Building an Infrastructure for the Exchange of Verifiable Digital Credentials, with Naomi Szekeres

Full Transcript

Dr. Cristi Ford (00:00):

Welcome to Teach & Learn, a podcast for curious educators brought to you by D2L. I’m your host, Dr. Cristi Ford, VP of academic affairs at D2L. Every two weeks, I get candid with some of the sharpest minds in the K-20 space. We break down trending educational topics, discuss teaching strategies, and have frank conversations about the issues plaguing our schools and higher education institutions today. Whether it’s ed tech, personalized learning, virtual classrooms, or diversity inclusion, we’re going to cover it all. Sharpen your pencils. Class is about to begin.

So welcome back to another episode of Teach & Learn. I’m really excited to welcome our guest today. Colleagues, we’ve been spending a lot of time talking about the ways in which we in higher education need to redefine the value proposition around skills, the conversations we’ve been having around how do we make sure that we’re closing the chasms between what employers need and what higher education institutions are creating and what they’re producing in their graduates.

So, I’m so excited to have Naomi Szekeres today with me. She’s the head of education cluster at Velocity Network Foundation. Naomi, really great to have you here today.

Naomi Szekeres (01:16):

Thank you so much, Cristi. Great to be here.

Dr. Cristi Ford (01:20):

So let me just say a little bit, for our listeners, a little bit about your background. Because when I looked at all the things that you have done, the places you’ve been, man, it is expansive. Looking at the fact that you’ve let teams in education and business in IT, that you’ve partnered and done work with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, US Department of Education, public school systems, employers like Nike and Gap.

I mean, you’ve done a lot of fantastic work and thinking about digital and workforce transformation initiatives. So I’m going to jump right in and ask you a little bit about the work that you’re currently doing. What is the Velocity Network Foundation, and what do you focus on in the education vertical?

Naomi Szekeres (02:10):

Great question, and it’s actually one of those questions that’s hard to answer, because Velocity Network Foundation means very different things to very different people and members. But if I were to summarize it and try to make it as simple as possible, Velocity Network Foundation is a collection of like-minded organizations that are together building out a global infrastructure for the exchange of verifiable digital credentials.

And to unpack that, so in the past, we get a skill, we get a degree, or diploma, or certificate, and we get a paper copy. And I can see for example, that you have some credentials on your wall even behind you. And that’s the way historically, we’ve given out awards and recognitions of people’s credentials. Then we move to the digital era, and we can sometimes give digital copies of those awards. But there’s a challenge, because digital copies can be easily forged.

So a verifiable credential is a specific type of credential that uses cryptographic technology to make it verifiable so that a receiving party can run a verification on that digital credential and know that the credential is valid. And that’s the short answer to what a verifiable credential is.

And the challenge that the world will have in terms of working with this type of digital credential is that there has to be the ability for global mobility and global exchange of these credentials. And that begs the question of how. And I can obviously dig into a lot more of that how and what Velocity does to achieve that global interoperability and that universal accessibility of credentials. But the short answer is Velocity Network Foundation is a collection of organizations that are working to basically solve the need for that infrastructure.

Dr. Cristi Ford (04:22):

That’s fantastic.

Naomi Szekeres (04:23):

And in the education cluster, we have several clusters, and we call them cluster adoption teams, where a group of like-minded entities that are members of Velocity will come together and basically collaboratively work on problem solving, on advancing their businesses, their business models, their use cases, et cetera.

Where we realize that if we’re trying to transform the world to a new type of credential being offered and issued to individuals and being used transactionally in business in so many different ways, we have to kind of put down our competitive hats and put on our collaborative hats, and really start cooperating and working together to solve the common problems that each of our organizations are going to have to make this a future reality.

And so that’s what the education cluster does, is focus on the education sector and entities that have a stake in education. And Velocity Network Foundation, its whole membership body is organizations that want to drive towards that common future of verifiable credentials and are basically… There are rules, there is an infrastructure ready. And even a blockchain network underneath it. It’s not like it’s still a lofty idea, it’s a real thing. But at the same time, when you’re innovating, there’s always things that have to be improved, and tweaked, and changed as you learn. And so the membership has those discussions and helps to make those decisions.

Dr. Cristi Ford (05:57):

That was really, really helpful. And what I love about the work that you’re doing, one, it’s collaborative. Two, it is breaking down barriers and silos. Three, you’re really bringing together a collective of like-minded organizations to say, “We are going to work together to figure out the root cause of this challenge.” And around verifiable credentials. This has been a challenge for many, many decades, which is why we’re still relying on archaic opportunities to think about the ways that we allow our students to translate their degrees, to translate their skills.

