Taylor Hansen Taylor Hansen
Executive Director, Policy and Programs

Published

January 30, 2023

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“The future of work” has become a popular phrase over the last decade, and its meaning can change depending on who is sharing their vision for tomorrow’s workforce. The T3 Innovation Network views the future of work as a talent marketplace where; (1) all learning counts, (2) competencies and skills can be used like currency in the labor market, and (3) learners and workers are empowered with data they can use to advance their career and education journeys.

To make the vision of the future of work a reality, we have to collectively work to facilitate the digital transformation of the talent marketplace.

This digital transformation requires massive amounts of structured data about the workforce in the form of learning and employment records (LERs). LERs are machine readable digital assets that not only capture the education and career achievements of an individual but also add tremendous value by also highlighting the skills and competencies they have attained and/or demonstrated. LERs hold the potential to not only facilitate a skills-based economy, but also contribute to efforts aimed at addressing our nation’s social and economic equity gaps.

  • LERs are a new approach to skills measurement traditionally issued by education and training providers or employers for newly earned credentials, degrees, and certificates. As a new innovation, the success of LERs is dependent on wide-scale adoption. A recent report from the Digital Credentials Consortium presented many of the most pressing challenges requiring collaboration and participation from human resources and the information systems they use to hire and advance people in careers.

Connecting employers with the right talent and creating opportunities for learners and workers is why the T3 Innovation Network is excited to launch our new initiative, Experience You. The vision for Experience You is ambitious, but the potential impact is immense.

Experience You will explore how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can aggregate unstructured learning and employment data and convert it into machine readable, structured data as an LER. Experience You strives to address concerns around digital trust models, tools for verification, and the building of credentials that hold present and future value in our learning to employment ecosystem.

Through Experience You, in partnership with Education Design Lab, the U.S. Chamber Foundation will work with leaders in the AI and LER space to identify the current capabilities of technology and bridge gaps to ensure the workforce of tomorrow can be a reality in today’s talent marketplace.

The Experience You project teams will consider issues of equity as they create LERs which address a few specific use cases:

  • Unemployed Individuals
  • Incumbent Workers Seeking Career Advancement
  • Veterans

Experience You can help build a future where individuals are empowered with data that enables them to better signal what they know and can do. Imagine a world where more than 150 million individuals in the workforce can access and leverage that data to explore new employment and educational opportunities. We believe that this future is possible and that Experience You can be a catalyst to achieve this vision.

Experience You participants will demonstrate the power of their AI technologies at the T3 Innovation Network’s Mid-Year Meeting, this July in Washington D.C.

Experience You is made possible by funding from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Walmart.org. The U.S. Chamber Foundation is proud to partner with Education Design Lab on this exciting project.

If you would like to learn more about Experience You or participate in a demonstration team, contact Taylor Hansen.

About the authors

Taylor Hansen

Taylor Hansen

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