In the introductory first chapter, I describe how education is becoming increasingly ‘digitized’ and ‘datafied’. Through digitization, more and more aspects of education – from the early years through school, higher education and on into lifelong learning – are being conducted through software programs that have been written in code, and that rely on algorithms for their functioning. The process of datafication has involved diverse forms of information about education being rendered in machine-readable digital data, which can then be subjected to sophisticated forms of processing, calculation, analysis, interpretation, visualization and circulation. The chapter details how digitization and datafication reinforce each other, and how they have begun to animate the imaginations and visions of powerful social actors. Adopting the concept of ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, in the chapter I explore how ‘desirable’ future visions for education based on digital data are now being projected and enacted.