The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research has been accelerating the development of a Digital Education Ecosystem based on a federated IT infrastructure to interlink existing e-learning platforms, services, learning opportunities, and digital education providers across all educational sectors in Germany. The presentation outlines the unconventional funding approach, the agile interaction between the Ministry and the funded projects in order to make use of the gained knowledge and expertise to incrementally develop the minimal viable product of a networked educational environment. It will be shown in the light of interoperability and user-self-sovereignty how such an IT infrastructure can help to support educators along their individual teacher’s and learner’s journeys by providing access to learning opportunities, learning communities, and e-learning tools.