2026 Badge Summit

Ready to turn skills-forward momentum into an integrated, repeatable program—supported by a coherent digital credentials approach? This roadmap sprint is a working session for education technology leaders and implementers who have started skills-forward efforts and want to scale them across the institution through durable processes, interoperable systems, and consistent credential practices. Participants will map their current state through a rapid readiness exercise, then build a practical roadmap using a proven sequence: Evaluate → Plan → Implement → Iterate—including the key decisions, stakeholder alignments, and systems touchpoints required to sustain scale.  


We’ll translate common scale-breakers into concrete actions—clarifying ownership, connecting workflows across teams and platforms, strengthening credential consistency and quality, and making progress measurable and repeatable—so skills-forward work becomes part of how the organization operates. You’ll walk away with clear next steps to accelerate execution—high-energy, highly interactive, and focused on what you can implement next.

Create your app. Credential your learners. Connect your community.
Join us for a hands-on session where participants will build a working app in minutes using LearnCard and a new suite of AI-assisted open-source tools. We'll confront the real economics of "free" tools, the labor of maintenance, and how hyper-local recognition systems can contribute to global infrastructure. Bring laptops. Leave with both a functioning prototype and honest understanding of what sustainable public goods actually require. Open source isn't free, it's freedom. 

In this 30-minute breakout, Aims Community College and Proof of Knowledge (POK) share practical lessons from a real-world digital badge pilot designed to better communicate learning outcomes and improve learner employability. Facing the limitations of transcripts and traditional credentials, Aims sought a way to help learners clearly demonstrate workforce-ready skills through verifiable, institution-owned digital credentials.
The session explores how Aims implemented a standards-aligned, white-label digital badging framework that allows learner achievements to be trusted, portable, and controlled by the institution. The presenters will discuss key implementation decisions, including aligning credentials with Open Badges 3.0, reducing technical and operational friction for non-technical users, and improving student engagement and badge claim rates.
Participants will leave with actionable insights into how community colleges can design and scale digital badge initiatives across general education, Career and Technical Education (CTE), co-curricular learning, continuing education, and employee professional development, while maintaining institutional credibility and learner trust.

As micro-credentials gain traction across higher education, institutions face a shared challenge: supporting faculty in credential design while meaningfully engaging employers. Employer input is often limited, while faculty lack clear structures to guide development. This session introduces a practical, repeatable co-creation model grounded in higher education–industry partnerships. Through interactive activities, participants will explore real-world examples, lessons learned, and ready-to-use frameworks they can apply immediately. 

Many credentials, assessments, and LER projects claim to improve “mobility,” but what does that actually mean in practice? This interactive design challenge invites participants to test a simple “Mobility Ladder” framework across education, workforce, and credentialing contexts. Together, we’ll examine where projects truly create movement for learners and workers—and where assumptions break down—surfacing shared metrics, gaps, and new questions for the field.

HLC launched a voluntary quality assurance framework and process that will serve to review and endorse short-term credential content providers that demonstrate meeting certain standards. Providers may be non-degree granting institutions or companies that create and/or deliver content or skills training that connects learners to labor market needs, either independently or in partnership with colleges and universities or employers. Learn about the first and second cohort of providers!

Skills are assessed everywhere—but rarely in one place. This interactive session invites participants to explore a live map of how skills are actually evaluated across hiring, onboarding, and advancement, based on real employer and worker stories. Together, we’ll add our own experiences to the map to surface patterns, blind spots, and design opportunities for clearer, fairer skill signals.