And so I guess my first question to you around this, what you just offered, is this is not just in the degree space, right? This is also thinking about microcredentials. How broadly are you defining the way that you think about these verifiable degrees and skills?

Naomi Szekeres (06:52):

Excellent, excellent question. So Velocity tends to say the internet of careers, and it uses the word career in the very kind of European sense or the foreign sense of what is your career, where it’s everything about an individual that goes into them being able to obtain opportunities, whether they’re work related, or education related, or advancement, and really thinking about the lifelong journey of an individual and their career.

So in terms of what’s in scope, obviously your employment history is a part of what’s in scope. Your formal education experiences are a part of what’s in scope. But it also actually touches all the other things that are often left out of that learner worker profile. For example, your driver’s license. For certain jobs and certain careers, you absolutely need to have your driver’s license.

Also thinking about it from within an institutional lens, a lot of institutions will solely think about degree credentials, or even skill credentials and micro-credentials that are academic in nature.

There’s also the scope of clubs and activities, leadership awards, and scholarship awards. All of those are valuable data points that typically, people present on their resumes and share with employers or even another institution to seize that next opportunity. Different licenses and credentials like that are absolutely valuable credentials to have in a verifiable format.

And from the work side, I’d also offer that some of the things that people recognize about a person in their place of employment can also be credentialed. Like whether you have perfect attendance and you show up every day. In some careers, and we tend not to focus upon this, we take it for granted. Showing up every day is half the battle, and having that good attendance award or that personal quality is absolutely advantageous to that next opportunity. And we haven’t yet found a way to showcase that, package it, and deliver it to the individual so they can trade on what they have.

So in Velocity’s world, the scope of what we deal with is literally any attribute about a person that can be useful in their journey. And we’re actually very intentional about not excluding things in the sense that we haven’t gotten far enough down the road of this innovation to say, “Oh no, that’s not a valuable credential to issue to people.” I think we’re going to learn a lot about what is and isn’t valuable, as people start using these kinds of systems and transactions. And down the road, then you might be able to make some commentary about what is more useful to the individual versus another thing. But right now, I think we’re casting a very wide net.

Dr. Cristi Ford (09:54):

So many thoughts about what you just shared. One, I love that it is comprehensive and taking into account learning opportunities that happen in the classroom, that happen outside of the classrooms. I heard you mention what we used to call soft skills, we now call enabling skills, right? So thinking about perfect attendance or thinking about collaboration, are you a great team member? Do you have intellectual curiosity? All of these things, what I’m hearing you reference is that they can all be a part of this verifiable opportunity so that we’re getting a holistic picture of what an individual is bringing to the table.

So I really love that, because for too long, we’ve segmented out different characteristics of an individual. And sometimes we see those on a cover level, but otherwise they are not translated well for someone who’s trying to be able to show the kinds of skills that they offer for, a degree or a career. So really appreciate that.

Well, let me just say this. In full transparency, true story, one, I’m really glad that I got to meet you and I’m having this conversation with you today. But I will tell you I was scrolling across LinkedIn and I came across a post from a colleague Jon Mott, who is the CEO of Aspire Ability. And he talked about, his post really literally just said, “I love what Naomi and Velocity Network Foundation are doing to drive equity and access in workforce and credentials.” And so it was really the place that I was like, “I really want to know more about what he meant by that.” So I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the pieces around equity, and access, and the ways in which maybe you’re reducing barriers.

Naomi Szekeres (11:44):

Absolutely. And I think that actually the question of equity and access goes back to the fundamental reason why Velocity founders even founded Velocity. And it’s really interesting, because I think that when people think about one problem, they don’t realize necessarily that it’s directly tied to the challenges of equity and access right away. And then when we talk about it, it becomes so obvious.

So in terms of the founding and history of Velocity Network Foundation, it was experts in system integration, business leaders in the worktech side. And they were trying to basically figure out what’s the biggest problem to be solved in the worktech industry. And they decided that it’s the broken data layer. That people self-report on resumes… Cars can drive themselves in this 21st century, yet we still rely on self-reported credentials, paper-based resumes, and apparently 78% of people lie on their resumes. And that has created-

Dr. Cristi Ford (12:52):

Wait a minute, wait a minute. Did you say 78%?

