Dewan Chowdhury, Deputy Chair

Dewan Chowdhury is the Head of Data for Co-op Academies Trust, where he oversees the data strategy and infrastructure for 38 academies, ranging from primary and secondary to special schools and colleges.

Describing himself as an "Accidental Data Engineer," Dewan’s route into the sector began in the classroom as a Maths Teacher, Pastoral Leader and Senior Leader. His transition to data architecture was driven by necessity: as his Trust scaled, he realised that "spreadsheets break at scale" and that manual reporting was risking strategic oversight.

He now specialises in Google Cloud infrastructure and Looker Studio, moving schools from reactive, retrospective reporting to automated, pre-emptive action. His core philosophy centers on building "Bilingual Data Teams" professionals who can speak both the language of Pedagogy (interventions, safeguarding) and Code (SQL, Python).

For Dewan, EduDATA is the essential network for bridging the gap between the "Data Engine Room" and the classroom. He is passionate about empowering the sector to balance "Context and Code," ensuring that data professionals are supported in making the shift from manual reconciliation to strategic, student-focused insight