On October 4–6 in Dallas, TX, the 4th annual Close It Summit brought together over 500 attendees from across the country to highlight, explore and scale competency-based education, training and hiring. This year’s theme, Shift Happens: No Turning Back, reflected both the progress being made and the continuing challenges facing America as we work to close the national skills and employment gap.
Highlights of this year’s summit include more than 160 speakers, 35 Ed & Employment Tech Showcase companies and more than 50 sessions exploring innovative competency-based strategies, assessments, training, employer strategies and more.
Degree- and pedigree-based hiring, education and training no longer work, and the shift to competency-based hiring is here and accelerating. Close It delve deeper into the latest innovations supporting that shift, from thought leadership and discussion, to innovations in education and talent management technologies. It explored changing strategies in K-12 and higher education and discussed the future of work, emerging skills and how the shift may impact the American and global economies.
SDWP CEO Peter Callstrom and Workforce Development Board Member and Manpower San Diego President Phil Blair both spoke at the conference. Callstrom participated in a session titled The Shift: Insights to the Employment Tech Landscape. The discussion explored how employment technologies are impacting the way funders are looking at addressing employment for low-income workers.
Both Callstrom and Blair joined other top state and regional experts focused on new and innovative solutions to WIOA funding during WIOA Innovators – Solid Strategies to Excellence. Strategies touched on included skills-based hiring, competency-based training, technology solutions to reach the job seeker and advanced business services to serve employers.
Catch up on the conversation using event hashtags #closeitsummit and #shifthappens on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.