In this episode of the Broken Education Podcast, host Joel Di Trapani, Co-Founder and CEO of Vygo, sits down with Professor Rufus Black, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Tasmania, for a deep and unflinching conversation about what’s broken in education and what it will take to fix it.
Rufus brings a rare blend of academic depth, ethical clarity, and real-world leadership. A Rhodes Scholar with degrees spanning law, politics, economics, ethics, and theology, his career has bridged elite academia, public policy, and global consulting, including time as a partner at McKinsey & Company. Yet throughout the conversation, one theme is unmistakable: education is not about institutions, it’s about moral imagination, service, and freedom.
The episode closes with one of the most provocative moments of the series. When asked what he would say to a world leader in education, Rufus calls for global philanthropic capital—on the scale of the world’s largest fortunes to fund radically new educational models, free from slow-moving bureaucratic constraints. It’s a response that reflects the core message of the episode: real change won’t come from protecting institutions, but from being brave enough to disrupt them.
