Revealing the Winners of the 2026 OEAwards

[music] I'm Alan Lavine from Open Education Global to the best day of the year because it's Shahira's birthday. No, also because it's time for the 2026 Open Education Awards for Excellence. We're so excited that you could be here for this the the big reveal and and we we will play that up a little bit. Um but most of all um we just want to talk about the real purpose of this program is really for the recognition and I'll stop I'll stop the dancing music and we can uh get on to the show here and first of all I want to welcome everybody who's come here. Hey Paul, I can see everybody now which is all very exciting uh for what's happening uh right now the culmination of what started uh in June with the opening nominations um and again with the overabundance of our metaphor of a garden and we invited the open education community to plant seeds and what were nominations and that uh went through a process of uh being reviewed by our review board and becoming uh part of what produced the short list that we saw recently. And now here we are today to find out who the winners are. But before we we get to this, I would like to um ask our uh OE global uh president of the board, Pine Dakota Jean, maybe to say few words about the awards and to to kick off the welcomes here to this great event. Bin bonssw >> bonis. So good evening from France, good afternoon or good morning. Maybe for some of you it's night already. In the name of the board of openation global. Thank you to all who have come today and congratulation and a huge thanks to all the staff and the volunteers who had the very hard work to select from 204 candidacies from 49 countries some of you first the nominee and now the excellent awardees. So I am extremely proud and this is really the last time I am presenting here as the chair to to be part of this process and I really congratulate in advance the awardees. Thank you. >> Excellent. Thank you very much. And uh and everybody is doing the proper Zoom thing. We we love to hear uh who you are and where you're from. So please continue that. And I this also extend a chance for our executive co-directors Marcel Moral and Igoresco uh to welcome as well because they've been involved from this from the beginning. I'm a late comer to being part of the awards. So Marcelo, what would you like to say to the audience here? >> Uh yeah well well not a latecomer Alan um but you've been with us for such a long time and supporting this work and I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to you. Thank you pin and welcome to everyone everyone who has joined us today to celebrate the awards. It's always exciting to be part of the awards season. There is something very special about coming together as a community to celebrate the incredible work happening across open education. And for me the open immigration awards are really an ecosystem of recognition as Alen and I have been discussing since 2011. They have been about much more than just showcasing winners. They help us make visible the incredible range of people, practices, resources and often unseen work happening across our community. I think that is exactly what makes this award so special. They give us an opportunity to stop for a moment and recognize the people, the ideas, the projects and the practices that are moving open education forward all around the world. I especially love the idea uh that we have been working with about the gardening and the seeds and how that every award starts as a seed. So much of the important work in open education begins like a small uh idea sometimes with one person, one idea or one resource or one community trying something new or something different. We don't always know how far those seeds will travel or what they will eventually become. So today is certainly about celebrating the winners, but it's also about celebrating this whole community and the many people whose work make open education possible. So I'm excited to be celebrating this amazing work with all of you today. And with that, I'll pass it over to Igor to share some few thoughts. Eigor, over to you. >> Uh thank you Marcela and good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone depending on where you are connecting from. I'm going to try to be brief again. It's exciting to be here. Thank you Alan for in this effort. [clears throat] And um I think for me that the awards are really are a a reminder that open education really doesn't belong to any particular country or an institution or like a group of individuals. It really is a global community that is strengthened by the thousands of those who actually engage in creating sh and sharing open educational resources and engaging in applicable practices. Uh so thank you all. Uh so it's it's it's really wonderful to be here today to celebrate those who are the winners. Uh but to also I would just like to say thank you to all of all of those who actually took the time to nominate uh specific individuals, specific projects around the world because often it is also about those who are really working in silence every day. they are not nec necessarily noticeable on a global scale, but somebody noticed you and actually took the time to to write a nomination about you and and so that's that's really special, right? So it's it's really today is also about those who are the winners, but it's also about those who wrote the nominations. It's about those who also made a short list. So thank you to all and yeah, thank you for your incredible efforts uh that you do to strengthen the open education community around the world. Over to you, Alan. Thank you. >> Uh thank you very much and as people if you're here I know we have people who nominated who were nominated who were part of our review committee. So we if you just want to share your role in this but again uh to emphasize obviously there's a lot of focus on the winners and I hope there's no disappointment if you don't make the final list. I know but you can take your complaints to me but first of all it's it's very short. uh we've