the UK.

The electronic poster sessions

Presenting electronic poster sessions is open to all attendees, both in person and virtual. They offer an informal, conversational opportunity for anyone working in the Digital Badges and Micro-credentials space to bring their exemplars, successes and struggles to a broad audience just as eager to learn from presenters as to offer them support. Attendees interested in presenting a poster session will find the email contact on our registration page.

What is a Dream Maker’s Lounge?

For some attendees, the amazing lineup of speakers, panels and sessions might not be the biggest reason to attend because what they are really interested in is the chance to dig in and create their own Badge system. The Dream Maker’s Lounge is a dedicated space meant to serve them by providing space and expert guidance from experienced leaders who have already created systems. Perhaps most importantly, the Dream Maker’s Lounge will give its visitors TIME to explore and create around a Badge system that will meet their needs, whatever the scale. Huge shoutout to Dustin Stiver and the Sprout Fund (as in ReMake Learning, Pittsburgh City of Learning, and more amazingness that offers us all hope and optimism that we, too, can change the world) for helping to plan and facilitate.

The two keynote speakers

Dr. Nichole Pinkard

Nichole Pinkard is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. She is the founder of Digital Youth Network, co-founder of Inquirium LLC and Remix Learning, home of iRemix, a social learning platform that connects youth’s learning opportunities in school, home, and beyond.

In collaboration with the Chicago Public Library, Dr. Pinkard helped found YOUmedia, a public learning space that immerses high school students in a context of traditional media — books — to make and produce new media artifacts like music, games, videos, and virtual worlds.

Dr. Pinkard is the recipient of a 2014 Northwestern Alumni Award, a 2010 Common Sense Media Award for Outstanding Commitment to Creativity and Youth, and the 2004 the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies, an NSF Early CAREER Fellowship, and a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for research on how digital media affects literacy. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Institute of Play. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. [Biography originally posted on the Digital Youth Network site]

Dr. Doug Belshaw

Dr. Doug Belshaw is an Open Educational Thinkerer who specialises in digital skills/literacies, alternative credentialing, and helping companies work more openly. A former teacher and senior leader in schools, Doug also has experience in Higher Education with Jisc in the UK. From 2012 to 2015 he worked on an international basis for the Mozilla Foundation, first on the Open Badges team, and then as Web Literacy Lead. He is now an independent consultant, coaching individuals and helping organisations such as City & Guilds make sense of the 21st century education technology landscape.

Exciting announcements

During the time when we are all in one room for the keynote presentations, we will also have a number of guests sharing exciting and galvanizing announcements from our stage. As much as I want to spill my guts and give you just a taste of the cool stuff that will be announced, it would ruin the spirit of surprise and violate a couple NDAs. Suffice it to say, some seriously cool news will be shared.

Vendor session

For folks tasked with investigating Badge issuing platforms for their schools and districts, there will be a panel featuring leaders from the different vendors in this space so you can learn about their respective features and compare them side-by-side. Additionally, the architects of these platforms are some of the most brilliant Badging minds around so expect to see their expertise on other panels as well. Badge Summit sponsors and exhibitors include (I will update this as more sign on): The Badge Alliance (sponsor), Credly (sponsor), ProExam (exhibitor), Discendum (from Finland! Exhibitor).

Other Details

If this post piques your interest, head over to the registration page where there are even more details about food, logistics and who (so far) will be joining us. The basic details are:

• 8am-4pm on Friday, June 24, 2016 in Aurora, Colorado (about 15 minutes from Denver International Airport. Cost: $99 (earlybird). Includes breakfast and lunch.

Why we are doing the 2016 Badge Summit

The Badge Summit was originally conceived as part of the Recognizing Assets & Opening Doors commitment to action plan at the Clinton Global Initiative Meeting. The action plan makes some audacious commitments and we believed it would be important to share that work with a broader audience. Over the course of the last year, our efforts on the CGI commitment have brought us in contact with dozens of amazing thought leaders who are blazing awesome trails in this world and it quickly became apparent that our Badge Summit could serve as an opportunity to take important work out of silos and bring these like-minded leaders together for a day of learning and a future of collaboration.

Thank you for your interest and please reach out on Twitter (@SenorG) if you have any questions about the 2016 Badge Summit. Additional posts highlighting elements of the Badge Summit and illustrious guests:

• Badge Summit Preview: An Interview with Serge Ravet | Serge is a genius (his research has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation!) joining us all the way from France.
• Badge Summit Preview: An Interview with Eric Rousselle | Eric and his company Discendum are from Finland. If that’s not reason enough to be excited to see him at Badge Summit, they are the ones behind Open Badge Factor and Open Badge Passport.