HEDx

Simon Biggs as Vice-Chancellor of James Cook University sees great opportunity in AI enhancing personalisation in tertiary learning and becoming a disruptor of global universities. He sees positive impacts in fulfilling his vision and mission to serve remote communities in opening access to education to more learners. And he is clear that AI will free people up from jobs they no longer need to do,...

The Honourable Bill Shorten transitioned at the start of the year from cabinet to Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Canberra. His fresh eyes on the sector make him acutely aware of the need to embrace the needs of a broader range of generations in lifelong learning. He sees a greater role for technology for the learning of more diverse students through a wider array of skills-base...

Luke Sheehy of Universities Australia, Verity Firth of Engagement Australia and Georgina Downer of the Robert Menzies Institute were a formidable opening panel at the Engagement Australia annual conference at UQ on July 22nd. Following an excellent keynote provocation from host Vice-Chancellor Debbie Terry, they considered the global issue of social licence of universities. Why have universities l...

Kelly Palmer led global corporate learning at LinkedIn, Degreed, Yahoo and Sun Microsystems. Inspired by the audacious gaols of Silicon Valley, her mission is to change the way the world learns. She has spent a career pursuing that mission in corporate learning settings before bringing the expertise to bear as Chief Strategy Officer at Southern New Hampshire University. She coined the term The Exp...

Soon Joo Gog, Tracey Donnery, Patrick Kidd, and May Sok Mui Lim join the podcast. Skills Future Singapore, SkillsNet Ireland and FSO in Australia are skills initiatives within national tertiary education systems. Ireland has the world's highest productivity and Singapore ranks second in global competitiveness. As Australia's competitiveness is challenged by national economic productivity being unc...

Sarah DeMark is an assessment expert leading education and workforce outcomes as Vice Provost at Western Governors University. This is the worlds largest university, is online, and soon turns 30 years old. Its education model is competency-based, equity-oriented, and based in Utah. It pioneers recording and demonstrating the future-work skills of its learners through an achievement wallet. It is i...

Professor Duncan Ivison is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester where staff members including Alan Turing defined the concepts of algorithmic and computational automation. Duncan draws on his global experience from Canada, the US, Australia and the UK to revisit the purpose and future of universities in the fastest period of computational advancement to date. How has the global land...

Verity Firth as Chair of Engagement Australia and Vice-President of Societal Impact, Equity and Engagement at UNSW joins with guest host Alphia Possamai-Inesedy PVC of Student Success of WSU. They discuss the challenges universities face in maintaining or seeking to regain social licence and to serve community needs. They explore how the Accord considered this issue and how the new ATEC will be a...

An episode from a HEDx study tour of the UK and from the foyer of the HEPI Conference in London. Sally Curtain of Bendigo Kangan Institute, Andrea Burrows of OES and Caroline Dunne are among the HEDx tour party and Tash Stoeckel one of the hosts along with Tim Dunne of Surrey and Lisa Brodie of TEDI London. The episode gives insights into the plight of tertiary education in the two countries and h...

John Burdick , Marni Passer Vassallo and Holly Halmo, EdD , form the core of an outstanding student success team at New York University bringing human student support to serve the needs of some of the highest achieving and highest paying students.  They offer a view from the inside of one of the most diverse of R1 research powerhouses imaginable. With a world class business school and a pioneering...

Sasha Thackaberry is Founder and President of the newly launched Newstate university. As a competency-based, stackable, subscription price-model, online university, all of its courses are about AI. And it extensively uses AI in curation and delivery of content and the support of its first cohort of students that is commencing on July 1st. Demonstrating the values of agility that overcome the barri...

Kelly Matthews of UQ takes control of the mic as a guest host joined by Tim Fawns of Monash and Stephen George-Williams of the University of Sydney. They pose the questions to two giants of Australian student centred thinking who are both teaching focused leaders. Kylie Readman of UTS and Liz Johnson of Deakin have pioneered how to put students first way before it became so fashionable. They share...

Danny Liu of the University of Sydney argues that AI makes us question not only how, but why we teach. He joins a panel that includes Susan Zhang of La Trobe, Phil Laufenberg of Macquarie and Jason Lodge of UQ. They answer questions from Sam Jacob CEO of Collarts that drive at the heart of where AI is taking tertiary education. Sam summarises a day of HEDx experts in one minute to demonstrate the...

