HEDx

A final episode from the Future Solutions conference has Kelly Mathews of UQ join me to reflect on the panel she led of data from 8000+ Australian HE students surveyed by the AI in HE project about AI use. And it has two of its DVCA sponsors in Kylie Readman of UTS and Liz Johnson of Deakin, joined by George Williams of WSU, Linda Brown of Torrens and Katie Ford of Microsoft as the sector consider...

Recent and future hosts of HEDx Conferences are Professors Kris Ryan DVC A of UQ and Jessica Vanderlelie DVC A of La Trobe. A fireside chat with them had them comment on the impact on equity of AI strategies. These are explored by a panel at Future Solutions led by Shamit Saggar of ACSES joined by colleague Ian Li and equity experts in Kylie Austin of EPHEA, Paul Harpur of UQ and Lyndin Francis of...

Professors Jessica Vanderlelie, Allie Clemens and Rorden Wilkinson as DVCAs of La Trobe, Monash and Macquarie join the podcast to reflect on the impact of AI on the future of education. As a panel at the Microsoft HE Summit they share with Katie Ford and I a response to a provocation by George Siemens of what an AI-first university means. Changes to teaching and assessment mean the days of being a...

This episode showcases innovation from beyond public universities into the tertiary system including in innovative partnerships involving employers, global universities and private providers. It also demonstrates how partnerships with network, employer and tech companies can allow tertiary providers to thrive. Christy Collis is joined by Kerri-Lee Krause, Sam Jacob, Scott Luckett and Bijo Kunnumpu...

Debbie Terry of The University of Queensland joins fellow VCs John Dewar, Helen Bartlett, Simon Biggs and Chris Moran. They respond to a provocation by Ann Kirschner of City University of New York of the need to innovate to regain social licence and serve student needs. In welcomes and an opening panel at the recent HEDx conference, these 6 public university leaders outline the need to and the for...

Marc Washbourne has been founder and CEO of ReadyTech for 25 years. His personal agility has seen him grow a leading tech company of 600+ staff and named 2024 EY Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. He leads into the IT skills and edtech sectors through board roles with HEDx partners the Future Skills Organisation and Year13. As a user of AI, employer of graduates, and developer of lifelong learne...

Scott Jones leads Navitas as Group CEO after more than 20 years working for this private provider in partnerships with public universities. The growth in student numbers for a future workforce, that achieves social inclusion among equity groups, needs responses beyond endless growth of public universities with comprehensive discipline offerings and research. This time of opportunity for small spec...

Ulrik Juul Chistensen is the Danish founder of the Area 9 group of learning technology companies working in partnership with VitalSource. In this episode he outlines theories of achieving mastery through adaptive learning techniques supported by technology. He sees the number one challenge for global higher education providers to be working out how to prepare students to ask the right intelligent...

George WIlliams AO is the new VC of Western Sydney University. He argues that we show our values by what we do and who we fight for. He sees that as the way to recover lost social licence for universities that more than half the population do not think positively of. The starting point in response is to recognise we have a problem. While we think we are valuable, the public do not. There is a comp...

David Stofenmacher is the purpose-driven founder and CEO of Mexican private university UTEL and established a global education company Scala partnering with multiple Latin American universities to teach 120,000 students. He joins Josh Nester MD of Seek Investments and Martin to describe his mission to provide a ROI within 2 years for all learners. He illustrates how a HigherEd entrepreneur needs p...

Sam Jacob CEO of Collarts epitomises diversity in tertiary education, after a varied public and private university experience. They make a case for a teacher-centric tertiary education system to achieve student-centric experiences and that multiple provider models in the ecosystem is the best way to achieve this. In an interview with Professor Christy Collis, President-Elect of HERDSA and Martin B...

Professor Kerry London, DVC Research at Torrens University Australia, leads a debate of global sector leaders on the state of higher education and its ability to innovate to face challenges and remain relevant to stakeholders. She is joined by Torrens colleagues in VC Professor Alwyn Louw, Associate Professor Clare Littleton, Dr Claire Davidson, and Professor Matthew Mundy. And by Dr Samantha Ratn...

