ICAD 2026: Insights From Oxford – Part One

Our first interview is with Scott Cheney, CEO of Credential Engine.

Welcome to Apprenticeship 2.0 from ICAD 2026, Scott.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

Great to have you here.

Thanks.

So let's start here.

Can you tell listeners a bit about your work and the opportunities you're helping to shape?

Sure.

Most people won't have heard about Credential Engine before, but we're now about a 10-year-old nonprofit.

And we were started by the Lumina Foundation and JPMorgan Chase with a very pretty simple goal.

And the easiest way to explain the goal is to give you an analogy.

So most people have heard about Expedia and Travelocity and Kayak, and they understand that you can hop on and plan a vacation.

You can figure out how to get to Phoenix.

You can book a plane.

You can book a hotel.

You can do all these great things.

And it doesn't matter which of those you use because the information about the price of the plane and the information about this is a Marriott on the corner of 8th and Main and the corner room on the 10th floor has a king-size bed.

Those are all facts that each one of those platforms can give you.

There was not a single way to get the facts about certificates, diplomas, degrees, apprenticeships, certifications, occupational licenses, micro-credentials in this country.

We couldn't have an Expedia for all credential opportunities until we were created to provide a common way to describe every one of the 1.8 million credentials that are offered in the US right now by nearly 135,000 different providers.

And so our job is to make it possible for an Expedia or Kayak or Travelocity to be created.

We don't do that.

We're the data behind it.

But to have that be possible to give students a single look at everything that they could do and how to put it all together so they can make their best decisions about what they want.

Our first interview is with Scott Cheney, CEO of Credential Engine.

Welcome to Apprenticeship 2.0 from ICAD 2026, Scott.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

Great to have you here.

Thanks.

So let's start here.

Can you tell listeners a bit about your work and the opportunities you're helping to shape?

Sure.

Most people won't have heard about Credential Engine before, but we're now about a 10-year-old nonprofit.

And we were started by the Lumina Foundation and JPMorgan Chase with a very pretty simple goal.

And the easiest way to explain the goal is to give you an analogy.

So most people have heard about Expedia and Travelocity and Kayak, and they understand that you can hop on and plan a vacation.

You can figure out how to get to Phoenix.

You can book a plane.

You can book a hotel.

You can do all these great things.

And it doesn't matter which of those you use because the information about the price of the plane and the information about this is a Marriott on the corner of 8th and Main and the corner room on the 10th floor has a king-size bed.

Those are all facts that each one of those platforms can give you.

There was not a single way to get the facts about certificates, diplomas, degrees, apprenticeships, certifications, occupational licenses, micro-credentials in this country.

We couldn't have an Expedia for all credential opportunities until we were created to provide a common way to describe every one of the 1.8 million credentials that are offered in the US right now by nearly 135,000 different providers.

And so our job is to make it possible for an Expedia or Kayak or Travelocity to be created.

We don't do that.

We're the data behind it.

But to have that be possible to give students a single look at everything that they could do and how to put it all together so they can make their best decisions about what they want.