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Recorded live at the 2026 Student Voice Symposium & Student Summit, this episode explores one of the central themes emerging from the event: how trust, safety and meaningful participation shape student voice. Across two days of conversations, students, staff, sector leaders and policy-makers came together to examine what it takes to create environments where students feel safe to speak up, confident they will be heard, and empowered to contribute to decisions that affect their education. In this episode, Student Voice Australasia speaks with event contributors and delegates, capturing diverse perspectives on student partnership, representation, governance and institutional culture. Together, they reflect on the importance of moving beyond consultation towards genuine collaboration, and what it means to create tertiary education environments where student voice is not only heard, but trusted, valued and acted upon. Hosted by:  Belinda Brear (SVA National Coordinator) Francesca Harrison (SVA Student Partner) Megan Pozzi (Director Student Life, University of Southern Queensland) Featuring: The Hon Prof Bill Shorten, Vice Chancellor, University of Canberra (UC) Aaron Saint-James, Student, University of New South Whales (UNSW) Sam Jacob, CEO of Australian College of the Arts (Collarts) Simone Chitsinde, Student, University of Canberra and President of the UC Student Representative Council (UCSRC) Sarah Bendall, First Assistant Ombudsman, National Student Ombudsman (NSO)

Universities are branching out. La Trobe’s AI Business Studio connects students with small and medium businesses to tackle real AI challenges — and the results are already being felt in the community. Patricia Haueiss, Managing Director of the La Trobe AI Institute, and Nyo Manwijesinghe, Senior Leader of Information Management and Technology at Bendigo Community Health Services, join Annabel to talk about what work-integrated learning really looks like in an AI-first world.

As AI reshapes how students learn, get assessed, and enter the workforce, one question is becoming more urgent: do students actually know what makes them uniquely human? In this episode, Annabel is joined by Timothy Hodges, Executive Director of the Clifton Strengths Institute at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and Anne Lingafelter, Principal at Gallup, to explore how strengths-based education builds the self-awareness, confidence, and human capability that no AI can replicate. Because in a world where everything can be generated, knowing what you do best — and leaning into it — might be your greatest advantage

Most universities have AI ambition. Far fewer have figured out how to turn that into something students actually feel. In this episode, Annabel is joined by Kate Shum, Product General Manager at Technology One, and Gail Bray, Chief Transformation Officer at Victoria University, to talk about what it actually takes to move from experimentation to real impact. They cover where to start, how to build a framework without stifling innovation, what happens when an idea is ready to move into the tech stack, and why legacy systems are still the biggest blocker nobody wants to talk about.

Valerie Singer leads the Global Education Team at Amazon Web Services, working with universities across more than 200 countries. In this episode, she and Martin talk about the gap between what employers need and what graduates actually bring, why 53% of employers say AI skills are their biggest hiring challenge, and what universities can do right now, this semester, to start closing it. A conversation about applied learning, institutional courage, and what higher education needs to look like in 2030.

Two days of conversations about AI, disruption, and the future of higher education. This is where it ends — and where the real question begins. Did we just talk, or did something actually change? Martin gets put on the spot, Sam says what most people won't about public universities, Sean proposes replacing disruption with construction, and two students close the whole series with something simple: change shouldn't wait until graduation.

Episode 9 of The AI Inflection Point — the last conversation on the student experience. Most universities will tell you they listen to their students. But listening and actually responding are two very different things. Jasmine Johnston moderates a panel that gets honest about that gap. Ghazal Duggal, nursing student at USQ and student representative, on what it feels like to carry the concerns of a whole cohort. Neave Nagel, President of NUS 2026 and UTS Students Association, on why two students on a university council isn't enough to represent 20,000 people. Taryn Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie, on what 8,800 students said when asked not about their classes — but about their lives. Loneliness came up more than anyone expected. And Michael Henderson from Monash on why student voice only means something if it actually changes decisions. What is a university without its students? That question sits underneath everything in this episode.

Could undergraduate research help strengthen Australia’s innovation pipeline? In this Student Experience episode, Dr Sharon Saunders and Ben Roden-Cohen are joined by ACUR leaders Dr Lilia Mantai and Claudia Ghosn to explore how early research experiences build student confidence, capability and career pathways. They discuss the value of undergraduate research, the barriers limiting participation, and why creating more opportunities for students to engage in authentic research matters for Australia’s future workforce.

Episode 8 of The AI Inflection Point - the second of two conversations on the student experience. Brandman University went from 65% to 90% graduation rates in five years. Not by adding more services. Just by asking a simple question: what's actually getting in the way for students? The answer wasn't money or motivation. It was time. Roger Lee brings together four people sitting with that same question every day. Tania Broadley from Australian Catholic University on moving from reactive to proactive student support. Sam Jacob from Coll Arts on why students once asked for a laundry before any academic resource. Alphia Possamai-Inesedy from Western Sydney University on why adding services to an old system isn't enough - the architecture itself needs to change. And Jennifer Lowe, student and co-chair of the National Students with Disabilities Leadership Collective, on why the real problem isn't equity students. It's institutions that were never designed to include everyone.