Naomi Szekeres (12:54):

78% is the statistic that’s floated. And so because people lie, there’s a background screening industry that is about $17 billion. There’s different figures in how you slice it, but it’s huge. And what happens is that because you can’t trust what someone says about themselves, you end up hiring people you know.

And when you think about equity and access, that is one of the biggest barriers that people who don’t have access, who don’t have the same starting point encounter is that their social networks, their relationships may not be the best fit for where they want to be.

And so, Velocity may not have set out initially to solve an equity and access problem, but the fundamental problem that they wanted to solve, which is this trust issue, is necessarily going to be helping with a number of equity and access type moments and barriers that people face. Because when you can trust the data that people present about themselves, because reliable sources that have been vetted to be those sources as well are making statements about what a person is, what they can do, what characteristics and achievements they bring to the next opportunity. When you can trust those statements, then you can open your mind to that person, irrespective of other qualities. And that is a very powerful capability that Velocity and verifiable credentials inherently enable.

And then there’s also the aspects of Velocity… And I kind of touched on a couple of things like trust and Velocity solves for trust. There’s a whole mechanical process for how Velocity network deals with that. But it allows people to put forward themselves their whole selves and the requirements that Velocity also has around how data is stored by the individual in a self-sovereign way, where that individual can move their data from one place to another, from one digital wallet, or another application, or holder application, etc. And they can individually curate what data they want to present to a relying party that may be an employer looking to hire them. They get to control the narrative about who they are to that opportunity, not some third party that shovels a bunch of data, and charges a whole cost, and makes a whole business model around that individual.

The whole principle of self sovereignty and the ability for an individual to own their data, and also curate their data and share it upon their choice and their own volition with the relying party is very important to enabling equity and access. So it’s no longer what someone else is saying about you in the abstract, or in these current patterns. It enables the individual to not only have the proof of what they can do, but present it in a way that gives them that best foot forward.

Dr. Cristi Ford (16:19):

Man, that’s good. Self sovereignty and data, and curation of the data. One of the questions… And the other thing that I heard you mention, and it’s so true that when you have social capital to be able to have access to different careers and different opportunities, it does create a barrier for those that do not. And so I hadn’t thought about that premise in that particular way, and so I appreciate that framing for me.

But one of the questions I was going to ask you about, as I’m thinking about the way that Velocity verifies the credentialing, we’ve known about blockchain for many, many years. I remember 2015, 2016, we were really all in education grappling with, what does this mean for us? I’m going to let you answer that question, but what I’m hearing you say differently is this piece around self sovereignty and curation. That was never a part of the conversation then. And so would love to hear maybe a little bit more about how you use blockchain in your product and how does it work in respect to this credential verification process that we’re talking about?

Naomi Szekeres (17:27):

Sure. And it’s interesting. So Velocity in terms of its organization and its approach to technology was agnostic on blockchain. It wasn’t that they necessarily set out to be a blockchain network and find a use case. They sought out to solve a problem. And when they looked at regulations around the world, and they had a number of 12 founding members, global corporations, companies like SAP and UKG, and so forth.

And when they started to look at how they could solve this issue of the broken data layer, they also realized that there were compliance and regulatory constraints that they had to work with, and they needed to look at those at a global scale.

So what were the most stringent compliance rules in Europe? Because Europe can be more stringent than the US, and California can be more stringent than some other places in the US from state to state.

So when they started to look at those rules, they realized that the only way to satisfy basically what would satisfy everyone globally, the most stringent data privacy regulations was to use a blockchain network and create a self-sovereign model.

And there’s a few things that happen in that model. So one, the individual has data that is then portable. They can move it from one wallet to another, and it’s under their control, and they only share it with their own consent, and data can’t be pushed to their wallet. They have to accept any credential that lands in their wallet as well. So those are some of the rules of Velocity.

And then from the blockchain perspective, you could achieve verifiable credentials with a big centralized database. You absolutely could, and every verification would run back to the centralized hub of data, and you could do a lot of research and so forth on that database. But then it wouldn’t be private.

And when an individual is going to look for a job, it should absolutely be their private choice to go and pursue an opportunity. Whether they get the opportunity, whether they don’t, they don’t want their current employer to know that, that they’re looking. And that is the point about why Velocity evolved to a blockchain and self-sovereign approach.