started over the last couple years is making sure that we share all the details about all the nominees. Uh so just as as an example this is all available you can uh follow us you can get the full information uh for example and uh we have a representative here for the digital resilience of e portfolios great project out of South Africa and cooperation with Victoria I'm sorry um and so um I want to let people know that these are not only available but we have set it up as well if you want to ask questions or add comments to these words I think it would be really uh great to uh this happened. Um and then as you know we went from the 204 which we all celebrate down to the short list of of uh nominees and these were four in each of the categories and I think almost all of them are here. So um we were um really excited um to let this know. And then as we're getting ready to the reveal, I know this is what you're exciting for. And I will try not to talk too long. Um we used to do a thing with the awards. We had these beautiful 3D printed trophies that our brilliant designer Mario Badia advised we would mail these these they're wonderful trophies and we just decided with the change to the metaphor the garden theme is that what we had started last year is the name of all winners that you'll hear today um we're we're planting trees around the world through one tree planted a great organization that we came across and so um that happens and so throughout the world trees will sprout out depending on the nominees. So, um just want to again uh pass a shout out uh to the people who were on the review committee this year. Um we kind of changed up the model. It's always um dominated by um or largely done by previous awardees because that makes it a you know a self-fulfilling event. Um so this year there were 32 previous winners who served on a review committee. Uh five members of our board of directors were there. Um and new this year is we invited um a representative from our oe global membership and we had nine representatives uh from college of the canyons quantum polytech norco college virtual campus university south pacific go university national dexico Texas higher education board and the college of du page be part of this and so we like to add this element that the membership pays okay let's get to the reveal are you ready are you ready to reveal. I see people dancing. So, we have the the major categories as you know, you've heard me say individuals, people of open open assets, what we share, open practices, how we share, we have some special awards. So, we're going to move through them. So, what's going to happen is uh to meet the winners, there's your confetti. So, um what's going to happen is uh we have a little bit of technical logistics. There's a machine and technology. It's not AI. It's our brilliant uh graphics designer, Mario B. We should give Mario a big round of applause for not only doing the design, but doing the great work on our website. So, while I we planted seeds, we add a little water and uh we're waiting for the reveal of this year's individual awards. And I'm waiting for a signal. Mario is down in the server room or crossing wires and pulling things together to make sure that we see um again who the individual award winners are. Um again just to let you know um again there were actually 229 nominations. There were several duplicates which we combine um into into one just to make it uh coales a little bit more. Um and um there were 49 countries as um as uh pne mentioned um 85 nominations or 42% for individual awards which is pretty much um you know people are what we really want to recognize um more than half 55% were self-nominated and sometimes we say like a self-nomination's right really the community should nominate but the fact is that I don't think people get enough recognition and people are you know seeking that and that's the reason why we see self-nominations and what I say is like who knows the project or the people better than someone to nominate but it's also a really generous thing to nominate someone else and another thing that we added this year is um for the person who nominated Shahira she didn't know about it but she would have gotten an email that said somebody nominated you for this award and so that act I think has a huge impact and and I certainly would like to hear from people. I heard from some people who got those nominations. So, with this year, uh I I'm not seeing because I can't see the full channel. Um I'm waiting for Mario's signal that that we're ready to go. I might need an audio confirmation. Um but >> are we are we set, Mario? We're We're good to go. Okay. Let's see what happens here. So, we're going to go to the the big reveal. And here we are, the individual award winners for 2026. And um I I just will say just a few words. We're not going to do a total recap. You can read their nominations, get to know Gabrielle Paulini from Italy who's had a long career in uh bringing access and she's been part of the Wikidon project, Wikimedia user group who won an award last year. Uh uh Gurish Bhaj who is here a student from Kanesoga College. um who is like deeply involved with IT at his college and an advocate to students and participates on projects there. Javier Artineis who's uh from University of Suffach who's been doing so much with digital literacy, critical literacy of AI and involved in so many other projects and Jonathan Lashley who I'm sure is in the audience. Um great work working with Idaho State Board of Education, the online learning consortium, the open education or work. so much work in open education improving what happens with collaboration. So, we're going to applause. We're going to send them all our emojis. Um, if like we don't have time to do acceptance speeches, we have some plans for the way the winners can say, but if anybody would like to say any words about um these winners or put something in the chat, um you can let us know. Take the mic if um if you want to say hello. Um I know uh the person who nominated Gish is here. Um do we have anybody who