Five Questions With: Kerri Lemoie

KERRI LEMOIE is founder and CEO of OpenWorks Group LLC in Providence. / COURTESY STEPHANIE EWENS
KERRI LEMOIE is founder and CEO of OpenWorks Group LLC in Providence. / COURTESY STEPHANIE EWENS

Kerri Lemoie, founder and CEO of OpenWorks Group LLC in Providence, talks about the business, which builds web and mobile-ready applications for organizations and businesses focused on education and educational services.

PBN: Tell me about your business. How did it begin?

LEMOIE: OpenWorks Group is a social mission-based tech consulting company focused on education and lifelong learning. Most of our work is aimed at the exchange, usage and security of learning and skills data. We provide guidance on systems architecture, product development and process development primarily but not limited to the usage and implementation of digital credentials such as Open Badges.

The company grew out of my last tech start-up, Achievery.com, an Open Badges-issuing platform that I co-founded with Damian Ewens. Prior to Achievery.com, I worked alongside Damian as a consultant with the Providence After School Alliance program for teens called The Hub. We were awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation through the Digital Media & Learning initiative to apply Open Badges to The Hub’s Expanded Learning Opportunities program where the students learned skills and gained school credit for subjects such as coding, engineering, art and debate.

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During this time I began actively supporting and leading the Open Badges community and worked alongside Mozilla engineers and product team to develop software and improvements to the specification. My participation in this global ecosystem of educators and technologists through software contributions and advocacy led to Achievery.com and then, later, the transition to OpenWorks Group.

PBN: How many employees do you have?

LEMOIE: I am the only full-time employee but collaborate on projects with experts and consultants who specialize in educational theory, policy, design and technology. The collaborative nature of OpenWorks Group allows for the development of unique and specialized teams on a per-project basis. Although based in Providence, I am often traveling to other parts of the country and sometimes the world, to meet with clients, speak at conferences and work with project collaborators.

PBN: What sort of clients do you serve?

LEMOIE: OpenWorks Group clients are typically education providers and tech platforms interested in issuing digital credentials and gathering data that makes the credentials purposeful and useful. We are particularly interested in working with clients who aim to improve education equality and equity and who are also using data to enhance their products and programs. Some of our clients are on the consuming side of digital credentials. For example, they use the credentials to hire employees or as tokens to allow access to their apps or even allow entrance to conferences and training events. Besides consulting, I also serve on technical advisory committees related to digital credentials and learning data.

PBN: What sort of projects would you like to highlight that illustrate what your business does?

LEMOIE: An example of a recent project is Process Labs, an open source content creation system with features that allow for formative and summative feedback. This project, created with leadership from VIF International Education and in partnership with Little Bird Games, was developed to assist educators to collaboratively develop lesson plans but can be used in many contexts in and outside of education.

An important aspect of OpenWorks Group is the usage, development and contribution to open source projects. Open Badges is an example of this, but beyond digital credentials we have been researching and developing applications that are using distributed technologies and the decentralized web. The future of the internet goes well beyond the cloud services we are all becoming accustomed to. Data privacy and security is needed more than ever, especially with education, health care and government data. Although technologies like blockchain and the decentralized web are nascent, innovation is rapid and ready for prototypes now.

PBN: What interested you in the technology field?

LEMOIE: My mother, Cheryl Lemoie, was a programmer. She taught me basic programming at a young age. I think this early exposure made tech feel comfortable even though it wasn’t a driving interest. I’ve always been more interested in art, music and writing. Yet, tech is creative in its own way and I’m never surprised when those interests intersect.

I often say I’m a problem solver and strategist first; a technologist second. I see technology as a set of tools that can get things done. It is language, methodology, interpretation and action. It’s a multi-tool I feel grateful to have in my back pocket.

I’m interested in the openness and accessibility of the internet. I prefer technologies that are community-derived and supported. In some cases, I honestly may prefer the community over the resulting technology simply because sometimes working as a community has its own rewards beyond the intended results.

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