/
2025-11-12 BizDev WG Meeting

2025-11-12 BizDev WG Meeting

Agenda for Open edX Biz Dev Meeting

  • Meeting Details:
    Open edX WG-BizDev
    Wednesday, 12. November · 17:00 to 18:00
    Timezone: Europe/Berlin

  • Meeting Link: https://meet.google.com/xxd-cntx-mjv

  • Bring your creativity and energy - let’s make it count!

Please review this agenda, prepare in advance, and contribute your ideas beforehand.

Also refer to the meeting notes from previous BizDev meetup - https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/5203394564

Objectives for Today:

  1. Year-End Wrap-Up - 2025 Achievements & Community Appreciation: As a group, let’s reflect on what we accomplished this year. We will review key BizDev milestones and stats - For example,

    1. How many product proposals were put forward and how many were accepted into the product roadmap,

    2. Notable product improvements influenced by our input, and successful partnerships or focus group outcomes.

  2. Planning Ahead - 2026 Roadmap & Goals Discussion: With an eye on the coming year, lets brainstorm and outline preliminary objectives for 2026. This includes aligning with the Open edX product roadmap and OKRs, identifying new market trends or opportunities (e.g. emerging technologies, new verticals), and proposing focus areas for BizDev to tackle next. Bring your ideas for what we should achieve in 2026 - let’s set the stage for an impactful new year!

  3. Product Feedback Loop - Updates from @Eden Huthmacher

  4. Workforce Development & AI Training – @Vineet Manuja’s detailed analysis.

  5. Alignment and Updates with https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/4567662610 - If any activity happened elsewhere around the OKR’s of the Market alignment Sub group?

  • Representative: @Vineet Manuja

  1. Alignment and Updates from https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/5085364228 - If any?

  • Representative: @Santiago Suarez

  1. Recaping the https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/4566810643 activities - If any?

  • Representatives: @Eden Huthmacher

  1. Alignment and Updates with https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/4567662620- If any?

  • Representative: @Natalia Vynogradenko & @Esteban Etcheverry

  1. Alignment and Updates with https://openedx.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/COMM/pages/4567466000 - If any?

  • Representative: @Ayaz Quraishi

Attendees:

MEETING NOTES

Date: 11 December 2025
Duration: ~59 minutes
Attendees: @Stefania Trabucchi, @Jaimin Pavashiya, @Marco Morales, @Mahnoor Sarwat, @Santiago Suarez, @Angie Ruíz, @Abdul Ahad, others through transcript bots.
Note: This was the final BizDev WG meeting of 2025.

1. Opening Remarks & Context

  • @Stefania Trabucchi opened the meeting acknowledging that the WG had started the year with strong energy, many ideas, and structured working groups - but momentum has slowed in the last months.

  • She emphasized the need to re-activate the group, regain focus, and ensure people have clear responsibilities and actionable tasks.

  • Acknowledged that end-of-year workload may have reduced attendance, ideas execution, and overall WG participation.

  • Confirmed that this is the last meeting of 2025, since the next scheduled date (24 Dec) is Christmas Eve.

  • The WG will reconvene in January 2026, tentatively 14 January (pending Slack vote).

2. Year-End Reflection & Recap of 2025 Activities

2.1 Product Proposals - Numbers & Status

@Mahnoor Sarwat shared historical data:

image.png

  • ~50 proposals submitted in 2024–2025 cycle (as of the Paris conference).

  • Estimated total now: ~55 proposals.

  • 48% reviewed, 34% accepted, and 22% implemented.

  • Average time-to-decision: ~84 days (aim is to reduce this through simpler processes).

  • Marco added:

    • “Feature ideas” on Discourse: 12–16 posts.

    • Very few have reached “approved/implemented” status.

    • Bug/quick-fix data is not easily tracked → needs instrumentation.

2.2 Follow-Up on the Paris Product Workshop

  • @Stefania Trabucchi asked for a follow-up summary.

  • @Mahnoor Sarwat: The workshop resulted in:

    • A simplified product proposal process, now with multiple pathways:

      • Full proposal

      • Fast-track

      • Quick fixes

      • Feature ideas (lighter-weight)

  • Community adoption still in progress; full traction expected in early 2026.

