If youâve been following our blog for a while, youâll know about our membership of the Times Higher Education (THE) Global Digital Network, which led to us hosting the Digital Universities UK event on our Streatham campus! One of the benefits of being in the Network is the opportunity to share our work internationally and support others with their digital transformation journey. Earlier this month, Emily Prevatt, who leads on Digital Operations, and myself (Helen Cocks, Head of Digital Strategy and Engagement) attended Digital Universities Asia, hosted by Universities Indonesia in partnership with THE.
The event was held at the International Convention Centre of Bali and gathered over 380 leaders from higher education, industry and policy from 27 different countries. A key focus for the event was considering how Asiaâs higher education sector could harness the power of AI and ground-breaking technologies to create an inclusive and empowering environment for learning and knowledge exchange. It also addressed how the regionâs institutions could transform and empower staff, faculty and students with the digital skills needed to adapt and thrive in a society dominated by technology.
Hosting our own session
Emily and I hosted a session at the event to share how we have been learning from industry to transform. Our session, titled âCreating your networkâ, highlighted how digital leaders and experts from across all industries are helping us to deliver our digital strategy through our Digital Advisory Network, including members of our alumni. We covered the three main reasons we decided to create our Network;
- Because the digital expectations of our students are set before they come to University, especially with digital experiences provided by streaming services, social media, and retail, so we wanted to learn from those who are shaping good digital experiences.
- Because the UK HE sector is behind other sectors when it comes to digital transformation, so we wanted to seek support from those who have done it before.
- Because recruiting digital experts is expensive so we wanted to consider different ways to access expertise.
Weâve learnt so much from our Digital Advisory Network members who volunteer their expert knowledge, insight and experience in a range of different ways. For example through mentoring and upskilling our team members, inputting to product and design workshops, and speaking at our team meetings and events. You can learn more about our Digital Advisory Network in this blog post.
We got lots of positive feedback about our approach of looking to industry for lessons, support and advice. The delegates who attended our talk seemed particularly impressed by our involvement of the universities alumni which is something we are really proud of as well. We were asked lots of follow up questions about our team structure and approach to bringing industry standard roles to HE like product owners, content designers and scrum masters etc. We were also asked about our communication and our user led approach, which includes hiring students to bring the student voice even more directly to our digital developments.
Getting involved
I was honoured to be asked to be a judge for the start up competition which took place on the opening night of the conference. The competitions aim was to find the best pre-seed and seed funding edtech start-ups in the digital learning space looking to bring new ideas to the higher education community. Four shortlisted start-ups pitched their product and/or innovation to the panel and the winner was interviewed by a THE journalist for their story to be shared with the global digital audience, plus received an invitation to speak at the event in 2025. It was really exciting to hear the innovative ideas and see how much difference the start-ups were already making to digital learning.
I also attended a roundtable discussion that focused on building future-ready institutions and leveraging technology to transform and I was invited to record a podcast which weâll share when itâs published in August.
Our key takeaways
The event also brought amazing networking opportunities and, especially after our talk, lots of delegates wanted more information about our approach to digital transformation as well as to compare notes on strategy, roadmap and structure. Our key takeaways from the event were;
⢠Asia is accelerating as a global education hub
⢠Universities across the continent are considering how best to use AI within HE and how to regulate its use across the university community
⢠That universities in Asia are facing similar challenges as us in the UK with limited institutional budgets for digital transformation, difficulty hiring digital skills into the sector and overcoming change resistance
⢠We all need to ensure that our university community has the right digital skills to succeed (hear more about our work in this space in our Digital Skills blog post series)
⢠That online education offerings are increasing across Asia with maturing operating models and infrastructure and a strong focus on IP.
– Written by Helen Cocks, Head of Digital Strategy and Engagement