A Two Pronged Strategy for AUN Dx: Advancing Digital Transformation in ASEAN Higher Education

The 1^st AUN Dx (Digital Transformation) Board Meeting conducted on 22 November 2024, brought together 14 ASEAN Universities across 8 ASEAN Member States to survey the path forward for digital transformation in the region and strengthen the partnerships necessary for success. Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti, Executive Director of AUN, began the meeting with an opening speech that deliberated upon the current situation of digital transformation within the ASEAN region, the role and responsibilities of AUN Dx and universities, and two strategies that AUN Dx can utilize to push forward its implementation.

First, it begins with the role of AUN Dx, especially the implementation of its framework. It is important to understand that the establishment of AUN Dx marks a pivotal moment in the ASEAN higher education collaboration, which will position AUN universities as leaders in digital transformation for the region. The Board Meeting is therefore crucial in designing the implementation of digital transformation activities under AUN Dx. The AUN Dx framework has 5 tracks and is flexible. That flexibility is one of its strongest aspects because universities do not develop at the same pace. Of the 5 tracks, cybersecurity is expected to be the most sought after. However, the framework is capable of accommodating for universities pursuing any track in any order and pace.

Dr. Choltis reflected on his discussions at the 20^th Triennial Conference International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) in Beijing, China earlier in October this year. He discussed with personnel from UNESCO about the AI divide that is foreseeable as a future problem. However, to him the AI divide will not be a digital divide among people in the country, but between nations. The divide will be in the critical thinking skills of the populace within nations, and it will be the task of universities to develop the critical thinking skills of its people.

The evidence that has led to his conjecture is from his own recent experience at the AUN Secretariat where many personnel are fond of using ChatGPT in their work. It has been observed that poor input has led to less than desirable results from AI and has brewed a misconception that ChatGPT or similar AI are not able to help in many ways. But the truth of the matter is that the lack of critical thinking skills from people is what results in poor output from AI, which stems from poor input in the first place.

With the understanding of the potential nation divides and his own experience, Dr. Choltis suggested a two pronged strategy to push forward the implementation of AUN Dx and its framework. The first is a strong centralized body like the board and a steering group that must be created to guide or navigate the path. This centralized body should contain a core group that will consist of people that will lead for a long time as the best case scenario. The worry does not lie in different people always coming and going, but it comes from the knowledge being lost in the process. Dr. Choltis strongly urged for the Board to be the repository of knowledge and experiences from day one.

The second strategy is to then also have a decentralized element in the implementation. Decentralized leadership, such as country chapters or collaborations among nearby nations, can address specific regional needs. Examples include potential collaborations like Brunei Darussalam with Malaysia or Thailand with Lao PDR, given their unique scales and contexts. He envisions that the centralized and decentralized factors working together will be critical to the implementation of AUN Dx.

To wrap up the speech, Dr. Choltis asked a thought provoking question, “Can anybody show me a university in the world that is truly on top of AI?”. While we can look at universities trying their best to do so, the reality is that no higher education institution of any sort in the world is fully prepared. To that end is why AUN Dx must exist to make sure that universities have a fighting chance to keep up with rapid developments in digital transformation and AI.

Transcript of Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti’s Opening Speech for the 1st AUN Dx Board Meeting

“Looking ahead 10 years after today, most people will forget that we had a meeting today. But what most people will talk about would be that the AUN presidents, rectors, and Vice-Chancellors adopted your framework as well as agreed and approved the establishment of the AUN Dx thematic network. Most people will remember that. My suggestion would be that we should remember today, so keep the group photo saved in your stock because 10 years from now, today will be looked back as a very decisive step in our collaboration within the ASEAN higher education, because AUN is always the leading group of Universities who in many ways pilot many breakthroughs to serve the education development in our region. So I really look forward to hearing on how to design the implementation of digital transformation activities under AUN Dx.

Nowadays what is most talked about would be AI topics. Despite the might and huge benefit to education, together there are still a lot of threats. Last month I heard from UNESCO personnel in New York when I attended the international conference in China. The UNESCO personnel already mentioned the AI divide as a foreseeable future problem. But to me AI divide may not be the divide like digital divide that is happening among the population in each country. To me AI divide will be the division among nations. 

There will be nations with a populace that have very good critical thinking and a nation with a population that lacks critical thinking skills. It may not be about technology, but the AI divide will be about how our citizens think. That will be the task of the universities. The AUN secretariat and the AUN presidents, rectors, and vice-chancellors will have to think on how to prepare our people in their thinking skills. 

The conjecture for my evidence is from my staff at the AUN secretariat that are fond of using ChatGPT in their work. However, garbage in garbage out. ChatGPT does not help when the input is lacking the knowledge of good critical thinking skills. That is the evidence happening now in my secretariat office. And sometimes it has led us to the misconception that ChatGPT is not able to help in many ways. But ultimately, I have to struggle with the outputs everyday because of this issue. 

That will pose a challenge to our deliberation here, perhaps we need a very effective implementation for the programme that we are going to design in the next 6 hours. We need two things to be put together, one is this board and a steering group you are creating has to be a very strong group of people who already have a strong knowledge of the roots we are going through and a strong knowledge on the environmental factors surrounding the digital transformation that is happening in the higher education sector and their own universities. So I am counting on the continuity of this group of people here. 
Looking back at one of our successful thematic networks is AUNILO that has been with us for over 20 years. The main feature is that the core group are still the same people. That is very important compared to other thematic networks as sometimes universities send different people to AUN thematic network committee meetings and that poses a problem to continuity. I am not worried about different people coming in and out, I am worried about the knowledge lost from this board. This board must be a repository of knowledge and experiences from day one.

Another suggestion is to work the implementation out, one of the good ways is to create a kind of country chapter within your boundaries. It may not be a perfect proper country chapter, such as Brunei is small but with 2 or 3 big universities. Brunei might comfortably join with Malaysia for example, then Thailand could potentially work with Laos. Indonesia is already large and have many regions within itself, each with their own key universities, such as in Bandung, Surabaya, Jakarta, Hasanuddin, and other regions. So that may be a challenge for Indonesia. The Philippines may be similar. 

In short, I suggest a two pronged strategy to push forward the implementation of this network. One is a strong centralized body like this board and a steering group that is created to guide or navigate the path we are going. When we are looking at our framework, we have 5 tracks and the framework is flexible enough for our universities. In the ASEAN region, don’t forget universities all have different paces of development, but the framework is flexible enough for them to pick and choose where they want to go first. I would assume cyber security would be the most popular, however we need to accommodate the different development levels of our universities. 

Another way is to have a strong country chapter as a kind of decentralized collective leadership spreading throughout the region. I envision that the centralized and decentralized factor will work together to contribute to the implementation of AUN Dx. With our limited resources and the threat of rapid development of technology, together we need to mitigate the problems that each university is facing. 

I am saying this because I always ask this one single question, can anybody show me a university in the world that is truly on top of AI? Nobody can answer, that is why we are here and need to remember this moment.”

For further reading about AUN Dx, please refer to our article introducing this thematic network:

• Introduction to the New AUN Thematic Network: AUN Dx