Come Invent With Us! Innovating Open Practices to Uphold and Uplift Knowledge as a Public Good
This article closes Come Invent With Us: Perspectives On OEGlobal 2026, a series of viewpoints on the conference by the Open Education practitioners who make up the OEGlobal26 Host Organizations.
In this final piece, Marcela Morales and Igor Lesko—Co-Executive Directors of Open Education Global—step back from the individual tracks to get to the heart of the conference: that keeping knowledge a public good is a collective act of invention, and that no one should sit out of its creation.
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Twenty-five years ago, MIT launched OpenCourseWare with a bold vision: to share educational knowledge openly with everyone. The initiative challenged the idea that knowledge should remain within the walls of a single institution and inspired a global movement; one that continues to evolve today through countless individuals and organizations committed to making education and knowledge more open, accessible, and collaborative. As we gather for OEGlobal 2026, we celebrate MIT’s legacy, the legacy of those playing their part in opening up access to knowledge and information and look forward to the future of open education.
The world has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. New technologies are transforming how knowledge is created, shared, and consumed. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping teaching and learning. Issues of trust, ethics, equity, sustainability, and public access have become increasingly complex. Knowledge has never been more abundant. Yet, its integrity and trustworthiness have never been under greater pressure. In an era of rapidly evolving technologies, misinformation, and increasingly complex global challenges, open education has a vital role to play in promoting knowledge that is accurate, relevant and openly accessible. This work is not only an educational priority. It strengthens informed civic participation, supports scientific advancement, and helps communities address shared global challenges, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
That is why this year’s conference theme, Come Invent With Us! Innovating Open Practices to Uphold and Uplift Knowledge as a Public Good, is both a celebration and an invitation.
The invitation is deliberate. Innovation in open education has never been the work of a few individuals acting alone. It happens every day when educators openly share their teaching practices, librarians expand access to scholarship, researchers publish openly, students become creators of knowledge, and institutions choose collaboration over competition. It happens when people from different cultures, disciplines, and experiences come together to ask difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and imagine new possibilities.
In open education, invention is a collective act. Every openly licensed resource, new partnership, policy that removes barriers, technological innovation grounded in openness, and conversation that sparks a fresh idea contributes to a larger shared effort. Together, these efforts ensure that knowledge is not only accessible, but continues to be adapted, improved, and shared for the benefit of all.
OEGlobal 2026 provides a space where these collective efforts can flourish. Co-hosted by MIT Open Learning, the Massachusetts Open and Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC) and Open Education Global, and marking the 25th anniversary of MIT OpenCourseWare, the conference convenes educators, librarians, researchers, instructional designers, students, technologists, policymakers, and advocates from around the world. Whether joining us in Cambridge or online, participants become part of a global conversation where ideas are shared, collaborations begin, and new possibilities emerge across conference tracks that explore democratizing knowledge, strengthening the open ecosystem, fostering human connection, exploring emerging technologies, and imagining our shared future.
Ensuring that knowledge remains a public good demands a broad and interconnected approach. It spans the multiple dimensions of openness, including open education, open science, open infrastructure, open publishing, open data, and various other forms of open collaboration. No single organization, technology, or policy can achieve this alone. The future of knowledge as a public good will be shaped by people and communities who are willing to collaborate, share, experiment, and innovate together.
That is the spirit behind Come Invent With Us!
Whether you have been part of the open education movement for decades or are just beginning your journey, your perspective matters. The future of knowledge as a public good depends on all of us. We invite you to join us in Cambridge or online as we learn from one another, forge new collaborations, and invent the next chapter of open education together.
Over the past weeks, our colleagues from across the OEGlobal26 Host Organizations have written in this space about what they are bringing to Cambridge — archives and student voices, open scholarship and what it means to be a community, our shared global vision, and the frontier of AI. Their perspectives are the best possible argument for what follows. We hope you will add yours.
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Igor Lesko is Co-Executive Director of Open Education Global, where he leads global strategy, international partnerships, conferences, advocacy, and community engagement. Originally from Slovakia and based in South Africa since 2003, he has more than 16 years of experience helping national and international organisations expand equitable access to knowledge. He holds a PhD from the Open University of the Netherlands, where his research examined how international organisations shaped government OER policy between 2002 and 2019. He holds two master’s degrees (Western Cape; Ruhr University Bochum). Outside work, he is an endurance athlete and Ironman triathlete.
Marcela Morales is Co-Executive Director of Open Education Global, where she works to promote, support, and advance openness in education worldwide. Through OELatam, she works closely with Latin American communities to build awareness and share best practices for finding, creating, and remixing open educational resources. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Tec de Monterrey and a master’s in educational technology from the University of British Columbia. Marcela believes education is an essential, shared social good for which we are all responsible.
OEGlobal 2026 — Come Invent With Us! takes place October 7–9, 2026, at MIT’s Samberg Conference Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a hybrid format open to participants worldwide. The conference is co-hosted by Open Education Global (OEGlobal), MIT Open Learning, and the Massachusetts Open & Low-Cost Educational Resources Advisory Council (OLERAC), and marks the 25th anniversary of MIT OpenCourseWare. Learn more and register at conference.oeglobal.org.