wants to just say something about these four individuals [clears throat] who were recognizing? >> Yes. I'm so happy for Gabriella which is our co-founder and she's so uh she started with the internet and 30 years ago. So, I'm so honored, not no one better than she's deserving this uh uh this recognition and also for all the uh the work she's doing with Gar and with with Kona. So, I'm I'm so excited for this uh for this recognition and applause to to Gabriella and to all the winners. >> Thank you so much, Camila, who works with with Gabriella with the the Wikidonny project. Um, uh, Gerish or Kim, uh, kind of, um, uh, >> yeah, >> happy to jump on. Uh, Gerish has been such a wonderful student leader. He's been working with my team for well over a year. Uh, and I see the open principles even beyond his work in open and all of the work he does as a student leader here at Konesoga. He's always putting uh people first and helping to develop his co- students and sharing out what we do here and open with his colleagues. So I'm thrilled. So congratulations Gree. >> Yay. He amazing student and his website like it's really it's top-notch professional. So you should really investigate him and and see his nomination information. uh [music] really would like to thank uh whole team uh especially our reviewers uh our authors without them you know this wouldn't be uh impossible. Thank you everyone. >> Thank you and thank you for all this work for really providing this important resource for the whole community. I we will anybody else want to um I know there are some people um from some of these other uh awardees um maybe someone who nominated them uh we we're floor is open uh and we will keep an eye lots of things going on in the chat uh excellent um yeah and thank you for all the messaging going on. Um, excellent. Uh, last chance we we can if someone wants to do an acceptance speech. No, just kidding. We will uh again uh again like I really encourage you to look at the full slate of the um nominees in this category. Um there's a lot um to be gained and understood by um uh exploring all of our winners. Um now it's time for the third major category. Um again open practices or we say this is the how we share. Um which traditionally has covered um uh it used to be in categories of like open collaboration and open pedagogy and open research. And uh we kind of shifted a few years ago uh to do instead of uh naming the categories to let the nominees name uh the award winners. So um I'm going to queue up uh we'll get the the seeds planted again for open practices. Um Mario will do his um uh highly technical work there. There's no AI involved in this. This is all um human endeavor here uh to make sure uh we go through this process and it looks like this one was was fairly fast. It didn't take as long as as the previous categories to do and so uh really um want to draw your attention to a great variety of of projects here. Um uh uh digital ethnomically gember from Indonesia is a fantastic project in which they're using um uh the wiki media wiki data platforms to encourage curating and preserving of cultural heritage. Um and I believe we have someone speaking out there. Uh and and then also we we'll get to this. I just want to run through them all. Um, Han University, uh, one of our newer and most active OE global memberships, um, in the Netherlands has this really powerful OAR strategy development that they've done, uh, called a change model. Um, and, uh, I hopefully Mara is here to maybe talk about that. Um, also a big uh shout out to K12 Studio, a project um here in Canada where I live to create um K12 focused um open resources uh designed specifically for French as a second language and f French language arts learning in Ontario. Um and it's really about the collaboration in that platform and they've developed um this way that when teachers upload resources they're using some genai that it that does help them create the metadata and information to get the resources into the system which of course are reviewed but really interesting model and then a really fantastic and a deserving winner is um from the the team um based in France and I know a lot of them are here the sharing is a challenge series of articles that were done during open education week. Um, and so really excited that that was one of the recognized open practices because there's so much collaboration. Um, I I know Colin and Irwin and the rest of the editors are here. Um, any words? Uh, people want to uh take the mic or definitely I see things going on in the chat which are good to see. Um, about this year's open practice awards. >> Hello. I'm happy to talk about K12 studio. >> Hey Melo, great to see you. >> Good to see you all and thank you so very much. We're so proud and honored to be part of the the winners. Thanks for to the committee. I want to give a shout out to um Learnful who is um you know the IT development team behind uh K12 Studio. They're doing a lot of work um beyond the hours they should and if this project is taking off, it really is uh thanks to learnful and Jonathan Beer from ThinkQux. Um it is not easy to to do K12 OERS, but uh we are trying and we're very honored for the recognition. Thank you so much. >> Excellent. And somebody needs to nominate Yasim from Learnful next year. He's remarkable. >> For sure. >> Fuzzy. Yeah. Yeah. This is the Fousy Barut from Beirut, Lebanon. Greetings to all. Just for my heartiest congratulation to the entire UNO network and this I believe that this award is a powerful recognition of our shared vision and collaborative strength. It is a privilege myself to witness the incredible work uh that we are doing all together. Well done to all members of the Yunu network and of course my university is part of this network. Sharing is challenge. Thank you so much. Thank you Fuzzy. It's great to see you and hear that and and can't echo it more. Um the amount of collaboration that went on that project. Um uh I know we have some folks here from Colin. I don't know if you want to say anything or um or from your team about uh getting