🔎 Inside Global Skills Week: Signals For Leaders in Higher Ed and Workforce

Hello 👋

For post-secondary and workforce leaders, Global Skills Week reinforced a critical shift: the value proposition of higher education is under pressure, and alignment with labor markets is no longer optional. Some even say it’s existential. During the Future of Skills and Work Forum, national systems, institutional innovators, and private sector leaders shared early signals of a new architecture for learning and work. Download the Report.

Highlights included:

🎯 Skills-First Transitions. UVA and WGU revealed how institutions are redesigning programs and advising systems around real labor market demand, moving from broad degrees to short-form credentials that translate into economic mobility.

🤖 AI-Native Operating Models. Beyond platform adoption, institutions like American University showcased campus-wide governance and curricular redesign to embed AI as a core component of infrastructure, not an add-on.

👷🏽‍♂️ Next-Gen Workforce Systems: From Alabama’s Talent Triad to JFF’s green jobs pathways, new models are emerging that braid credential transparency, employer demand, and regional economic development into cohesive systems.

The conversations weren’t just timely—they laid the groundwork for what’s next. The Back to School Summit this September continues the work, bringing together innovators and decision-makers to turn momentum into systems-level change.

Catch up on the insights in the full Global Skills Week summary and join us in September for Back to School.

💪 Power Moves

💡 GEMS Education partnered with Microsoft to introduce learning companions for their school network.

🚀 Meta partnered with the Indian Government to develop an AI skills assistant, offering learners customized support through WhatsApp.

💻 Udemy launched a new AI-powered learning platform that offers personalized pathways for learners. 

💰 Education Funding

🎮 Attensi, a Norwegian gamified training platform, has raised $25M to enhance its workforce’s skills through engaging and AI-enabled methods. 

💻 The Corporate Governance Institute, an Irish e-learning and certification, raised $3.4M to enhance its course portfolio and expand beyond its current 70 global delegates. 

💡 Didask, a French workplace digital learning solution provider, raised $11.2M to enhance its LMS, expand across Europe, and roll out a new “Knowledge Assistant” designed to support anytime learning. 

ᯅ HTX Labs, a US-based XR training platform provider, has raised $5.8M to scale its XR training platform and deliver a virtual classroom for training engineer maintainers. 

💸 Renvent Holdings and LeftRight Capital, two US-based private equity firms, have acquired CurrIQūnetto, a curriculum management provider for higher education institutions.

Thank you for reading. Have a great week ahead!
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