Keynotes and Plenary Sessions

As generative AI becomes embedded in everyday problem-solving, engineering education faces a defining question: How do we prepare engineers who can work with powerful technologies while remaining deeply human-centred, ethical, and socially responsible? This keynote reframes AI not as a replacement for human intelligence, but as a collaborative tool serving humanity. This keynote introduces the CAC Co-Intelligence Framework, a practical model that guides both students and educators toward meaningful and responsible engagement with AI.

Participants will examine how students are already using AI in design, analysis, and learning, and why simply restricting or encouraging AI use is insufficient. Instead, the keynote offers a practical model for helping learners distinguish between constructive, human-advancing uses of AI and uses that undermine learning, agency, or ethical responsibility. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies for embedding co-intelligence into engineering curricula, ensuring graduates are not only technically proficient, but also prepared to design solutions for people, communities, and the planet.

Dr Sasha Nikolic is an Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong, holding a PhD in Engineering Education and a BE in Telecommunications. With a diverse background spanning industry roles in retail, electronics manufacturing, and IT, he transitioned to the university sector in 2006. He is the President of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) and a Senior Fellow of the Wollongong Academy of Tertiary Teaching and Learning Excellence. A Senior IEEE Member, Sasha has held prominent IEEE governance roles across the NSW Section, Education Society and the Australia Council.

Sasha is internationally recognised for his leadership in engineering education, receiving numerous accolades including Australian Awards for University Teaching Citations (2012, 2019), University of Wollongong Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning Awards (2011, 2018, 2025), AAEE Awards (2019, 2023, 2025), the IEEE NSW Outstanding Volunteer Award (2024), the SEFI Best Paper Award (2024), and a IEEE Education Society Meritorious Service Award (2023). He has also contributed to impactful research on Generative AI and academic integrity, and champions laboratory learning as a space for developing uniquely human capabilities in an AI-enhanced education system.

A key focus of his recent work is the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in reshaping education. Sasha leads collaborative, multi-institutional research that examines GenAI’s impact on academic integrity, curriculum design, assessment authenticity, ethics, and the evolving role of educators. His work highlights how GenAI is not only a technological disruptor but a catalyst for reimagining teaching and learning practices across engineering and higher education. Through the Australasian Artificial Intelligence in Engineering Education Centre (AAIEEC), which he founded and currently leads as President, Sasha coordinates national workshops, policy reviews, and research clusters that provide holistic oversight of the risks, opportunities, and human-centric competencies essential for thriving in AI-augmented learning environments. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant on GenAI in education, offering research-driven insights through keynote addresses, professional development workshops, and strategy sessions for educators, institutions, and policymakers.

As generative and agentic AI rapidly reshape engineering practice, the role of the engineer is evolving beyond technical expertise alone. This panel explores what it means to be an AI-native engineer—a professional who can effectively collaborate with intelligent systems while addressing complex societal, environmental, and technological challenges. The discussion will focus on three interconnected themes:

1. Developing Human-in-the-Loop Competence and an Entrepreneurial Mindset for Responsible Engineering with Generative and Agentic AI
   How can engineers leverage AI as a collaborative partner while maintaining human judgment, accountability, creativity, and ethical responsibility? What skills and mindsets are needed to innovate responsibly in AI-enabled environments?

2. Generative AI and Climate Change as Co-Disruptors of Industrial Practice: Are We Educating Engineers for the Skills These Transitions Demand?
   As industries face simultaneous digital and sustainability transformations, what new competencies will engineers require? How should engineering education adapt to prepare graduates for a future shaped by both AI-driven innovation and climate imperatives?

3. Systems Thinking as the Meta-Competence of the GenAI Era
   In an increasingly interconnected world, systems thinking is becoming essential for understanding complex interactions among technology, people, organizations, and the environment. How can engineers develop the holistic perspectives needed to design and manage AI-enabled systems responsibly and effectively?

The session will feature presentations from a diverse panel of industry leaders, academic experts, and student representatives, offering multiple perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of engineering in the age of AI. 

In our current VUCA world, we as humanity, regardless of our background or education, are on this world together, and therefore we must also work together to jointly face our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous future and resolve challenges by optimally combining our respective talents, irrespective of who we are and where we come from.

Over the last two decades, an increasing awareness has arisen that no single (academic) discipline, including engineering, can work in isolation as a discipline or in isolation from the world in which academic disciplines operate. Once seen as unacademic or even unscientific, inter- cross- and transdisciplinary approaches are now taking center stage for humanity to tackle these challenges.

To be able to do so, not only requires mutual understanding of each other by those taking part, but it also requires additional (non-discipline specific) competencies and skills. As stated in the 2025 SEFI Skills position paper, these transferable and transdisciplinary competencies and skills give our future engineering graduates the tools to be able to apply their disciplinary knowledge and skills in these new settings and contribute their part to create a better world and all who are in it.

In her keynote, Gillian Saunders-Smits - experienced engineer, engineering educator, engineering education researcher, and lead editor of the SEFI Handbook on Teaching Transferable Competencies and Skills in Engineering – shares how - by, through, and with humanity – we, as educators, can better prepare our students with transferable competencies and skills for their future by practicing as we preach. She will do this by highlighting practical educational examples from across the globe, amassed in the handbook, a transdisciplinary, collaborative team effort of more than 140 authors from 5 continents.

At the keynote, Gillian together with her fellow lead editors Lynn Van den Broeck (KU Leuven) and Thies Johannsen (TU Berlin) will present the first copy of the SEFI handbook.

Gillian Saunders-Smits is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands with over 25 years of experience in teaching engineering (aerospace, mechanics, research methodology, and robotics) using active learning and an avid engineering education researcher. In addition, she has held various educational leadership roles developing bachelor, master and online programmes at TU Delft. Her current research focuses on competencies and skills for future engineers and their implementation in curricula using active learning. She is one of the lead editors of the SEFI Handbook on Teaching Transferable Competencies and Skills in Engineering that will be launched at the SEFI 2026 Annual Conference in Prague.

European University Alliances are evolving from collaborative networks into powerful drivers of institutional and educational transformation. Bringing together representatives of European University Alliances, this panel will explore how alliances are reshaping engineering education through joint programmes, innovative learning approaches, enhanced mobility, and new forms of cross-border cooperation. The discussion will address both achievements and challenges, as well as the role of alliances in preparing future engineers to respond to societal, technological, and sustainability challenges. The panel will be preceded by a keynote address from a representative of the European Commission, providing a strategic perspective on the European Universities Initiative and its contribution to the future of higher education in Europe.