Now, I do know that there are apparently some other technologies that are being investigated to be like a next gen version of the Velocity network, and members will discuss that as part of the product roadmap and how that evolves. But I think that going back to what Velocity was organized to be, it was organized to be this membership organization solving the next gen data layer for careers. And blockchain evolved as this necessary solution. And the way the organization evolved, evolved as that necessary solution, but it wasn’t necessarily to implement a blockchain solution. And so that’s a little different I think, than the way people typically think about a technology, and an application, and so forth.

Dr. Cristi Ford (20:44):

Got it. No again, self sovereignty. And if I walk away with nothing else from this conversation today, you’ve blown my mind in terms of thinking about the ways… Because we always talk about in any part of education, this black box approach, and being concerned with people not understanding the formulas, people not having access to their own data, and not having agency around their own data. So hearing you talk about this concept is really fascinating to me.

And I know that Velocity has done a lot of work in the areas of healthcare. As I’m thinking about the educators that are listening or the administrators that are listening to this episode, can you maybe paint a picture for us, give us an example of how the work that Velocity is doing is impacting maybe people and companies in the healthcare cluster, to see where you’re going in terms of the educational cluster as well?

Naomi Szekeres (21:39):

Excellent. The healthcare cluster… So going back actually, I mentioned as I introduced myself and the education cluster, and how these cluster adoption teams are about collaboratively solving problems to enable this type of transformation. The healthcare cluster actually arose from our membership where when original founding members were asked, “Hey guys, we have now this technology and this opportunity. Where do you want to start working?” And the idea is to create closed loop atomic networks where we have everything that’s needed in that closed loop ecosystem set up and ready to work.

So when they gathered up and they were having discussions about where to get started, the decision was made, healthcare, this would be very useful in the healthcare industry. So that’s why the focus became healthcare. But in terms of defining the closed loop network, it’s this idea that you need the issuers, you need the use case of the individual, and you need the relying parties also set up to transact using verifiable credentials.

So they have a large employer that’s a large hospital system that employs I think something like 80,000 workers a year, they have to actually bring into their organization to sustain it. And they set up their ATS, their HRIS systems. On the worktech side, their background screener is enabled. And then also, they started to communicate a list of feeder schools that are where they often hire.

So now, not only are we looking to enable those feeder schools to issue verifiable credentials so that their graduates can have a set of verifiable credentials to obtain their next employment. Also, the background screener, every time they screen a person’s background, they can notary issue credentials, verifiable credentials. And a notary issuer is for a highly regulated background screener or similar provider where they’re accredited. So you can trust basically the data that they screen and discover about a person.

So if they screen my background, they obviously validate and verify my employment, my education, etc., etc., and it takes its lifecycle. Then they issue to me verifiable digital credentials. And then those credentials can be instantly transacted in a future screening, so they don’t have to reverify. I then have that data and I can use it. So the background screeners are also issuing.

And then again, on the employer side, the worktech platforms are all enabled to receive verifiable credentials. So any individual can apply for the job using their verifiable credentials.

And at first, it’s a little bit disjointed, right? Because you’ve got a bunch of people getting their credentials in a verifiable format, but they’re applying to jobs. They may not apply to the employers that are enabled, that happen to be using these particular HR systems. And so there’s a long runway. There’s a long lead time to getting the transactions and verifications on the network.

But what we’re starting to see is that because in healthcare when you place or remove a worker, you have to recertify and reverify that person’s license and credentials, we’re already starting to now see those reverifications happen with those existing credentials.

And from the hospital system’s perspective, what is their big vision? What is their use case around this? They’re saying a background check can take weeks to months to conduct all the checks. They have to run out to all the different data sources that the person says are in their background. And they have to validate that those statements are true. In a verification process, it makes it instantaneous for the background screeners to confirm that information. And from a hospital’s perspective, they don’t want a long time to hire. They have a mission to make it as fast as possible from the day they decide to hire a candidate to placing them by bedside, they want that timeframe to be as short as possible.

And the flagship employer in this healthcare cluster has said, “During Covid, we had enormous pressure to get doctors and nurses placed in their roles as fast as possible. And we did extensive process reengineering and we shortened our onboarding time from about 14 days to 10 days. And we see instant verification as one mechanism to make that down to instantaneous, and to be able to place people by bedsides faster, which improves patient care.” And so from a hospital’s perspective and the healthcare industry’s perspective, it is absolutely, like you said, a game changer in terms of how hospitals do business.

