Thank you to all our OpenEdge Developers who make an impact on their businesses.

World Developer Day is an opportunity to recognize developers everywhere and look at how the work they do continues to evolve. For Progress OpenEdge developers, that work spans a broad range of experiences, from developers who have spent years building and evolving business-critical applications to those who are just beginning to learn ABL and discover the platform.

Across that spectrum, developers are learning new skills, adopting modern technologies and finding new ways to build on the applications organizations already depend on. Ahead of World Developer Day on September 13, we are taking a closer look at the OpenEdge developer community, how OpenEdge development continues to evolve and the resources available to help current and future developers keep building their skills.

See What OpenEdge Developers Are Building

The OpenEdge developer community is at the heart of what makes the platform successful. Every day, developers bring their technical expertise, creativity, passion for the platform and knowledge to the applications they build, while sharing ideas and exploring new ways to solve business challenges with OpenEdge.

Our recent OpenEdge × AI Innovation Challenge offered a glimpse into that creativity and showed how developers are bringing emerging technologies into the OpenEdge applications they already know. From agentic workflows to AI-enabled desktop applications and copilots, these projects demonstrate some of the different directions developers are exploring with OpenEdge and AI.

Kenneth Chamisa, Lead Solution Architect at MIP Holdings, won the OpenEdge × AI Innovation Challenge with a project that used OpenEdge and AI agents to support complex enterprise workflows. His solution kept OpenEdge as the trusted source of business data, rules and decision making while allowing specialized AI agents to work together on business processes. Read Kenneth's Hackathon success story.

Carlos Vega took a different approach by exploring how AI could extend proven OpenEdge desktop applications. His project connected an OpenEdge Windows application to AI through an MCP server hosted on PAS for OpenEdge, allowing users to retrieve data, navigate application windows and interact with existing workflows in new ways. Read Carlos's Hackathon success story.

Michael Whelan used the Hackathon as an opportunity to learn modern AI tools and apply them to the enterprise systems he already worked with. His project used the OpenEdge MCP Server and PAS for OpenEdge to securely connect AI with existing business logic, allowing users to ask natural-language questions about enterprise processes and information without giving AI unrestricted access to the underlying database. Read Michael's Hackathon success story.

These projects represent only a few of the developers finding new ways to build with OpenEdge. Our ongoing OpenEdge Developer Spotlight series shares stories from developers at different stages of their careers, highlighting how they learned OpenEdge, the applications they build and the experiences that have shaped their journeys.

OpenEdge Development Continues to Evolve with AI and Modern Technologies

The technologies and practices surrounding software development are constantly changing, and OpenEdge development continues to evolve alongside them. Developers can build on established OpenEdge applications through new user experiences, integrations, APIs and cloud-ready capabilities while preserving the business logic organizations have developed over time.

AI capabilities in OpenEdge are increasingly part of that evolution, providing new ways for developers to work with code, applications and data. The Progress OpenEdge AI Assistant brings AI-assisted development into ABL workflows, helping developers work with their code while continuing to use the development environments and applications they know.

AI can also extend beyond the development process itself. The Progress OpenEdge MCP Server can help connect AI to OpenEdge application data and capabilities, while Progress Agentic RAG provides another way for organizations to bring AI into applications by grounding AI experiences in enterprise information.

For experienced OpenEdge developers, these technologies create new opportunities to work with applications they already understand. A developer might work with an ABL application while also creating an API that exposes functionality to another system, modernizing an application experience, incorporating AI into a development workflow or exploring how AI can interact with existing OpenEdge applications and data.

For developers who are newer to OpenEdge, this evolution demonstrates how ABL and established business applications can work alongside technologies and practices shaping modern software development. Learning OpenEdge does not have to mean learning a single language or technology, but rather developing a foundation that can continue expanding as applications and development practices change.

Build Your OpenEdge Skills

Whether you have years of OpenEdge experience or are encountering ABL for the first time, there are opportunities to continue building your skills. OpenEdge developers can pursue different paths across application development, modernization, integrations and APIs, consulting and application architecture while continuing to expand their knowledge of the platform.

If you are interested in expanding your OpenEdge expertise or beginning your OpenEdge development journey, the OpenEdge Developer page brings together resources to help you get started. You can explore ABL, free training and certification, career opportunities, developer stories and ways to connect with others across the OpenEdge ecosystem.

Get Ready for World Developer Day

The OpenEdge developer community includes people at different stages of their careers who are working with different technologies and solving different business challenges. The ideas and projects coming from this community continue to show what developers can accomplish as OpenEdge applications evolve alongside new technologies.

On September 13, we are celebrating you, the developers who make that work possible and the contributions you continue to bring. Check out our celebration page to hear a special message from our team as we celebrate World Developer Day.