Mike Rustici

Mike Rustici founded Rustici Software in 2002 with a singular focus: making eLearning standards actually work. At a time when SCORM implementation was notoriously difficult and LMS conformance was inconsistent, Rustici Software built tools that abstracted away the complexity and gave developers reliable SCORM support.

The company's flagship product, SCORM Cloud, became the de facto testing and hosting environment for eLearning content worldwide. If you've ever tested a SCORM package, chances are you've used SCORM Cloud. The platform's success gave Rustici unique insight into the real-world challenges of eLearning interoperability — insight that would prove invaluable.

In 2010, ADL awarded Rustici Software the contract to research and develop a next-generation replacement for SCORM's communication framework. The result was "Project Tin Can" — later renamed the Experience API (xAPI). Rustici's team, informed by LETSI's white papers and their own years of wrestling with SCORM's limitations, designed a RESTful, statement-based architecture that broke free from SCORM's browser-only constraints.

xAPI 1.0 was released in April 2013, and it fundamentally changed what was possible in learning data tracking. Rustici's practical, implementation-first approach ensured that xAPI was not just theoretically elegant but actually usable by developers from day one.

Rustici Software was later acquired by Learning Technologies Group (LTG) but continues to operate as a key infrastructure provider for the eLearning industry.