Episode 7 of The AI Inflection Point — the first of two conversations on connecting the dots between VET and higher education. David Turvey, Executive Director of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, brings together four leaders who aren't talking about what could happen — they're already doing it. Pascale Quester, Vice-Chancellor of Swinburne University, on what it actually takes to run a dual sector institution — and why for some students it's still easier to go somewhere else. Michelle Lincoln, DVC of the University of Canberra, on five concrete areas of integration with CIT that are already underway. Margot McNeill, CEO of the Canberra Institute of Technology, on why rigid qualification design is still getting in the way. And Taryn Jones, Pro-Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie, on why parity of esteem — not policy — might be the real barrier.

At the HEDx Conference at UTS, Ben Roden-Cohen and Madison Piper talk with Pascale Quester, Rachel Wilson, Rachel Fitzgerald, Danny Liu, Tim Fawns and Katie Ford to ask what the future of higher education should look like — and who gets a say in shaping it. The conversation goes beyond technology to explore the value of student voice, the importance of diverse perspectives in decision-making, and why innovation in teaching needs both time and investment. The guests discuss critical thinking, human connection, the joy of learning and the need to rethink how graduate success is defined and measured. Ultimately, it raises a bigger question for the sector: what does it cost to create the kind of higher education experience we want — and what is the cost of not doing it?

Episode 6 of The AI Inflection Point — and the last of four conversations on coalitions. The previous three episodes asked why collaborate, whether partnerships can be transformational, and whether scale is the answer. This one asks something simpler: what does it actually look like when you do it? Lou Conway built the Country University Centre network — 28 federated centres across regional Australia, where students can study with any provider that makes sense for them. No merger required. Bruce Lines led the integration office that created Adelaide University out of two institutions, and is honest about what worked and what didn't. Belinda Tynan is navigating a region where coal mines are closing and the university has to respond. And Heather Margrison graduated from Adelaide Uni through the merger — and was part of the student panel that helped design it. What comes out of this conversation isn't a blueprint. It's something more useful — a set of hard lessons from people who actually did it.

Episode 5 of The AI Inflection Point — the third of four conversations on coalitions. Dan Greenstein has 35 years of data from the UK and the US. His conclusion is direct: scale is the primary hedge against financial unpredictability. In Australia, more than 40% of institutions have spent most of the last five years in deficit. Organic growth is too slow. And the policy window won't stay open indefinitely. Noah Pickus joins to push on the tension that every leader in the room was thinking: does scale come at the cost of identity? Dan's answer might surprise you.

Nothing about us, without us: Beyond the student panel. At this year’s HEDx Conference at UTS, students weren’t just attendees- they were embedded across the program, contributing to the hosting, and delivery of sessions. So what shifts when the student voice moves beyond the traditional panel format? In this episode, Student Voice Australasia speaks live with delegates on the ground- from vice chancellors to nursing students attending their very first conference- capturing a diverse range of perspectives on what it means to genuinely include students in spaces where decisions are made. Together, they explore the value students brought to the conversations and what changes when the student voice is not just heard, but meaningfully integrated into the discussions that matter most. Hosted by: Belinda Brear (Student Voice Australasia Coordinator) and Jennifer Lowe (Swinburne University Student and Co-Convenor of the Students with Disability Leadership Collective) Featuring: Gemma Lucy Smart, Lived Experience PhD Scholar at The University of Sydney Gazzal Duggal, Nursing Student at University of Southern Queensland Prof Aleksander Subic, Vice-Chancellor and President, Torrens University Australia Neeve Nagel, UTS Students’ Association President, University of Technology Sydney Maria Ishkova, Business School Lecturer, The University of Sydney Martin Betts, CEO and Founder of HEDx

Episode 4 of The AI Inflection Point — and the second of four conversations on coalitions. Australian universities have been building global partnerships for decades. But have those partnerships actually changed anything — for students, for institutions, for the sector? This conversation asks the harder question: not whether to collaborate globally, but whether the partnerships being built are genuinely transformational — or mostly transactional. And the honest answer, it turns out, is complicated. Joe Chicharo puts it plainly: as a nation, Australian universities have been like lone wolves — each going out, making mistakes, figuring it out — but never building a shared science of learning from those experiences. Helen Bartlett, Vice-Chancellor of UniSC, chairs a panel with Joe Chicharo from the University of Wollongong, Paul Mazerolle, Vice-Chancellor of UniSQ, Shân Wareing, Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University, and Weihong Liang, President of the International Students Representative Council of Australia. What emerges from this conversation is not a blueprint for better partnerships. It's a more honest reckoning with what it actually takes to build one worth keeping.