Lev Gonick is CIO of the most innovative university in the US at Arizona State. He outlines the part technology has played in the 20+ year of transformation that created a global entrepreneurial pioneer from a party-town college in the desert. In this fireside chat with Manuela Franceschini of Adobe, he reflects on what he wished he had known at the start of their journey and what his dreams of th...

Theo Farrell as Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University has a vision for agentic AI to serve the lifecycle needs of all students. Why this would solve student complaints is outlined by Sarah Bendall as Student Ombudsman sharing data from the first 2 months of the office. It needs a stable platform of data made interoperable by sector defined data standards as argued by Gemma Cadby of ACSES and Char...

Dr Tim Renick of Georgia State and George Williams VC at Western Sydney are two pioneering leaders and champions of student success on the global stage. They share thoughts and perspectives from the stage at HEDx in Melbourne in a fireside chat with Veronica Pritchard of the Queensland Commitment at UQ. It argues for us getting out of our comfort zones and using AI to overcome process barriers, le...

Melinda Cilento as CEO of CEDA leads the national conversation for a shared plan towards Progress 2050. It has pillars of productivity and innovation and the knowledge and skills our future workforce need. In this fireside chat with Patrick Kidd CEO of the Future Skills Organisation she questions if higher education is changing fast enough and keeping up with the world around it. It provides a bac...

John Dewar of KordaMentha leads a panel of public and private university leaders re-examining strategies in the light of opportunities with AI. Pascale Quester VC of Swinburne, Andrew Parfitt VC of UTS, Dan Cockerell CEO of Torrens and Jessica Vanderlelie DVC at Deakin reflect on how AI gives a chance to learn how to be a disruptor, and regain social licence before those seeking to disrupt us, tak...

Theo Farrell as Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, with his VC Fellow Dr Susan Zhang, join as co-hosts and partners with HEDx in opening the latest HEDx conference at the State Library of Victoria. They outline the importance of collaboration and partnerships for conversations and diverse views to forge shared solutions to challenges and opportunities. And they do so on the biggest topic in t...

Professor Danny Liu of University of Sydney built the award-winning Cogniti.ai to enhance student learning in higher education. In this interview with Katie Ford of partner Microsoft and I, he outlines how and why it was built, and how it can be used for active experimentation with AI. He likens it to allowing stunt doubles for those exploring AI experiments in student learning. He describes the i...

Charlsey Pearce is CEO of MortarCAPS Data Standard. She joins Michael Burgess, formerly of Western Sydney University, and I to describe a new data standard developed to give consistent meaning and understanding to how we all define and use data on the student journey. Financial services and banking would find it impossible to provide service and use FinTech without consistent and interoperable fin...

A/Prof May Lim Sok Mui is Assistant Provost of Applied Learning at Singapore Institute of Technology. She pioneers a coaching approach to competency-based education in Singapore's fifth and most distinct university from a new campus in Punggol. She leads work into the Skills Future Singapore lifelong learning collaboration between providers, government and industry. Shortly before leaving for a gl...

Lev Gonick the CIO of Arizona State University and Dave Rosowsky Senior Advisor to President Michael Crow are colleagues at the world's most innovative university. They share their belief that universities can remain relevant by choosing how and why they embrace AI technology. They tell the story of how ASU has done so through bold leadership and culture, a fast clock speed, a commitment to ex...

Phil Laufenberg is Head of Artificial Intelligence at Macquarie University. His career already spans three continents, and traversing startups in technology companies to executive responsibilities in a public university. He sees a future of AI-enabled universities based on technology accelerating accessible education for all. He is committed to universities pushing the boundaries of jagged frontie...

Sarah Bendall of the National Student Ombudsman office, George Williams VC of WSU, Shamit Saggar of ACSES, Paul Harpur of UQ and Hashini Panditharatne of the Australian Human Rights Commission join Cate Gilpin and I in a satellite panel event at the Universities Australia solutions summit. They dissect how we can reframe equity issues and responses to make higher education providers sustainable an...