Just one year after the initial BoF in Barcelona, the Drupal Open University has grown beyond the wildest imagination of the attendees. Over 100 people contribute to the initiative with suggestions and contributions. To give a voice to the community, this session will be set up as a panel discussion with representatives from each workstream. Panelists will share their experiences, challenges, and successes, followed by an open Q&A with the audience.

Prerequisite
No prerequisite required. This talk is for everyone.

Outline
In Drupal Con Barcelona 2024, Hilmar (drupalviking) registered a BoF where he talked about his ideas of teaching Web Development with Drupal in Universities, which he had been doing in Reykjavik University since 2020. His idea was to find more people with the same interest, compare notes and maybe come up with a joint syllabus that could be used in more than one school.

Right after the BoF, Hilmar, Jean-Paul Vosmeer and Gusman Bellows started this initiative and worked on planning the next steps: Creating the project on drupal.org, organizing the Slack channel and recruiting people all over to join.

Today, over 100 participants contribute to bi-weekly meetings across four key workstreams:
Courses: Developing course materials.
Teachers: Supporting and recruiting Drupal educators.
Universities: Connecting with academic institutions.
Community: Building engagement and support around the initiative.

To give a voice to the community, this session will be set up as a panel discussion with representatives from each workstream. Panelists will share their experiences, challenges, and successes, followed by an open Q&A with the audience.

The session will blend a brief introduction (10 minutes) to set the stage, followed by a moderated panel discussion where active contributors share their perspectives. This will allow the audience not only to learn about the progress but also to connect personally with the people driving the initiative forward.

Learning Objectives
Understand the current status of the Drupal Open University Initiative.
Recognize why this initiative matters for Drupal's future.
See the potential impact on the Drupal ecosystem: users, agencies, and universities.
Meet the contributors who are shaping the future of Drupal education.
Learn how to get involved, either as a contributor, teacher, or supporter.

Experience level
Beginner