Professor Kris Ryan DVCA of The University of Queensland introduces and reflects on the most recent HEDx event on Our Commitments to Students in the Age of AI. He does so by celebrating our adoption of the student voice in our work and the need to commit to it continuously in the future. We saw that in our most recent conference close up. And we saw how vulnerable all of us are and how that is something to celebrate as Manuela Franceschini of Adobe illustrates in a beautifully reflective poem written on the day at the event. And it all gives pointers to the community we build in doing this which Professor Kylie Readman of UTS celebrates in inviting us all to the next HEDx in the first week in June in Sydney.

Professor Kylie Readman DVC of UTS leads a panel of Australian experts in online learning in a discussion of the needs of this special group of lifelong learners. Professor Dominique Parrish of Torrens University Australia, Tom Steer of University of Adelaide, Catherine Reynolds of OUA and Erin Jancauskus of OES share experiences from leaders of online education. They dissect how AI is impacting this area of higher education. And they outline what it is going to take as we shift even more fully to this mode of learning in an omni-channel future as one of the ways that the growing demand for lifelong learning can be met particularly from equity groups.

George Williams of Western Sydney University launches a seminal essay on the crisis of social license in our universities and what we have to do about it. As a publication of The Australia Institute, George shares thoughts on why the essay was written and what is contribution will be with Alice Grundy of The Australia Institute Press. The session is a response to the conversation between Alphia Possamai-Inesedy and Ann Kirschner, advisor to President at ASU and the University of California. Ann sees an opportunity to rebuild from the tremors impacting the sector globally and makes the perfect case for why the essay was needed.

Simon Biggs VC of JCU recently visited TEDI-London as an exemplar of learning innovation and of how AI can democratise education for disadvantaged learners. Little did Simon and I know that he was meeting Professor Lisa Brodie TED-London Dean shortly before she would be able to be public about it transitioning into ASU London. As its foundation Dean, she joins Simon and I to reflect on their meeting and what they discussed and sharing the news that ASU London was launched last week. In. partnership with Cintana, this major development in global educational partnerships has a profound impact on how we will perceive the future of transnational education for global learners.

Bill Shorten, Pascale Quester, Sharan Burrow and Simon Biggs answer this and other questions posed by Dionne Higgins of KordaMentha. "Nothing about us, without us" is the essence of the call for action that Kelly Matthews of UQ a nd I hear clearly and will return to in future episodes in 2026. Never was the student voice more clearly made, head and accepted for action.

Sir Chris Husbands former VC of Sheffield Hallam University and founding chair of the UK Teaching Excellence Framework joins Professor Helen Bartlett VC of University of the Sunshine Coast. They were on stage at HEDx at UQ for an opening keynote and fireside chat that dissects the global issues facing higher education. They argue the clear need to identify purpose, implement that purpose clearly and consistently, and be ever vigilant to ongoing change in leading our communities through turbulent times. Sir Chris and Helen both emphasise the importance of being distinctive and following your own true path in doing that. They observe many members of our community do this effectively every day.

Ian Oppermann is Chair of Data Standards for the Commonwealth and Industry Professor at UTS. From a lifetime in AI and driving technology to serve the needs of consumers and their data rights, he is partnering with Charlsey Pearce of the Mortar CAP data standard. They led a sector workshop at AWS in Sydney recently of sector representatives jointly crafting a white paper to guide improved data stanrads to serve the needs of lifelong learners in a harmonised tertiary education system. They reflect on the workshop and the issues it addressed before bringing its progress to a workshop at the HEDx event on November 5.

This episode gives voice to 34 students from 8 different HEDx member universities and partners in UQ, Adelaide, Swinburne, OES, OUA, Torrens, UniSC, and Canberra. We asked each 9 questions about what they thought of higher education, what they would change, and how they felt about AI and the future of work. Their answers might surprise you. Professors Suzanne Le Mire and Kelly Matthews of UQ helped me design them and make sense of their answers. Ignore these messages at your peril. My great thanks to Suzanne and Kelly and the colleagues at the 8 places and all of their wonderful students. We hear you and see you.

Danny Liu and Adam Bridgeman at the University of Sydney have pioneered the development of AI and a two-lane strategy for its use and assessment. In this episode they convene a diverse panel of their staff and student colleagues to discuss how the strategy works and can be implemented. As an exemplar of staff and students working as partners it illustrates an excellent approach to working through how to use the technology while assuring learning. The episode is set in the context of global best practice in students as partners shared by Professor Kelly Matthews of UQ after her keynote at the UA conference on the student voice and governance.

