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Takeaways From the 2017 Open edX Conference in Madrid

Having been a sponsor of every Open edX conference since the inaugural one in 2015, this year’s conference felt simultaneously very familiar and very new.  It was familiar to see so many old friends from the community and so many leaders from edX.  What was new started with the venue -- University of Carlos III Madrid in, you guessed it, Madrid, Spain.  But I was also surprised to see more than 500 attendees; the largest attendance of any Open edX conference.

Warren Buffett’s right hand man, Charlie Munger, coined (or made famous) the idea of the “too hard pile.” Back in the day when communication was by physical letters and memos, you would have three bins on your desk: inbox, outbox and the “too hard pile.” In Charlie’s world of investing at Berkshire Hathaway, the key was to look at an investment opportunity and decide where it belonged. If there was “hair on the deal”, his rule was to put it in the “too hard pile” and move on.

Yesterday we had the kick-off meeting of the Open edX adaptive working group. Given the topic, the group was unsurprisingly large and diverse including participants from around the globe and from both academia and industry.

“Open edX could become the Wordpress of the MOOC space: dominant, ubiquitous, and the de facto choice for putting your course online.”