Scope
With the rapid shift toward a skills-based economy, Edalex set out to address the growing disconnect between formal education and workforce readiness. Their goal: empower learners with verifiable, human and machine-readable records of their skills, regardless of how or where those skills were acquired.
Challenge:
The challenge isn’t a lack of skills, it’s the lack of systems to recognise and validate them at scale
As the global job market shifts toward skills-based hiring, education systems and learners face a critical gap: while individuals are learning more than ever, they struggle to demonstrate and validate those skills in meaningful, trusted ways.
“There’s a massive disconnect between what learners know and their ability to prove it.”
Dan McFayden (Managing Director & Co-Founder Edalex)
- Skills Confidence Gap: Only 33% of university graduates feel confident articulating their skills during job searches.
- Rapid Obsolescence: 59% of people are expected to need re-skilling, not just up-skilling, as the half-life of skills shrinks.
- AI Disruption: Up to 90% of roles could be disrupted by AI, increasing pressure on individuals to prove adaptable, current capabilities.
- Invisible Learning: Valuable skills gained through life experience, informal training, or non-traditional pathways often go unrecognized.
- Fragmented Systems: Learning data is siloed, making it difficult to convert into evidence-backed credentials that employers trust.
Solution:
Technology That Validates and Recognizes Real-World Skills
Edalex developed a technology ecosystem to close the gap between learning and recognition. Their platforms collect, process, and present evidence-backed, machine-readable skills data in ways that are trusted, portable, and accessible.
“We’re not just helping learners get credentials — we’re giving them a voice.”
Dan McFayden (Managing Director & Co-Founder Edalex)
Key platforms include:
- OpenAquela: An open-source digital repository used globally.
- OpenRSD: The world’s largest open library of Rich Skill Descriptors (RSDs), providing atomic-level, machine-readable skill definitions.
- Credentialate: Leverages LMS and assessment data to create verifiable, personalized evidence records of skills.
- SkillsAware: An AI-powered recognition engine trained on 73,000+ skills and competencies from the Australian national training system. It analyses learner-submitted evidence (CVs, certificates, peer reviews) to:
- Recognise formal and informal skills.
- Support Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
- Provide skill progression insights and upskilling pathways.
Edalex also built an integration with MyEquals, enabling digital badges and verified credentials to be seamlessly shared across platforms.
“We use AI to unlock the skills hidden in learning data and bring them to life as trusted evidence.”
Dan McFayden (Managing Director & Co-Founder Edalex)
Results & Impact:
- 76% of learners using Credentialate reported increased confidence in articulating their skills, backed by evidence.
- Skills recognition made accessible to:
- Veterans transitioning to civilian employment.
- Aged care workers with informal experience and limited English.
- Scouts and not-for-profits needing recognition for non-formal skills.
- Enabled institutions from K-12 to higher education and government to bridge the skills-to-employment gap securely, transparently, and at scale.
“It’s not just about technology — it’s about equity, opportunity, and confidence.”
Dan McFayden (Managing Director & Co-Founder Edalex)
Recorded at inform.ed Melbourne 2025