Podcast

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 learners, Marc has a keen eye for what is needed in tertiary education and its relationship with skills, employers and future learners. His keyword is agility and he offers an agile view of where AI is taking learning to complement those from leaders, edtech providers and students. We need continuous 360 views of the changes AI is bringing to skills and learning to remain relevant.

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 specialist providers, teaching only institutions and new investment in public/private partnerships, is vital if an affordable model of growth is to be achieved. Scott joins Christy Collis President-elect of HERDSA and I for a conversation about sector diversity.

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 questions not only provide knowledge to intelligent students to have all the right answers.

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 compelling need to change, to focus on students, to embrace community, and to partner and use technology to meet students where they are, not where we want them to be.

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 patience and be prepared to learn and change every day. He illustrates the importance of staying true to mission, being single-minded about his why, and focus on opportunities not constraints.

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 Betts, they show few people in public universities have much understanding of the private and VET sector and how it works. This is a chance to find out.

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 Ratnam, Parliamentary Leader, Victorian Greens, Medy Hassan OAM from industry, Professor Stuart Green, University of Reading UK, and Victoria Saint, WHO Consultant and Bielefeld University. They debate the fundamentals of current HE relevance all put into context by a DVCR.

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 analytics from data. In this episode with Keith Hawkes of Ellucian and I, he outlines how that works, why it is needed, and how GSU now helps many other univerities around the world fulfill an obligation to level the playing field.

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 having been a graduate many years before. She quotes TS Eliott as not ceasing from exploration and returning to where she started to know the place for the first time.

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 brought to bear on the sector ecology of Australian higher education for the benefit of domestic and international student nurses. Sector diversification and new provider models in action.