Much of the data needed to support skills-based education and hiring already exists; however, this skills data is siloed, not easily accessible nor machine-actionable, making the switch to skills-based practices for most employers and education institutions a manual and expensive endeavor.

A national open skills infrastructure is critical to support the future of work and the development of agile and robust talent pipelines where all individuals can achieve their career goals. The scale and urgency needed for this transformation necessitates a significant commitment to the democratization of skills as a sharable, interoperable currency through the creation of a national network of open, accessible, machine-actionable skills.