this recognition. Oh, go on. Let's let's say a word. Just just give an advice to to future winners. Involve lots of people in a project and just make sure they are not members of the jury. That's the best way of getting it. No, thanks a lot. It's been a real pleasure in in in doing this and doing it openly with lots of lots of people and you included Alan. Thanks a lot. >> Oh, and thank you, Colin. It's it's just an amazing effort and such a valuable contribution uh to the community. >> Ah I see >> words from the Netherlands. >> Hello. You have a whole group. [laughter] >> Thank you so much you all. It's a great honor for us to uh already to be nominated and even shortlisted listed and now of course to to be a winner. It feels amazing. this is just a small part of our complete project group. So yeah, I'm uh I agree with Colin. You have to collect a lot of people to do uh yeah to get things done. So uh yeah, thank you so much. And um if people are yeah, if we can inspire people uh it's interested to know that we talk about our um uh comprehensive strategy at the OE global conference in Boston. So maybe we see you there. Fantastic. And and so great to see your your whole group there. Congratulations again. And and I also encourage you to go through the nominations and and see uh the the one that was shortlisted for the the escape room. It's just a fascinating approach to introducing uh openness. >> Congratulations. I will while I'm flipping anybody else who wants to uh take the mic. But we have we have one more um and it's a special one because it's the special awards. Um and what's happened is you know we get these 204 awards and you know they don't all necessarily fit into nice neat categories. And so uh we did recognize in the uh award nominations this year a number of people and projects that really um were integral to open education as as a field specifically to our organization open education global. So this is this is like an organizational award that we wanted just to um recognize people who had a significant influence. So, um, Mario, I know it might take some extra work to get all the special awards lined up because, um, they involve lots of, uh, special connections, but, of course, seeds were planted, the nominations came in. The review committee helped water them, and and then they they kind of, uh, are growing here, and just waiting to hear um confirmation that we can reveal um some of the special awards. Um you'll find all the winners um on our they're already present. You can find them on our hall of fame we call it. There's list all the um awardies since 2011. Um this year's brings us up to 300 um as a total that you'll find there. So you can see all the new winners and the previous uh ones from before. So are we ready to go, Mario? >> Yes, we're ready. >> Okay. You're so fast. And and again like Mario, let me just say Mario deserves an award for what he brings to this project, not only in his designs, but his ideas for how to represent the awards. So um we're going to now hit the reveal. And so I want to do a shout out and recognize um some people who are very special to the organization. Peroy Takamura um who was a leader for open education movement in Japan helped start the open coursework consortium there which now is known as open education Japan. Um Haru was was recognized because he was a member of what the organization was then known in 2012 to 2014 the open education consortium board of directors. So that's a reason uh for nominating him. Um, I don't even know if I have to describe what Paul Stacy's role has been for open education, but as executive director of OE Global, but before that, his work uh to help found BC campus, part of many projects at Creative Commons, but of course his leadership as directing our organization 2018 to 2002. Um, and he helped guide the evolution from what was the Open Education Consortium to Open Education Global. So really an architect of what you see now. Um also Steven Carson who was there at the ground level um was there at the start of MIT open courseware. Uh it was the idea I think to create a community of institution doing open courseware. So he helped lead the incorporation of the open courseware consortium which is the birth of this organization as a um nonprofit in 2008. um lined up some of the first funding that got the organization going. So we wouldn't be here without that work of Stephen Carson and like MIT open courseware like they are so important like you know it's so obvious that that they are awardw worthy for everything that they did for the open movement um and again that everything about open courser led to open education global and um and just you know it's very fitting then this year um that in a month um the open educ the o global conference will be taking place um in Cambridge on the MIT campus and uh more chance to celebrate that. But it just always helps to remember that MIT Open Courseware set this all in motion and it's still going strong. Um so I I don't know. Um we might have a line of people who want to speak about these or I I know Paul is here. Um you want to do an acceptance speech, Paul? I'm putting you on the spot. Um but you know Paul of course is still very involved with many projects in in [clears throat and laughter] education. >> Thanks Alan and thanks everyone for uh for this wonderful award ceremony and the recognition of of not just these special award winners but but everyone else that's been involved in these projects and initiatives around the world. It's really inspiring and and I think it also one of the things I find really wonderful about is you discover new things that you didn't realize were going on and uh and you you uh I find that there's this kind of generation of energy uh and and enthusiasm that's uplifting and and helps everyone continue to move forward together. And so uh I've been honored to have the great privilege of working with some awesome people, many of whom are here in this particular awards ceremony, but many others who aren't. And I just want to say thank you all for uh for working with