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Episode Summary:

In this episode of Cloud Reset, we sit down with Cliff Ashford, Senior Director at Monash University, to dive into what it really takes to make a university data- and AI-ready. Cliff shares hard-earned lessons from leading a full-scale digital transformation—from overhauling Monash's 25-year-old student management system to building a cloud-native data lakehouse with Databricks.

We cover:

• Why real AI success starts with governance—years in advance

• The shift from legacy platforms to agentic models and LLMs

• Building an institution-wide data model that's both secure and open

• Democratising access to data across all departments, not just IT

• Why HR and education teams were the fastest adopters of generative AI

• Monash's vision for peer-level AI assistants that enhance—not replace—staff

• How AI will reshape student experiences through simulated scenarios and real-time models

Cliff also shares how Monash built safe-by-design infrastructure that enables innovation without compromising on data ethics or control. His favourite project? A fully governed, infinitely scalable data lakehouse that opens AI capabilities to the whole university.

🎧 Tune in now to hear how one of Australia's leading institutions is turning data into their biggest strategic asset.