Karl Hartley

I am a Tairāwhiti (Gisborne) born learning and technology specialist who now calls Kirikiriroa (Hamilton) home. For more than 20 years I have designed digital learning and assessment for organisations across Aotearoa and beyond.

In 2017 I founded Epic Learning, a fully remote learning and development team that now supports clients across New Zealand and Australia. I also co-founded Epic Sharing, a platform for sharing and discovering learning resources. I still work closely with the Epic crew while focusing my own time on AI research and my new venture, hotloop.ai.

As Principal Investigator for ConCOVE Tūhura I have led New Zealand's largest study into whether AI can create NZQA aligned assessments that pass national moderation. Our 114 page report established an ethical framework for AI assisted assessment design that responds to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, including data sovereignty and cultural responsiveness, and sets out a five phase methodology that others can reuse.

A key finding from this work is simple but important. When we built strong assessment designs, grounded them in quality content, and used subject matter expertise to guide and check the AI, personalised variants were consistently approved by independent experts. That result is reshaping how the VET sector thinks about AI adoption.

I believe the future of learning sits where human expertise and AI systems work together. My job is to help assessment teams, teachers and leaders build that future without losing what matters most for learners.