2026 Badge Summit

Maricopa County Community Colleges, ASU, and DXtera share a living use case of issuing verifiable credentials at scale through the Trusted Learner Network. This session highlights how real students are gaining access to secure, portable records of their learning, while institutions build shared infrastructure that supports transparency, transfer, and lifelong learning—and invites others to join a growing credentialing network.

Badges are everywhere but not all badges are created equal. In this highly interactive session, participants will critique real-world badges (the good, the bad, and the ugly), unpack what makes badges visible, meaningful, and trusted, and then design their own. They will draft badge metadata, evidence, and messaging, and leave with a template they can use in their own work. Format can be adapted for 30 or 45 minutes.

NOTE:  The session below is linked to the suggestion of organizing a pre-conf workshop on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS).

In particular, the workshop could be oriented to be about learning "Protocols for non-indegenous people working with Indigenous Knowledge"

This workshop should be co-Design with Badge Summit hosts (Noah, Kristi) and a few others, including:
- Taylor Kendall from LEF
- Nathan Schneider from UC Boulder MedLab
- Wakanyi Hoffman from Inclusive AI Lab (University of Utrect) and African Folkstales Project
- and others

Additionally this session proposal might be reshaped to be a Dream Makers Lounge
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The Challenge: Colonial credentialing systems universally recognize Western validation mechanisms while frequently framing millennia-old Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) as “unrecognized” or “informal.” This perpetuates a fundamental injustice: the refusal to recognize Indigenous Recognition Systems (IRS) themselves—the sophisticated, community-governed protocols for validating competence and conferring legitimacy that predate and function independently of formal institutions.

The Solution: Recognition Sovereignty: This session introduces the Indigenous Recognition Systems (IRS) framework as a decolonial model for justice. It argues for a paradigm shift: from seeking recognition for Indigenous knowledge (e.g., through Recognition of Prior Learning, RPL) to demanding recognition of

This interactive design challenge engages participants in hands-on badge design for civic participation. Using an adapted Badge Canvas, small groups prototype credentials for learners such as students, election workers, or community leaders. Participants define outcomes, evidence, and assessment approaches aligned with durable skills and experiential learning. The session models learning by actively engaging participants in the design process.