Subscription or Fee May Be Required to Access the Information on the External Link
Launched in January 2026, the Connecting Talent to Opportunity (CTO) Challenge is a $15 million prize competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE). The CTO Challenge invites state governors to assemble teams to build or scale integrated, statewide talent marketplaces, which it defines as public databases that connect people's skills and credentials to education and job opportunities.
The challenge runs from January 2026 through April 2028.
Each talent marketplace built must incorporate a credential registry and leverage learning and employment records (LERs). These are used to enable stakeholders to transcribe learning achievements as machine-readable, actionable, and industry-recognized competency statements. The talent marketplace must also connect individuals directly with skills-based job descriptions used by artificial intelligence (AI).
The challenge is structured in three phases:
Ten semifinalist states emerged from the pre-phase: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
The challenge addresses a gap in U.S. workforce development where millions of Americans hold credentials earned through work, military service, community college, and other pathways, but those credentials often remain invisible to employers because they are stored in incompatible systems that cannot communicate with each other. Talent marketplaces are designed to solve this by building common infrastructure that makes skills visible, verifiable, and portable across systems.
The CTO Challenge was first announced in December 2025, and launched on January 13, 2026. It advances the Trump administration's America's Talent Strategy, a federal workforce development framework emphasizing skills-based hiring, credential transparency, and stronger alignment among education, workforce, and economic development systems.
The challenge is part of the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education's broader series of career and technical education (CTE) prize competitions.
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE)
The AI Library Mapping Assistant is a work in progress. Users are advised to verify the information from additional sources.
We strive for accuracy but acknowledge that errors may occur, and we encourage users to provide constructive feedback.
Have something to add or refine? Your input in this work matters greatly and we look forward to reviewing your additions
