 Hi my name is Katrina Law and I'm here today to say how grateful I am to OE Global for awarding me the People in Open Leadership Award. I was genuinely stunned to hear my name at the award ceremony so thank you. This appreciation by OE Global isn't really for me but for recognizing the quiet commitment of the Open Learned team and my wonderful job share partner Jane Roberts at the Open University who have supported me and my predecessors to develop the platform and its content in support of the Open University social mission. Our work in collaboration with colleagues in the four nations of the UK has met the open and has survived through leaner times and continues to deliver engaging and topical content for those who need it most. OER in all its form supports the access to all lifelong learning agenda by providing continuous learning opportunities for work and skills development. It supports social inclusion, personal fulfillment and health and well-being and it is hard to imagine a world without it. Within a broad catalogue of OER providers, Open Learn is unique in a few ways and I think it's worth teasing out why because I feel strongly that it should and could be a model for more institutions to adopt. Firstly a small proportion of the Open University's content is delivered as OER. This was the fundamental basis of its existence when it was initially funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in 2006. Despite initial detractors saying that we were giving away our crown jewels, it is an approach that has served us well and has become embedded in university culture. Secondly, Open Learn doesn't just host hundreds of course materials, it is home to educational activities, videos and articles, our so-called short form content all designed not only to be educational but attention-grabbing, topical and in many cases fun. Content that can also easily port to social media, thereby increasing reach. You create a course, you separate it into its parts and these go on to have their own life. Thirdly, in 2015 we introduced free certificates and digital badges. Our digitally badged courses are robustly assessed and provide meaningful recognition for a learner's achievements. In 2023, earlier this year, we issued our quarter of a millionth open digital badge and our millionth free certificate. I could talk all day about the research that has underpinned the commissioning, pedagogical and technical innovation that has brought the platform to where it is today, the research which I have loved. But in short, it has provided a window onto the world of non-formal learners globally and in their millions, their motivations and desires which over the years has consistently shown that OER does change lives, has real meaning and remains in demand by those that need it most. From displaced peoples taking their digital learning achievements across borders to parents helping children with their maths homework, from educators adjusting to online teaching to non-formal learners having the eureka moment that they can move into formal study in a subject that they love. In the early days of OER adoption, frameworks were published to plenty as to its perceived and hoped for benefits and benefactors. Projects large and small worldwide continued to contribute to the canon of work describing its use and adaptation. And whilst we have settled into a world where OER is broadly accepted and expected to exist, albeit mostly in English, some of the challenges of delivery have bubbled up now that the grants have dried up, notably around sustainability. How to host, where to host, how to stay up to date and at what cost. Unless you are part of the mighty and admirable not-for-profit such as Sailor Academy, University of the People and OERU, who rely on others OER and a great deal of goodwill to exist, funding the development, hosting and updating of OER for smaller players can be problematic. Luckily for me and for OpenLearn, the equation is simple. A proportion of all non-formal learners will go on to make a formal inquiry for university study at the Open University, which in turn, sustains this activity. Today, the business of for-profit, short-course microcontinental production is well established, particularly with higher education institutions post-pandemic, having fine-tuned their virtual learning environments with many established universities offering their own public-facing paid-for offering. The stage is more than set therefore for such educational providers to launch their own foray into OERU, with the same business model as OpenLearn, a self-sustaining production of quality educational content. That at least would be my hope for the future, that OERU with its beloved creative commons is seen not only as the output of characterately funded projects, but as a moral duty, a conscience-driven activity for educational institutions, a mandate for wealthy countries in support of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, one that is fair and updated and that provides digital, verifiable, meaningful, yet free digital credentials for all, serving regional communities with much needed skills and, well, anyone who wants to find it. Moreover, I am sometimes sometimes felt that the OERU world has missed a trick in not coming together more coherently with digital credentials standards and the frameworks that underpin them. Your achievements gained via anyone's OERU should be part of your future educational digital credentials wallet. I should probably blame myself for not pushing this agenda hard enough, but then families and pandemics have a habit of eating up your spare time. That said, I think they will, and perhaps this is something that the mighty OE global can push forward within the future. In January 2024, I will be leaving the Open University. However, when I won this award, I was asked to say something about what I will be working on next. There are several activities I've set in motion for OpenLearn that await either philanthropic funding or underway in which I will be sad to leave. One of these is the development of an OpenLearn app. The ability for learners wherever they are in the world, forced migrants, those in secure environments, those who are data poor, to study OpenLearn OER offline in their own language and to upload and gain their tracked, verified and assessed digital credentials when they are able to. Secondly, the integration with the RSA Cities of Learning program in the UK. This will allow OpenLearn badges courses to be part of skills pathways recognized with digital badges so that learners can take real meaning from non-accredited learning and hopefully gain new job opportunities within their city or region using valid credentials that are not degree shaped. I'm sure that the OpenLearn team will keep these projects alive as the platform continues to grow and that my successor is as enthused about the essential function that OE global has as I am. OER plays a now necessary role in lifelong learning as social infrastructure. It is a key component of all society's overall well-being and progress and we must vigorously continue to support its existence as sustainably as possible. Finally it leads me to thank OE Global again for generously acknowledging my work with OpenLearn over the years and thank you OE Global for being there.