And there’s also things, I’ve talked with a number of other healthcare entities in the space with other data checks that have to be in place for insurance reasons, even from the payer side, so that hospitals get paid for the work that they do for these providers. And there’s a lot of benefit to having those credentials be instantly verifiable in this type of workflow.

And so that gives you the scope of the healthcare cluster, and how it’s evolved and been set up. It shows the employer view of all this. And then from the education view of all this, the education entities that issue credentials, obviously it facilitates their recent graduates or their-

Dr. Cristi Ford (27:49):

Placements.

Naomi Szekeres (27:50):

Their individuals, their students getting placed in positions faster, more efficiently, etc. It also can allow for additional use cases in terms of continuing education credits and things like that, and stackable credentials, and lifelong learning, and career mobility. There’s all sorts of roles that will emerge for the education side of the house, as these verifiable credentials become more common in general use. And so go ahead, jump in.

Dr. Cristi Ford (28:26):

Yeah. So I’m just listening to you. Efficiencies of scale in terms of closing that pipeline, I also see it as competitive advantage, right? How many times have you talked to someone, and they may have had two offers on the table, or two opportunities where they’ve had an interview? And having this opportunity to be able to close that gap in window means that that offer letter can be verified, that individual can start.

Naomi Szekeres (28:52):

Absolutely.

Dr. Cristi Ford (28:53):

It sounds like two weeks earlier than in other places.

Naomi Szekeres (28:56):

And think about it in terms of a state and unemployment roles. If you can get people matched with jobs and they can be placed instantaneously, or their backgrounds can be verified instantaneously so they can be placed faster, even from that broader perspective of the individual sitting out there waiting for the job to start, it accelerates that timeframe. They get to start their job sooner. They get their income going again sooner. Any unemployment benefits can be phased out sooner. It’s less dead weight loss on the economy overall.

Dr. Cristi Ford (29:36):

So I want to shift gears a little bit here. I’m thinking about the conversation around the credentialing system that has needed to be adjusted and redesigned for many decades, and the change management that needs to happen. As I’m thinking about senior leaders, administrators that are listening, even educators, what is your call to action, or how can you recommend people to get engaged, to learn more about the work you’re doing, to really reconceptualize how this should really be a game changer and the ways in which we think about credentialing?

Naomi Szekeres (30:12):

Yeah. So I think the call to action stems from… Actually the LinkedIn post that you mentioned with Jon Mott, I really appreciated that he snagged that particular moment of even the presentation that I gave in Colorado, and the concept there was get off the island. That right now, we have pockets of evidence of people’s work, and it’s stranded with an institution that hasn’t issued credentials yet, or a issuing platform that issues credentials on behalf of a number of institutions, but it’s a closed environment, and individuals can’t own their data and have it be portable and have it be practically useful for them to get ahead.

So that whole presentation and concept is about that if we really want to enable equity and access, and all these great opportunities that everyone can benefit from in so many different ways, we have to be collaborative, and open up our data stores, and make data available in self-sovereign ways so that we can all benefit from the new future.

And you actually mentioned this when you asked about the competitive advantage of a hospital system adopting this approach. And interestingly enough, the hospital system within our healthcare cluster is evangelizing this approach to their peer competitor hospitals. They say, “It’s not going to work if we’re the only hospital using verifiable credentials. It’s not going to work if only two schools are issuing verifiable credentials. We need every institution to issue, we need every hospital system set up to receive verifiable credentials so we have a complete ecosystem, and we can all benefit.”

So sure, it’s a competitive advantage in the short term. But to really have the advantage of that full kind of set ecosystem landscape of workers that are enabled with their verifiable credentials as they move between hospital systems, we need everybody together in this game. And so Velocity, and our edge cluster, and our clusters are really about putting down the competitive moments for a little bit, and working together so that we can move forward and have the benefits that really are a value to everyone.

So as one of my colleagues to say, he’s like, “We’re still going to compete, but we’re going to compete on better infrastructure.” And that’s really the concept there.

Dr. Cristi Ford (33:03):

That’s good.

Naomi Szekeres (33:03):

So then in terms of the call to action, it’s that one, I guess everyone should put down their competitive nature for a moment and just collaborate, and Velocity aims to provide that space to collaborate. And then additionally, for any issuer, any entity that has data that can be issued, make sure that if you’re issuing through a platform that’s currently closed, that you ask your vendor that you’re working with to enable their technology for Velocity’s network and infrastructure so that the credentials themselves can be globally transferable and interoperable. And that if you’re not issuing yet, you start making those steps forward to become an issuer. And you are in fact selecting a vendor or a technology, or in a process that works on Velocity so that your credentials that you’re issuing to your individuals can be globally transferable. And so I think that’s really the call to action.

