Lizbeth is Director of Research for Futurelab Education. She is also Legacy Chair of Creative Technology Innovation at the University of East London, due to her long connection and continuing honourary association with the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute (which she founded 16 years ago) and the MAGIC Multimedia and Games Innovation Centre and Gamelab, currently located at UEL as their current Olympic borough bases.
Lizbeth and her teams specialise in developing ground-up technology solutions for learners of all levels of cognitive and physical ability, from mainstream learners of all ages to ‘special’ and ‘gifted’ learners and lifelong learners in the developed and developing worlds. In all her work, she applies a universal design method to practice-based innovation to transform lives through providing unlimited access to eductation and tools for creative expression. Lizbeth is known as an expert in Digital Inclusion, including learning models for communities at risk. She is an award-winning advocate of community-based ethical learning and teaching models using interactive tools and games to inspire and engage learners of all ages. She specialises in working with people who do not have physical voices (whether due to disability, injury, illiteracy, or other social/political factors), enabling the use of new creative technologies for expression vocally, in writing, and with movement and music.
Originally trained in Literature, Drama and Philosophy, and active for many years as a professional performer and TV-radio-convergent media researcher/presenter with BBC Interactive Media/Education and the Open University, she has published widely in the areas of Digital Inclusion, performance technologies, e-learning, connected learning, embodied learning, social networking for community engagement, social entrepreneurship models in ICT, and games for learning. In this regard, she co-developed several groundbreaking teaching and learning tools and games with significant take up worldwide, which have led to the foundation of several successful charities for women and children at risk.
She has written and edited 13 books and many peer-reviewed articles and broadcasts. She also founded and directs the world-renowned Practice-based PhD Programme in Creative Technology Innovation, which has graduated 32 successful Phds to date and currently supports another 35 PhD candidates worldwide in the fields of Digital Media, ICT4d, Assistive Technologies for People with Disabilities and the Elderly, Technology Futures, Wearables and SMART Textiles, Performance Technologies, Assistive Tech and Innovations, Technology Enhanced Learning for Health and Well Being, Digital Inclusion, Haptic and HCI integrated studies, and what she calls ‘Meaningful Games’ or Mobile Games for Learning.
For four years, she has worked closely with Microsoft Community Affairs as Senior Researcher on the large scale Club Tech project in the USA- which has reached 6 million of the most disadvantaged children and young people worldwide; that project is now being reconceptualised for roll out in a new format in Europe and the EMEA regions. She is also Honourary International Research Advisor for RITSEC in Cairo, and has acted as special advisor to the developing Assistive Technology Centre of ITC Qatar in Doha.
In the not-for-profit sector, she is founder and President of the Safespaces.net (SafetyNET): a charity active internationally in the fight to help stop violence against women and children, and of the Trust and Interfaces organisations to make games for children in hospital and persistent care, and for people with severe physical disabilities but unlimited imaginations. She is also an active board member of SpecialEffect: an Oxford-based charity making learning games for young people with special needs. She sits on many national and international task forces and judging/assessment panels for local and international governments, for the UK Government, the European Commission, the Canadian Innovation fund, the Welcome Trust, the British Council, The World Summit, Unesco, et al.
She won the Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service to Women and Children in 2003, and has had her technology-performance work for inclusion featured as Best Practice showcase winners at several World Summits since 2003.
In 2008, she was awarded the top prizes for Best Woman in the Academic and Public Sectors, and Outstanding Woman in Technology, by Blackberry Rim and their international industry judging panels.