Women in Digital award nom for UNE's AI Innovation Lead
Building the training, support and peer networks that helped bring AI access to UNE's 20,000 students has earned Shannon Tyrrell a national award nomination.
When UNE gave every student access to enterprise AI last year, someone had to make sure they had the skills and support to use it effectively. That work has earned Shannon Tyrrell, LabNext70's AI Innovation Lead, a nomination for AI Leader of the Year at the 2026 Women in Digital National Awards.
This was new territory for the sector. When UNE switched on Madgwick Student in November 2025, it became the first Australian university to put enterprise AI in front of its whole student body - regional, remote, First Nations and first-in-family learners included. Shannon led the adoption strategy behind it.
"I've always believed that if universities are going to embrace AI, we have a responsibility to do more than simply give students access to it," says Shannon. "Every student deserves the training, support and confidence to use AI safely, responsibly and in ways that genuinely improve their learning."
Building the support around the platform
Access on its own would not make adoption safe or meaningful. Shannon and her team set up everything around it: the mandatory Safe Use of AI training students complete on first login, the Madgwick Mentors peer-support program, the Information Hub, and the evaluation that tracked how students were going. When a pre-launch survey of more than 600 students flagged privacy as a concern, she reworked the communications before go-live so the rollout answered what students needed.
Built to be built on
Madgwick Student is one part of a larger body of work. Shannon has built more than 100 AI assistants, including StudyMate and the Madgwick Student Wizard, which lets students design their own assistants without any technical background. She also independently developed Annota, an academic-writing feedback tool now moving towards wider use.
Her bigger impact has been on how the university works with AI. Through the Madgwick Community of Practice, weekly sessions and hands-on resources, staff now build their own - more than 5,400 across UNE to date.
"What I'm most proud of is seeing thousands of students and staff embrace AI and recognise what it can make possible," Shannon says.
In UNE's first trimester on the platform, 77 per cent of surveyed students said they would use Madgwick Student again, and 63 per cent felt more confident about their future in an AI-enabled workplace. Shannon's resources have been accessed more than 58,000 times.
Behind the figures are the individual students. "I love hearing the stories of how it's helped somebody in their moment of need," Shannon says. "I understand what it's like to study online, and it can be very isolating if you need to fit it around hours, family, sport and other commitments."
The people who backed her
Shannon is quick to share the credit.
"I'm fortunate to be in a position where I have the support and freedom to run with ideas," she says. "This nomination really reflects what can happen when you're given the space to experiment, learn and turn those ideas into something useful."
The regard runs both ways.
"Shannon built the human, operational and governance infrastructure that made the national first possible," wrote Mitchell Smidt, Strategic Partnerships, Projects and Governance Lead at LabNext70, in the nomination. He credits her with making AI "safe, equitable, useful and accountable at scale".
You can't be what you can't see
The Women in Digital National Awards were founded on a line Shannon comes back to herself: you can't be what you can't see.
"I don't come from a traditional technical background ... I hope seeing someone like me in this field helps one more woman realise there's a place for her in it," she says. "That matters more to me than any award."
She has already had that effect on colleagues close to home. "Seeing Shannon, a woman with no traditional technical pedigree, lead something this ambitious is what made it feel possible for someone like me to try,” says Rochelle Dowsett, AI Student Engagement Coordinator at LabNext70. “Shannon didn't just roll out a platform. She opened a door and demonstrated to other women that they can walk through it too."
Finalists are announced on 2 September.