Xplor Horizons 2025 showcases innovation, partnership and growth in Early Childhood Education and Care

September 2025–Xplor Education, a leader in business management and people engagement software for the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector, has concluded its highly anticipated Horizons 2025 event. The event brought together customers, partners and industry leaders. It highlighted Xplor Education’s commitment to innovation, security and customer-driven growth.

A record year of product innovation

Horizons 2025 celebrated a milestone year for Xplor Education. This year saw a 65% increase in customer-facing product releases. Key advancements included enhanced booking automation, advanced compliance features and the launch of Data as a Service (DaaS) for deeper business insights.

Direct customer engagement and sector trends have shaped Xplor’s roadmap. It sets a clear path for continued leadership in digital transformation for the ECEC sector.

‘Horizons 2025 was a fantastic opportunity to connect with our community. It allowed us to share best practices and gather feedback. This feedback will drive our next wave of innovation. Communication and partnership are at the heart of everything we do at Xplor.’

—Jonathan Bell, Director of Business Development 

Safety, security and compliance at the core

Xplor’s Chief Security Officer, Kevin Kanji, and product teams led individual sessions. They reinforced Xplor’s unwavering focus on cybersecurity, data privacy and regulatory compliance. These sessions introduced new features, including Single Sign-On v2 and digital incident signatures. Such improvements will empower services to operate with greater confidence, transparency and security.

Empowering customers and communities

Horizons 2025 featured several dynamic panels and workshops on playful learning, talent retention and marketing best practices. Attendees gained practical tools and resources for attracting families. They also learned how to build strong teams and foster thriving learning environments. Customer feedback and collaborative breakout sessions directly informed Xplor’s future product enhancements.

‘Our roadmap is built on the voices of our customers. We do this by listening, learning and collaborating. This enables us to deliver solutions that make a difference for educators, families and children. We’re excited to continue this journey together and shape the future of early childhood education.’

— Will Athanasakis, Director of Product Management

As part of the event, Xplor hosted the third edition of its ECEC Conversations series. This session highlighted ‘The Power of Play and Play-Based Pedagogy’. It featured Dr Melinda Miller, Director of Early Learning at First Five Early Learning. She was joined by Rebecca Seager, the Head of Operations. They shared valuable insights on how play-based approaches enrich children’s learning and development. They also discussed how these approaches strengthen educator practice. The discussion reinforced Xplor’s belief that technology and pedagogy must work together. This collaboration creates meaningful outcomes for children and families.

Looking ahead—growth and partnership

Though this was the inaugural Horizons event, it won’t be the last. ‘I didn’t know what to expect when I registered for the event. But it exceeded my expectations,’ Maria shared. ‘My colleague…works with the customer support team at our organisation, and I am an educational leader. We were pleased with the information we were able to take away from the event to share with our respective teams. Moreover, it was a great setup, well thought out and just a nice atmosphere. The food was amazing!’

Preparations are already underway for the 2026 event. The Xplor team appreciated the opportunity to engage with customers in person. More importantly, event attendees also gained a great deal from the experience.  

‘What a great first conference held by Xplor!’ said Holly. ‘As a private childcare operator living remotely in Alice Springs, the opportunities to engage in Professional Development at a provider or management level are rare. Often, we go years without face-to-face networking and are purely online based. This conference was a great opportunity for both myself and our general manager to listen and network at a provider level with other professionals—we will be attending in 2026!’

Richard North, Commercial Chief Officer at Xplor Education, summed things up best:

‘As we look to 2026 and beyond, our focus remains on helping ECEC services grow. We aim to help them boost occupancy, streamline operations and deliver outstanding care. Horizons 2025 reaffirmed that our greatest asset is our partnership with customers. Every innovation and support initiative is designed to help our community succeed.’

Xplor Education extends its sincere gratitude to the sponsors whose support made Horizons 2025 possible:

To learn more about Xplor Education’s ECEC ecosystem, please get in touch for a free demo.