me, collaborating with me, and being kind of a partner on this adventure around open education. It's still a thrill and I'm still really enjoying it and look forward to doing lots more with everyone. >> Thank you so much, Paul. And uh I believe uh Kurt Newton might be here. Uh anything to say about the MIT Open Courseware, Kurt? >> Yeah, indeed I am. Um what an incredible honor. I appreciate this so very much on behalf of our whole team. Uh, you know, uh, I I love to say that we have a we have a lot of records of the kinds of conversations that were going on 25 years ago when this whole thing got launched. And it's it's just clear and this is just one of so many manifestations that it has exceeded everyone's wildest expectations from the very beginning. and just what a thrill it is to witness year after year the incredible richness and energy that's that's you know going through this whole community as as shown by all of these uh nominees and awards. Um and just what an honor it is year after year after year doing this work to keep losing market share, [laughter] you know. Uh I I can't think of a better thing, you know, than to just keep having this movement grow and expand and and coming up with new things. Uh so thank you. Thank you so much. >> Most excellent. And so uh we have all the reveal. So great to be Oh. Hello. >> Hello. >> Yeah. Can I say something? Uh Alan, >> please. Yes. >> Yeah. Well, I want to say hello to Paul and congratulation and I want to give a short testimonial because the Paul was our mentor a group from the Middle East you know who visited the United States in 2014 and that's when we were introduced about the open open education resources all this stuff you know and uh Paul was our guide back then so congratulation Paul thank you thank you so Thank you. And Javier, I'm sorry I missed you. Um, Eagor tapped you on the shoulder. Javier, hello. >> Thanks everyone. It honestly caught me by surprise. I was marking a dissertation when this happened. So, lots of love to this community. Um, thank you so much. Um, >> it's it's great and I'm extremely thankful. Academia is not always the nicest place to be, but you guys and you ladies make make this community this this world a little bit better. So, thank you so much. >> Oh, thank you. And it's so great to hear you and see you. U to let uh you know a couple things and of course anybody else who wants to please keep the chats and the emojis coming. Um but first of all, make sure that you know these will be shared obviously in social media. um take a look at their nominations. Um uh our winners, you'll get an email soon. You'll get another digital badge uh for for your your recognition and uh you'll find out the you'll get the notice of that trees have been planted in the the name of of your award. Unfortunately, we can't say where in the world they get planted, but we are assured that they get planted and one tree planted does these projects around the world. It's an amazing project for recognizing the importance of something as simple as a tree. Um, so just to let you know, uh, actually this went a lot faster than than I thought it would. Um, we will stay here after we stop the recording. Um, if anybody wants to stick around and continue the celebration. Um and note that any winners who are attending the OE global conference um at MIT um are welcome um uh there's going to be a session there where we do give you a chance to say a few more remarks and and share your work whether you're there or participating online and then throughout the year um uh our our communications wizard Isa Flood is going to be doing a campaign to promote all 204 nominees throughout the year so we can continue the recognition of that effort. Um during open education week, we're going to open up opportunities for all nominees to do some uh lightning talks or shares of their work because we just want to make sure people um get a chance to do that. And then um I'm going to be lining up uh uh winners to do some uh conversations for our OA Global Voices podcast. I'm still catching up on last year's. Um, and then, uh, please stay tuned, um, May 20, May 2027. Boy, we're up into the high 20s for the years, uh, for the next round of the, um, of the nominations for the next awards. And, um, again, we're going to start this whole process again. Um and uh remember you know the whole thing is about making nominations and entering it and making the work of others known. So uh with that I'm going to uh stop our recording uh unless uh anybody Marcela Igor Pin want to say a closing uh remark um for this stupendous event that we are still going with here. Just briefly before we go all on uh just congratulations to everybody. Thank you for everybody that has been part of this process as maybe as committee members helping us do the evaluation of the awards whoever send nominations and all of you that are part of the nominees. Thank you. Congratulations for the amazing work that you do for this community. And I also think that this particular year with the 25th anniversary, how fitting it is to start looking at those seeds that were planted 25 years ago. So, we're just seeing the garden grow. So, thank you everybody for being part of this. And I also want to say thank you to Alan for leading us in this work and how we are celebrating every year this amazing work that the community is doing. So, nothing but gratitude to all of you and many celebrations. So, thank you all. >> Oh, so great. I finally got Zoom where I could see everybody. So good to see. Hello, Eur from from from Germany. So glad to see you. Go sign up for OACamp. Global. great event that's coming up February. Uh Jackie, thank you for being part of the review committee this year. Terry, got to catch you on the air sometime. Uh Ricardo, thank you again for being part of of our reviews. Paula, ciao, thanks for all the work that you do for every global. Kurt, always we see we see you every week now. That's we're going to miss doing that after the conference. Jonathan, congratulations uh for your award. And again, everybody >> [music]