2.3 Key Challenge: Lack of Unified Visibility across Working Groups

Multiple attendees (@Marco Morales, @Stefania Trabucchi, @Mahnoor Sarwat) noted:

  • No single place where all WG outcomes, initiatives, and statuses are visible.

  • Currently duplicated across:

    • Design WG (Confluence database)

    • Educator WG (web app)

    • Mobile WG (GitHub project)

    • Product WG (GitHub roadmap)

    • BizDev WG notes

  • This makes onboarding extremely difficult and slows contribution.

  • Proposal:

    • In 2026, create a central dashboard summarizing active initiatives across all WGs.

2.4 AI for Automated Summaries / Cross-WG Analysis

  • @Marco Morales suggested revisiting Open edX’s AI meeting-policy.

  • Suggested using AI for:

    • Automatic transcripts

    • Cross-WG synthesis

    • Topic detection

    • Identifying overlapping discussions

  • Santi confirmed this aligns strongly with the AI Working Group’s mission.

3. Review of All Working Groups

3.1 Product–Market Alignment WG

Status: Inactive (no meetings ever held).
Decision:

  • Group will be dissolved and responsibilities folded back into BizDev main sessions.

  • Everyone agreed.

3.2 AI Working Group (@Santiago Suarez) - Active

Updates:

  1. AI Extension Framework

    • A framework for easy creation of AI-powered extensions in Open edX.

    • Live demonstration scheduled for tomorrow at 13:00 UTC.

    • More functionality coming for embedding AI “features” natively into the platform.

  2. AI Features & Ideas Database

    • A structured table in Confluence listing:

      • Existing AI ideas

      • Proof-of-concepts

      • Feature requests

    • Goal: Identify potential improvements & future roadmap directions.

3.3 Partnership Development WG (Abstract Technology + community)

Updates from @Jaimin Pavashiya & @Stefania Trabucchi:

Current active partnership initiatives:

  1. Turnitin Integration & Certification

    • 89% complete; deep linking and LTI structure functioning.

    • Main blockers: LTI 1.3 technical limitations → working closely with LTI WG.

    • Once resolved, Open edX will receive an official Turnitin certificate → strong promotional value.

  2. Credly Integration

    • Minor bug remaining: badges not correctly displayed upon course progress updates.

  3. Partner Strategy Improvements (@Angie Ruíz)

    • AXIM has posted a new job opening for Senior Partnership Manager, which will bolster partnership outreach.

    • @Angie Ruíz recommended revisiting the earlier idea:
      pursue partnerships not just with tool providers, but with globally recognized organizations (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure) to elevate Open edX market visibility.

  4. Re-framing Partnership Taxonomy (for 2026)

    • Two categories proposed:

      • A. Technical/Integration Partnerships
        (Turnitin, BBB, Credly, LTI tools, AI extensions)

      • B. Strategic / Visibility Partnerships
        (Media, Cloud providers, academic consortia)

3.4 Member Success & Revenue Growth WG (Not Present Today)

  • Led by @Natalia Vynogradenko + @Esteban Etcheverry .

  • Decision:

    • Reach out to Natalia & Esteban immediately for:

      • Status update

      • Intention to continue

      • Clarification on their OKRs

    • If inactive → dissolve or merge into BizDev in 2026.

3.5 Market Penetration & Expansion WG

  • RFP Subgroup (under this WG) successfully completed its mission:

    • Streamlined the RFP workflow.

    • Standardized templates and channels.

  • Decision:

    • Ask leads (@Ayaz Quraishi) whether this WG still has purpose.

    • If not → close it, recognizing RFP standardization as a 2025 success.

4. Proposed Improvements for 2026

  • Invite @Jenna Makowski early next year to present:

    • The product roadmap

    • Updated proposal workflow

    • Expectations for cross-WG collaboration

  • Simplify scope:

    • Reduce number of working groups

    • Focus on small, achievable tasks (“chunking”)

  • Improve onboarding through a centralized visibility dashboard.

5. Closing

  • Next scheduled meeting (Dec 24) cancelled.

  • Proposed next meeting: 14 January 2026 (vote will be posted).

  • Holiday wishes exchanged.

Next Meeting

Dec 24, 2025 - Cancelled

Jan 14, 2026 - TBD