🎧 Episode Title:
Streamlining the Future: Intelligent Automation with Alex Denley, CTO at Harrow, Richmond, and Uxbridge Colleges
🎙️ Podcast:
AI Works Podcast Hosted by Richard Foster-Fletcher
🔍 Episode Overview
How can colleges use intelligent automation and AI strategically to enhance student experiences, streamline operations, and achieve meaningful efficiencies? In this episode, Alex Denley, Chief Technology Officer at Harrow, Richmond, and Uxbridge Colleges (HRUC), joins Richard to share his practical insights and ambitious future plans for technology-driven transformation.
Alex openly discusses:
- HRUC’s current initiatives, such as using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to radically improve student enrolment processes, making them faster, easier, and less stressful for staff and students.
- His strategic vision for intelligent campuses—leveraging AI, data analytics, and automation to create smoother day-to-day operations and better student experiences.
- How carefully selecting technology use cases (like enrolment, timetabling, and campus resource optimisation) allows colleges to achieve quick wins and build momentum for larger transformations.
- The importance of getting processes and data foundations right before scaling AI across an organisation.
- Practical lessons from his experience at London South Bank University and other sectors like hospitality and theme parks, and how he’s applying those lessons to FE colleges.
This episode gives an honest, clear, and future-focused look at how AI and intelligent automation can practically benefit colleges and their communities.
🧠What We Cover
✔️ HRUC’s journey towards intelligent automation: current successes and future ambitions
✔️ Real-world examples of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) streamlining student enrolment and administrative processes
✔️ Building smart, data-driven campuses to improve student experiences, engagement, and operational efficiencies
✔️ Practical approaches for colleges just starting on their automation and AI journey
✔️ Key lessons learned from Alex’s experience across different sectors, and how those lessons translate into FE
✔️ Strategic priorities for the next few years, including using AI to support staff workload, timetabling, and examinations
👤 About Our Guest
Alex Denley is the Chief Technology Officer at Harrow, Richmond, and Uxbridge Colleges. With extensive leadership experience in technology-driven transformation, Alex previously led significant digital innovation initiatives at London South Bank University. Passionate about practical, people-centred technology solutions, Alex is focused on driving meaningful improvements in student experience, organisational efficiency, and operational effectiveness across the colleges he serves.
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