Alistair James

Huawei

Friday 5 October 2018
9.30am - 10.00am
Keynote 8

Presentation Title

The Sleeping Giant Awakes - Are We Too Late?​

Abstract

​Insights into one university’s transition pathway to becoming a fully digital University. Massey has a new Vice Chancellor and a number of new senior leaders focussed and driven to move the University into a new space and a new way of operating. Once dominant leaders in distance education, we face growing competition as technology uptake in education removes ‘barriers to entry’ to offering extramural study programmes. Similarly in our core business of agriculture, the application of technology in this field is introducing new players (technology vendors) and placing our global ranking under threat. Massey faces all the challenges that other universities face – student enrolment number volatility, financial pressure, competition. This will be an opportunity to gain some insights into where one university sees its future and its strategic response to the eco-system in which it operates.

Bio

Alistair is currently in the role of CIO at Massey University. He has over ten years’ IT experience in the higher education sector. Firstly managing the Applications group focussed on developing Massey’s student management system and subsequently leading the Planning and Transformation group. Prior to that he worked in the compulsory education sector in both ‘face to face’ and distance education provision. He holds teaching qualifications and was a practicing teacher before transitioning into ICT, initially as a software developer and then into management. His experiences range from legacy ‘chalk and talk’ approaches through to the modern learning environments, both physical and digital, provided to students today. And of course he completed the almost mandatory stint working in banking somewhere in there. Alistair is passionate about education, life-long learning and the application of technology to all areas of his university – learning, teaching, research and administration.