TLN Unconference: The most valuable conversations you didn’t plan

At every conference, there's typically a moment when a hallway conversation turns into something more. A new connection. An unexpected insight. A long-term collaboration. A spark that doesn’t just stay in the room — it travels home with you and shifts your mindset and your daily work.

This year, we’re dedicating time to those moments at CU Boulder’s Badge Summit.

For the first time ever, ASU’s Trusted Learner Network (TLN) Unconference is hitting the road and will kick off CU Boulder’s Badge Summit! On Monday, July 21, the TLN team will host an immersive, participant-driven gathering where you shape the agenda, you lead the conversations and you spark the next big thing in the digital credentials ecosystem.

Why start with an Unconference?

Before we dive into the Badge Summit’s incredible programming, the TLN wants to make space for you to connect, to co-create and to be heard.

There are no keynotes. No assigned panels. Just people, sticky notes and big questions.

The benefits? You will:

Meet changemakers early into your Badge Summit experience.
Influence the conversation…and maybe impact key takeaways for the rest of the week.
Engage more deeply because you’ve already been part of the conversation from the start.
Address today’s challenges with peers, experts and thought leaders in credentialing and higher education.
Explore strategies and practical tools for leveraging LERs and digital badges to empower learners in meaningful ways.

What will happen at the Unconference?

During the TLN Unconference, we use Open Space Technology to figure out what timely topics we want to explore in real time. For this year’s sixth TLN Unconference, we’re hosting four Open Space sessions – the most we’ve ever had – to ensure that participants have ample time to tackle as many innovative ideas as possible throughout the day.

To give you a better idea, here are some of last year’s Unconference discussions centered around the following ideas:

Skills-enabled team optimization and how employers value LERs
Interoperability through standards, profiles and radical optionality
Empowering learners through dynamic evidence/skills validation methods and challenges
Reducing the burden of issuing credentials
Wallet-attached storage
LER pathways in K-12 to college transitions
Exploring issuer registries

Additionally, this year’s Unconference isn’t just about conversations – it’s about building something together. We’ll be capturing the insights, ideas and provocations that emerge throughout the day and turning them into a white paper-style output that reflects the collective thinking of our community.

This is a chance to move from dialogue to documentation and help contribute to a resource that will be shared across the field.

In short, the TLN Unconference is your chance to kick off Badge Summit not as a passive attendee, but as an active change agent. To activate conversations based on topics that are most relevant and pressing to you, your work and your students – and produce an outcome that records where we’re at and where we’re headed.

So show up. Speak up. And get ready to have those valuable conversations you didn’t plan on Monday, July 21 at the TLN Unconference.

Registration for the TLN Unconference is free. You can register for the full Badge Summit or just the Unconference in July. Sign up now.