2026 Badge Summit: Full Schedule

2026 Badge Summit @ CU Boulder
In-person July 13-15 | Online August 4

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Badge Sandpit: Pack Your Badges Before Badge Summit (FREE pre-conference virtual activity)

Monday July 13, 2026 TBA

Get a head start on the LER Petting Zoo before you arrive! Visit the Badge Sandpit to complete a series of 3 free, self-paced activities that introduce you to digital badges, skills and career pathways. Earn badges, claim a skill, explore how skills connect to jobs, and bring your results to Badge Summit.

Complete one activity or all three and visit the Petting Zoo to collect your exclusive Explorer stickers. Activities take just 5–10 minutes to complete and are suitable for both newcomers and experienced badge practitioners.

Speakers

Wendy Palmer

Director, Lifelong Learning Practice

Wendy Palmer is a global expert in microcredentials, short-form learning, and lifelong learning strategy, with over 30 years of experience across higher education, government, and industry. She leads Lifelong Learning Practice, an Australian consultancy focused on the design and implementation... Read More →

Monday July 13, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Beyond Microcredentials: Using AI to Translate Experience into Academic Credit

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

As interest in microcredentials grows, institutions are grappling with how to move from skills signaling to transcripted credit. This session explores how AI can support Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) by translating lived and learned experiences into academic credit. Drawing on institutional use cases from LivedX, the presentation examines implications for enrollment, retention, and degree completion.

Speakers

Geeta Verma

Professor, STEM education and Founder, LivedX, University of Colorado Denver

Geeta Verma is a professor of science education at the University of Colorado Denver. She has founded an online platform, LivedX, that accredits students’ lived and learned experiences into essential life skills credentials. This enables youth to succeed in educational and workforce... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Can Micro-Credentialing and Learning Employment Records (LERs) be used to create equitable career mobility for frontline staff in higher education?

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

After writing and defending my dissertation where I researched barriers to career advancement for immigrant workers in higher education, coupled with being selected to join the LER Accelerator cohort through AACRO, I feel I am well positioned to share how LERS and Micro-credentials can be used to help facilitate equitable career mobility for frontline staff at CU. Additionally, in support of Governor Polis' Executive Order on skills-based hiring for all state classified staff, this session will look how LERs can serve as a tool to identify skills often not otherwise seen and/or developed in higher education staff.

Speakers

Kelsey Draper

Employee Development Manager, CU Boulder

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Experiments in Credential Fraud

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

Credential fraud undermines the value of legitimate achievements and costs organizations revenue, brand equity, and learner trust. But how prevalent is it really, and what can credential issuers actually do about it? This session presents findings from real-world experiments in monitoring and combating both organizational and individual credential fraud across digital credentials, professional profiles, and online marketplaces.

Speakers

Alan Heppenstall

CTO, Accredible

Alan Heppenstall is the co-founder and CTO of Accredible, the world's leading digital credential platform, enabling education and training leaders to increase learner engagement and drive program growth. Over 2,300 organizations, including Google, IAPP, McGraw Hill, Rutgers, Skillsoft... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | How to Explain LERs to Your Grandma

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

The trickiest part of explaining LERs, is well explaining them. This talk will help attendees get into the mindset of their target audience and walk away with actual scripts and techniques for explaining LERs to anyone, including their grandma.

Speakers

Thania Guardino

HR Marketing Expert + Editor, The Conquer Company + SkillsScoop

Thania Guardino is an HR and workplace marketing expert who helps decode how hiring actually works—so people and organizations can better communicate their value. She’s worked with startups from day one to over $100M+ in growth, helping them to clearly communicate their value... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Make Contributions Visible: The Work-Based Learning Number System Taxonomy

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

Learning through contribution is valid—and it requires recognition. This short, TED-style talk introduces the Work-Based Learning Numbering System (WBLNS™) as a simple way to index contribution. Using a single slide, the session shows how indexing enables traceability and portability, verification builds trust, and recording situates ownership of learning with the learner. As an extension of this presentation, participants will be invited to continue the conversation in the Table Talks sessions.

