Reimagining human potential through continuous learning: Kicking off ASU-GSV 2025
Education is prime for reinvention — and this week, some of the nation’s best architects are getting to work.
The future of learning is flexible, responsive and built to reflect how people actually live, work and grow. This week, Arizona State University joins education and workforce leaders from across the globe at the 2025 ASU-GSV Summit to explore what that future looks like—and how we intentionally build it together.
Throughout the Summit, participants will explore how we make learning more practical, more adaptable and more connected to real-world needs. The purpose? To bridge the chasms that stand between learners and opportunity.
Over the next few days, we’ll be sharing daily roundups covering sessions that spotlight continuous learning, career-connected education and scalable innovation. This series will track key insights from sessions that illuminate how ASU and leading organizations are designing education that supports growth at every stage of life.
Here’s a look at what’s on deck.
Work and learning go hand in hand
Learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. It happens on the job, in the community and across every phase of life. Several sessions this week are exploring how colleges and employers can partner to help people gain relevant skills, faster.
“The Skills Imperative: Aligning Higher Ed with Workforce Realities” panel highlights new models that connect learners to well-paying jobs through practical, in-demand training. In “America’s Employers: Engines to the Middle Class,” ASU, Jobs for the Future and McDonald’s will spotlight how employers are becoming engines of economic mobility.
And in “Recalculating Routes,” panelists will share emerging tools and systems that help learners make better-informed decisions about their education-to-career pathways.
AI is here. Let’s use it for good
AI isn’t a future threat or a passing trend—it’s here, reshaping both education and work. The question is how we harness it to expand opportunity, not widen gaps.
The Summit marks the launch of the ASU+GSV Innovation Learning Lab, a set of programs designed to help professionals and educators build both foundational and strategic AI skills. Other sessions, like “AI and the Future of Work” and “Unlocking Global Talent Development,” will explore how AI can personalize learning and improve access to high-value credentials.
In “Changing Futures: Transforming Global Education and Advancing Technology for Good,” ASU President Michael Crow will join a conversation on how universities can guide tech toward serving the public interest.
Skills over seat time
What learners know matters more than where or how they learned it. That’s why ASU is helping design systems that recognize skills—no matter where they’re earned.
“New Credentialing Strategies That Make Experience Count” highlights how digital badges and alternative credentials are helping learners validate real-world expertise, from job sites to military service to online training.
Other sessions will examine how modular learning pathways are creating more flexible, personalized ways to stack and apply knowledge across a lifetime.
Career readiness starts long before college
Learning pathways should begin early—and stay open throughout life. This week’s sessions will spotlight how K–12 systems, families and community partners are helping young people build durable skills before they even choose a major.
“Integrating Worlds” shows how cross-sector collaboration can support early learning and family well-being, while “Reimagining Durable Skills for Middle School Youth” focuses on building foundational abilities like collaboration and communication from an early age.
The challenge: scaling what works
Innovation matters—but only if it reaches real learners. In “Driving Inclusive Outcomes at Scale,” leaders from ASU, WGU, SNHU and others will explore how large-scale institutions can deliver personalized, high-quality experiences to hundreds of thousands of learners.
The takeaway? It’s not enough to pilot change. We need to scale it.
What’s next
The next four days will highlight real solutions to the challenges learners face—from credit mobility and upskilling to access, affordability and beyond. These conversations reflect ASU’s belief that education should be a lifelong, adaptable companion—not a one-time credential.
Follow along in our newsroom this week as we track how institutions, educators, and innovators are transforming higher education into a system that meets learners where they are—and helps them get where they want to go.