EDUtech opens with cross-sector CIO panel on AI and privacy

Digital Attitudes, 3 June 2026

EDUtech opens at the ICC this morning. The floor map has 320 vendor stands, the keynote stage runs from 9:30, and the single most consequential session of day one is a 60 minute CIO panel at lunchtime that will do more for the OAIC submission drafts now in procurement teams' inboxes than any pitch on the floor.

NSW, Victoria and AISNSW CIOs share a stage at 12:30, two days before the OAIC code closes

The Connected Schools Theatre runs a 12:30pm CIO panel today with Charlie Sukkar (CIO, NSW Department of Education), Elizabeth Wilson (CIO, Victorian Department of Education) and Graeme Kachel (Manager, Technology Advisory Service, Independent Schools NSW), moderated by Brisbane Catholic Education's Leigh Williams. The session title is "Cyber Security and Data Privacy with AI on the Rise in Schools." The panel runs 48 hours before the OAIC Children's Online Privacy Code consultation closes on Friday and 30 days after the Canvas breach landed in Queensland state schools and across the major Australian universities. The Charlie Sukkar speaker page at Terrapinn.

Why this matters: For state Department of Education CIOs and independent and Catholic school heads on the floor, the panel is the procurement room rather than the conference room, because the three Australian school systems with the cleanest read of last month's Canvas timeline will be saying out loud what their 2026 to 2027 cross-vendor risk picture looks like. For ed-tech vendors at the booth, the panel sets the questions the procurement team will walk back from at 2pm, which means a stand that cannot answer the OAIC code's under-18 data handling requirements, the Canvas-style supply chain mapping question, and the Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools all in one pitch is a stand the CIOs and heads will leave for last. For school business managers drafting this week's OAIC submission, the lunch hour is the read of what NSW, Victoria and AISNSW are putting into their own responses.

Bruce Fraser brings a Florida college's AI procurement case to the Darling Harbour Theatre at 11:10am

Indian River State College's Bruce Fraser, Executive Director of AI Initiatives and co-chair of the Florida AI Learning Consortium, takes the Darling Harbour Theatre at 11:10am for "Fit-for-purpose AI: One institution's path to responsible and purposeful AI in higher education," alongside Jenny Maxwell, Head of Education at Superhuman. The session walks through how Indian River integrated Grammarly (now Superhuman Go) into the college's student success infrastructure, the partnership evaluation framework the college used, and the co-developed AI use case rather than off-the-shelf product approach. Fraser's session sits between Andy Hargreaves at 9:50am on teacher retention and Rose Luckin at 11:30am on the 2030 ecosystem. The Bruce Fraser speaker page at Terrapinn.

Why this matters: For vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors (academic) reading the Newcastle Cogniti deployment (Trimester 2 started Monday) and the Queensland Corella rollout (Year 7 to 10 access by Friday), the Fraser keynote is the comparator that puts a working US open-enrollment college precedent into the same room as the Australian institution-built models, which is the procurement template the next Australian VET, TAFE and Higher Education tender response can be measured against. For state Department of Education CIOs running NSWEduChat, SA EdChat and the WA ClassmAIte pilot, the operational read is that the co-developed vendor configuration (rather than the off-the-shelf seat licence) is now an international comparator conversation, and the Florida AI Learning Consortium is the body Australian peak-body equivalents (AISNSW, AHISA, ACSA) can point to for procurement template work. For the vendors in the Tech Buyers Program track at the booth, the 11:10am slot lands an hour before the lunchtime CIO panel, which means the morning keynotes will reset what the afternoon procurement conversations think a defensible AI configuration looks like.

ConnectedED launches free peer-led roundtables alongside an expanded Tech Buyers Program

Terrapinn's Marketing Manager Natalie McClelland confirmed in The Educator on Tuesday that EDUtech 2026 launches three structural changes this year: the free ConnectedED stream of peer-led roundtable discussions, the Learning Futures stream on post-AI teaching and the future direction of education systems, and an expanded Tech Buyers Program that brings more CIOs, IT leaders and procurement teams onto structured 1:1 meeting tracks. The 2025 floor produced over 46,000 connections and 300 plus 1:1 meetings, and the 2026 floor adds the EDUtech Block Party as a networking event outside the ICC. The Educator on EDUtech's expanded free sessions, 2 June.

Why this matters: For independent and Catholic school heads who sent a small team to last year's floor and a bigger one this year, the structural change is that the free roundtable hours are now the bench against which the vendor stand hours are measured, which makes the school's two-day staff release budget a sharper procurement question than usual. For state Department of Education CIOs running the AISNSW, Brisbane Catholic Education and Independent Schools NSW shared procurement conversations behind the panel above, the Tech Buyers Program 1:1 track is the operational signal that the conference itself has noticed the procurement teams are doing the work the floor map used to do. For ed-tech vendors with a 2025 stand and a 2026 stand, the question the Block Party will quietly answer is whether the floor still produces the relationship hours the brochure promises, or whether the free peer-led format is now where the buying conversations actually happen.

Day two opens tomorrow with the Lodge cognitive offloading panel at 11am on the Innovation Stage, which is the academic spine of the conversation the CIO panel above sets up at lunchtime today. Five minutes a morning on data, tech, and AI in Australian education at https://digitalattitudes.com.au.