Text of the keynote for the 23th Dies Natalis of the Open University of the Netherlands, 28 September 2007. In the keynote the need for a national infrastructure for lifelong learning is advocated. The requirements of the Digital Cinema area are used as an example and in the last section three research examples are addressed (personal competence manager, navigation in learning networks using collaborative filtering and the use of LSA to decrease teachers workload. Text can be obtained here: http://hdl.handle.net/1820/1077