[5][6][7][8] Cobo was born and raised in Santiago, Chile, attending primary through high school at Colegio Verbo Divino.

He began his career in 2005 as a professor and director of communication as well as editor of the educational platform at the Latin American Social Sciences Institute (FLACSO) in Mexico, working there from 2005 to 2010.

[10][11][12] In 2009, he received a grant from the University of Oxford to research European public policy regarding digital competencies, becoming a visiting follow at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) at the institution.

[11][13] Between 2011 and 2014 he has coordinated the research division of the OportUnidad project,[14] an open education resource initiative supported by ALFA III.

[11] In 2010, Dr. Cobo was named a member of the Consejo Asesor del Informe Horizon Iberoamérica, part of the New Media Consortium, and serves on the board of the Global Open Educational Resources (OER) Graduate Network and in the ‘Open Education 2030’ board (coordinated by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies part of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission) .

He promotes “invisible learning” not as a theory but as a meta-theory with the aim of incorporating different ideas and perspectives and as a “work in progress.” It is highly influenced by the notion and values of open source in the sense that it should be developed collaboratively.