The Future of MIT Open Education

Celebrate 25 years of MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW)—a bold experiment that became a global movement. This half‑day symposium brings together learners, educators, supporters, open knowledge leaders, and the MIT community to honor OCW’s extraordinary impact and to chart the future of open education.

Since its launch in 2001, OCW has empowered millions worldwide with free access to MIT course materials. This anniversary offers a moment to recognize the vibrant ecosystem that sustains open knowledge as a public good—and to reaffirm MIT’s mission-driven leadership in ensuring that high-quality learning remains accessible to all.

Join us for an engaging, dynamic, and celebratory program featuring MIT leadership, pioneering faculty, global learners, open education innovators, and philanthropic partners. Together, we will explore OCW’s legacy, its role in the evolving open ecosystem, and the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Who Should Attend
This gathering welcomes:

• Learners and educators worldwide who use OCW to teach, learn, and create new opportunities
• Philanthropic supporters and donors who power open education
• MIT faculty, students, and staff invested in sharing knowledge freely and openly
• Collaborators across the global open education and open knowledge ecosystems

For the complete program, please visit MIT Open Learning. [add event url]

3:15–4:15 PM
The Future of MIT Open Education
A forward-looking dialogue on the commitments and evolution of OCW and MIT’s open learning initiatives, including mobile learning, language translation, AI-enabled personalization and learning supports, and sustaining open education’s place in future knowledge landscapes.


About the Speakers

Dimitris Bertsimas is the Vice Provost for Open Learning at MIT, the Associate Dean of Business Analytics, the Associate Dean of Online Education & Artificial Intelligence, the Boeing Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, and a Professor of Operations Research at MIT Sloan School of Management. At MIT Open Learning, he oversees Open Learning’s product offerings, new initiatives, infrastructure, finances, and operations.

A faculty member at MIT since 1988, he has made significant contributions in the areas of optimization, stochastic systems, machine learning, and their applications across various fields, including healthcare, transportation, and finance.

Curt Newton leads MIT OpenCourseWare in supporting millions of global learners and educators every year with freely shared materials from over 2,500 MIT courses. 
Newton joined OpenCourseWare in 2004, shortly after its launch, captivated by the promise of open education, and worked as a Publication Manager and Site Curator prior to becoming Director in 2018.

Newton is also a recognized leader in building more effective and equitable climate action through open knowledge practices and resources, at MIT and around the world, through a wide range of professional and civic engagements.

All sessions will be streamed live on the MIT OpenCourseWare YouTube Channel. They will be recorded and made available online after the event.

To see the complete program, please visit MIT Open Learning.