Professor Suzanne Le Mire as PVC of Education and the Student Experience at The University of Queensland brings a student panel to the podcast. The panel is from the recent summit of The Queensland Commitment at UQ and saw 4 diverse UQ students comment on what they loved about their experience, what they thought could be better, and what they would do if they were Vice-Chancellor for a day. A great opportunity to give student's a voice about what is important to them ahead of a series of student focussed episodes to come and the HEDx conference on our commitments to students in the age of AI.

Professor Amanda Broderick is Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of East London. UEL in 2018 was heavily in debt and rated the UK university most likely to fail. After 7 years of dverse policy settings it has the UK's fastest and most diversified income growth, no debt and is implementing a 300m pound investment programme. It has doubled in size by focusing on a mantra of creating new value in partnership with business and industry and innovating, in the most competitive university city in the world. In an episode co-hosted with Kevin Bell of AWS, Amanda outlines how partnerships must involve all having skin in the game, be led from the top, and have a shared exchange of complementary skills of real business value. A great global example of thriving under adverse market and policy conditions and intense competition by being different.

Alex Elibank-Murray and Rania Shibl of the University of the Sunshine Coast share experiences of industry partnerships to give work experience to students in fast changing fields. Partnerships with industry partners that include Microsoft, are used to co-design learning experiences that combine certificated and non-certificated university courses with practical skill achievements. In an episode co-hosted by Yasminka Nemet the Future Skills Lead at Microsoft, we explore how tertiary education is changing to achieve harmonisation between further and higher education and co-designed learning and experience opportunities for a new world of work.

Professor Kylie Readman as DVC Education and Students at University of Technology Sydney outlines a new venture in global online education. Launching new Mandarin-language online postgraduate education courses to global student markets as a trans-national education strategy is a bold and unique step for an Australian university. In a partnership with Cinlearn, this is distinct and differentiated from the multiple bricks and mortar TNE ventures by Australian and other universities in various Asian and other global countries. It is an example of a university working on adjacencies that go beyond core operations to seek breakthroughs.

HEDx launched its first podcast on September 9 2020. Since then over 183 episodes, more than 200 global leaders have shared thoughts on the future higher education landscape and how it can achieve equity goals though strategy, leadership, culture, technology and partnerships. This episode looks back over 5 years with Sue Kokonis of foundation and continuing lead sponsor at OES helping us consider how Debbie Haski-Levanthal, Pascale Quester, Michael Crow, Paul LeBlanc, Mary O'Kane, Ann Kirschner, Theo Farrell and Simon Biggs among others have seen the need for change in the sector. This episode has 5 years of highlights to reflect on where we have come from and speculate on what the next 5 years will hold with agentic AI transforming the student experience.

John Dewar and Dionne Higgins are experienced leaders of Australian universities now leading a higher education consulting practice at Korda Mentha. They have recently published an annual report showing Australian universities under significant financial pressure to be able to invest in the digital transformation they desperately need. They see it as a time for courageous leadership to cut through the red tape and bureaucracy increasingly stifling the sector. And they see great value in leaders taking inspiration from international pioneers and thinkers like Sir Chris Husbands who they, and others, are helping HEDx bring to Australia later this year.

Professor Kristian Widen is Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Cooperation and Innovation at Sweden's industry-engaged Halmstad University, after a distinguished career at its leading research university in Lund. In describing the diverse landscape of a well-funded and stable Swedish university system, he observes that many if its staff and students are happy and calm, including regulators. With little loss of social license they are under little pressure to disrupt. But in his role he is mindful of how this pervaded in Swedish retail and entertainment sectors before Ikea and Spotify emerged. Where will the most likely disruption of global higher education come from, by incumbents or new entrants, and where in the world offers greatest promise to nurture it?

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, to have space to think and enhance student experiences. He believes it is critical for us to apply AI to help young people with companionship and overcome increased loneliness. Nabeela Furtado of Unisuper joins me as co-host to focus on human wellbeing at a time when the sector has the greatest challenges with how staff and students navigate change.

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-based offerings that recognise prior learning. In a settled political environment he sees hope for institutions that get on and innovate, and work as a sector together, more than fight with each other while telling everyone what they are good at, while asking for more money.

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 lost it?, how do they get it back?, and will we know they have? all considered from the point of view of solving the problem, not admiring it. A great panel to facilitate and dissect with guest co-host Alphia Possamai-Inesedy of WSU and the EA Board.

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 Expertise Economy in a book that outlines how learning in the global economy has shifted from degrees or credentials to skills and expertise. The move from 'what we know' to 'what we can do' is now widespread in a world transformed by AI as Kelly outlined as a keynote in the recent Singapore applied learning conference where we first met.