Dr. Cristi Ford (34:08):

I love that. And I’m thinking about when I was in associate vice provost role, I listening to this would want to get engaged. So one, I appreciate the nudge to be able to advocate in the conversation with the vendors that I’m working with to be able to say, “Hey, this interoperability and working in the Velocity network is really critical.” But if I wanted to go and see the vendors that are already in your network, is there a way that I could easily have access to that as well?

Naomi Szekeres (34:35):

Absolutely. So our website has all of our members, and our members are in various stages of implementation. And sometimes when a customer asks, that’s when they go ahead and… They’ve been participating in the conversation, they’ve been watching. It’s kind of like the cool kids at the party by the pool, and who’s going to get in and swim first? That’s what we like to say about a lot of our members. And when that customer comes forward, we recently had a consortium of institutions that were like, “We want to issue and we want our students to really have value out of what we’re issuing. So we want to join Velocity and actually work, and select a vendor that works on Velocity.” And it brought a new member to the table, a vendor that had been, “Yeah, one day we’re going to join Velocity,” and it made that vendor take steps forward and start implementing their technology to be Velocity enabled.

And so absolutely, there’s two routes where you can continue working with your existing software providers. There’s no ask to change, because Velocity’s tech stack is open source, royalty free. It’s free to implement the credential agent and issue any type of credential, whether it’s an open badge, whether it’s a degree type, whether it’s a VC or other format, Velocity supports a variety of those formats. A CLR, that’s one thing our members are working to implement right now.

But the credentialing agent is completely free, and it’s open source, and the documentation is available online, and the Velocity team supports Q&A so that organizations can implement it for themselves. So there’s no barrier from that perspective. It’s just about doing the work on your side to get it enabled.

So you can always ask your current vendor that you’re working with. Or if it’s something that you don’t have someone you work with and you’re trying to figure out how to get a quick start, then you can look online at our members or even reach out to me, and we can definitely help you get connected with some of our members that are already live, and working, and looking for more customers to take advantage of their new capabilities.

Dr. Cristi Ford (36:55):

This is absolutely fantastic. Naomi, really glad that we’re having this conversation today. I believe the Education Ecosystem launched in February of this year. Is that right? Okay. So I guess I want to leave with, what’s next for you? What’s next for this work? And just would love to leave our listeners with a bit of where you’re going.

Naomi Szekeres (37:17):

Yeah. So I’ll mention that what’s next for work for the education cluster is we’re starting to do a little bit more of activating our networks and enabling the technologies of our members within the education cluster. We’re also doing more education and outreach. We have an event coming up in October on the 23rd, and then another event on November 9th to educate the broader community on the real interworkings and even to see some of our vendors that have enabled their technologies for Velocity and they want to showcase specific use cases that they’ve solved for. And so they’re a lot more education outreach to the community, so that everyone understands the promise of Velocity.

We’re also really getting deeply involved with some of the state work and even the skills forwards grants that Walmart, and Koch, and some other players, and Gates are putting out there with Strata, etc., under the guidance of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors so that we can be an infrastructure to enable multiple states to be fully interoperable, and a lot of those unique ecosystems to come together on Velocity. And so we expect to have our first state member joining and a lot of really interesting evolution in that space. So that’s what I think will unfold this fall and heading into 2024.

Dr. Cristi Ford (38:51):

What exciting work you’re doing, Naomi. Really glad that you’ve joined us. We will be watching, and continuing to engage, and see the great work that you’re doing. It really just feels like self sovereignty. That’s my term after this conversation today. This is where we need to be going, and so thank you for taking the time just to share a little bit about what you’re doing, and just open this up to our listeners here.

Naomi Szekeres (39:18):

Thank you so much. Appreciate.

Dr. Cristi Ford (39:20):

You’ve been listening to Teach & Learn, a podcast for curious educators. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company helping organizations reshape the future of education and work. To learn more about our solutions for both K-20 and corporate institutions, please visit www.d2l.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. And remember to hit that subscribe button so you can stay up to date with all new episodes. Thanks for joining us, and until next time, school’s out.

Resources Discussed in the Episode

• Learn more about the Velocity Network Foundation
• Connect with Naomi Szekeres on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Dr. Cristi Ford and the Teaching & Learning Studio