Speakers

Jeremy McQuigge

Secretary-General, Contribution Exchange

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Microcredentials, Major Shrug: What Are We Really Signaling?

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

Many microcredentials acknowledge learning but fail to signal what learners can actually do next, often prompting a familiar shrug from employers. This Badgesplaining talk explores how designing microcredentials with employer voice and forward-looking intent transforms acknowledgment into meaningful, differentiating signals.

Speakers

Cate Tolnai, MAT

Director, Microcredentials & Innovation Credentials Strategy, University of Phoenix

Cate Tolnai is a strategic leader, educator, and connector dedicated to bridging innovation with equity across the education ecosystem. As Director of Micro-credentials and Innovative Credentials Strategy at the University of Phoenix, she leads initiatives that redefine how learning... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | My Teacher is a Clone: What 18 Months of Running a University in the Metaverse Has Taught Us

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

For the past 18 months, EUonAIR has been building MyAI University, a metaverse-based virtual campus connecting 10 universities across Europe. I will share what we’ve learned from our user (learner) research. We will dive into the early, "hot-off-the-press" findings from our latest experiment. Early psychophysiological data on how learners react to AI-generated "cloned" lecturers; and initial findings from our rollout of AI chatbot tutors. All that with embracing virtual mobility and micro-credentials at the core of our platform.

Speakers

Konrad Sowa

Deputy Director - Human Race Research Center, Kozminski University

dr Konrad Sowa is an Assistant Professor, AI Product Manager, and Deputy Director of the Human Race Research Center at Kozminski University in Warsaw, Poland. His research and applied work is focused on human–AI collaboration and the adoption of generative AI in organizations, drawing... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Retrofitting microcredentials in South Africa, from implementation to policy

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

An overview of the journey to regulate microcredentials in South Africa, which has a highly regulated qualifications system and framework. Part qualifications/unit standards case studies will be shared as cautionary tales, and then sharing of current work researching, setting up the national Task Team and writing the policy/ reviewing legislation to regulate microcredentials.

Speakers

Nadia Starr

CEO, South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA)

Qualifications custodian and mobility advocate

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND] | Your Badge Is Not a Sticker

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

In this fast-paced talk, Keith Look provides analogies, examples, and mental models to simplify the sometimes confusing terminology permeating badging while at the same time demonstrating the potential the ecosystem holds. He promises not to confuse similes and metaphors in the process (or will really, really try not to . . . .)

Speakers

Keith Look

Vice President of Education Solutions, Territorium

Dr. Keith Look serves as the Vice President for Education Solutions at Territorium. A former principal (of all grade bands) and superintendent, Dr. Look and his teams facilitated meaningful growth in districts large and small, urban and rural, resourced and challenged. A therapeutic... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

TBA

BADGESPLAINING [ON-DEMAND]| Civic Participation as Experiential Learning: Making Democracy a Credentialed Skill

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

Civic participation is essential to democracy, but its learning value is often invisible, fragmented, and hard to carry forward. This Badgesplain introduces the Civics Credentialing System (CCS), a framework that uses open digital badges and open recognition to make civic learning visible, portable, connected, and valuable. Attendees will see how civic experiences — from dialogue and service to election work and leadership — can become trusted evidence of durable skills such as communication, collaboration, listening, ethical reasoning, and working across differences. The session offers a practical model for linking civic participation to learning evidence, trusted credentials, and mobility across education, work, and community life.

Speakers

Chris Newlon

CEO & Co-founder, Team Democracy

Chris Newlon is the CEO & CTO of Team Democracy. With more than 30 years at IBM, Chris brings deep expertise in systems architecture, platform development, and organizational transformation. He is the architect of the Civics Credentialing System (civicscredentialing.org), a scalable... Read More →

Tuesday August 4, 2026 TBA

VIRTUAL, ON-DEMAND

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