Technicians are essential to the design and delivery of CDIO activities, prompting a focus on developing their competencies. Ongoing efforts include papers, roundtables, and workshops to enhance collaboration among CDIO technicians and improve role-specific skills. Key initiatives are a dedicated ‘technician track’ at meetings, a CDIO technician network for sharing best practices, and a competency framework outlining required skills. Recent discussions at conferences in Tunisia and Singapore explored how technicians can engage more holistically with CDIO. Moving forward, high-leverage strategies will be tested to encourage broader technician participation across the CDIO community, fostering deeper integration and impact.

The CDIO initiative, now 25 years old, has expanded from four founding institutions to around 200 worldwide. Over time, its standards have undergone three updates, and the syllabus has evolved to version 3.0 to stay aligned with developments in engineering education. Key papers highlight CDIO’s value, appeal, and challenges. Recent workshops in Trondheim, Tunis, Singapore, and Porto have explored the initiative’s future, including updates to the CDIO Standards. Ongoing work is focused on refining the framework, and a new working group is being established to co-define CDIO’s future direction and develop the next version of its Standards and Syllabus.