Tim Renick has led outstanding student success at Georgia State University for 25 yers. He has achieved improvments in student completions and outcomes, notably across equity groups, that stand apart from achievemens of all other institutions. It is based on a culture based on stepping in to support students, with people and 8 years of use of AI, that responds to sector leading predictive analytic...

The Human Systems group of Paul LeBlanc, George Siemens and Tanya Gambey are exploring the concept of an AI-first university. At a recent event at UTS organised by AWS they were joined by leaders from La Trobe, UNSW, Macquarie and others to explore the concept in an Australian context. Listen to an update on this conversation from the global leaders of this idea and of a range of reactions from th...

Professor Kerri-Lee Krause was the most recent person to start a new university in Australia. She has now been appointed to chair the panel to advise the minister and regulator on standards in the sector. This follows a career leading learning and education and academic work at Griffith, Victoria, La Trobe and Melbourne universities before establishing Avondale in its university status after havin...

Chris Hill as APAC CEO reflects on his experience of pioneering new models of private investment and online education globally in roles at Laureate and now Cintana. He describes the background to a new partnership with Ramsay Healthcare and Health Careers International. It outlines how a local provider can work in partnership in allowing the world class experience and expertise of ASU to be brough...

Professor Rowena Harper, DVC Education of Edith Cowan University is a leading innovator and pioneer in new models of education fit for the emerging technologies and student expectations. She shares ECU experiences in innovation with Jason Lodge of The University of Queensland and I in this episode. She reflects on the current challenges of safeguarding academic integrity in an AI era and how these...

Michael Horn was co-founder of the Clayton Christenson Institute and co-authored The Disruptive Class with Clay. In this episode he outlines the difference between sustaining and disruptive innovation and revisits the predictions Clay and he made at the time they were due to come to pass. While a pandemic and accelerated emergence of AI might have tweaked the pace and direction, he sees the closur...

Professor Ken Sloan is Vice Chancellor of Harper Adams University in the UK. He joins the podcast in the first of a series of episodes delivered in a partnership between HEDx and the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils. The series will explore global universities pursuing diverse examples of place-based innovation following earlier episodes with Aleks Subic, Deborah L. Wince-Smith, and J...

Erin Morley is Education Editor of Campus Review and writes for a higher education staff audience about change and where it is heading. After a year in the role, and as HEDx approaches 4 years of continuous sharing including on the Campus Review platform, Erin and Martin reflect on media and content providers perspective of the stories that currently matter. As HEDx and Campus review increasingly...

Sir Chris Husbands is former Vice Chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University and the first Chair of the UK Teaching Excellence Framework. He recently published reports into future implications of generative AI and four scenarios for the future of higher education in England. He sees an acute need for leaders to listen to the dispossessed who miss out on higher education. He argues that complacency...

Noah Pickus of Duke University and Bryan Penprase of Soka University share insights from their recent book The New Global Universities: Reinventing Education in the 21st Century. It describes 8 global case studies of new universities in North America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Each have redefined the inherited ritual of what universities do. The book and episode provide lessons for leaders...

Paulo and Guilherme Silveira are two brothers who co-founded and lead Alura as an integrated set of companies delivering IT skills in Brazil. They do so with support from SEEK Investments whose MD Josh Nester joins me on this episode. Their business spans from state partnerships in K-12, through a university they bought and now operate, to skills provision for alumni lifelong learners, that grow i...

George Siemens of Southern New Hampshire University Human Systems and UniSA has pioneered technology advances in higher education and recent advances in AI. He is now developing for launch an AI-first university together with Paul LeBlanc the former SNHU President. He describes how it would be negligent for Vice Chancellor's and other leaders to ignore AI right now in their plans for the futur...

Jason Lodge of the University of Queensland was a member of a roundtable led from ANU. It was commissioned by the Australian Universities Accord process to question whether the drivers of disruption for our sector made it imminent. Listen to Jason's views from his experience in the learning sciences of how AI and other drivers are changing higher education globally. In this episode we dissect...