We are excited to announce the formation of four new working groups on the important topics of Accessibility, ED&I, Environmental Sustainability and Ethics, crucial in the development of responsible innovation in XR.
These groups aim to encourage collaboration, open communication, and knowledge sharing among industry stakeholders. By doing so, they seek to contribute positively to the immersive tech sector, advancing innovation and growth. The groups will focus on a set of key objectives, which will be defined based on sectoral priorities and feedback from their members.
The groups will be co-chaired by experts from industry and academia who will steer the groups’ strategic direction, convene stakeholders across the immersive tech sector, and ultimately shape outputs from the group with the wider XR community.
If you are interested in contributing to these working groups, please see details below about the new members call and submit your application.
Introducing our four new Working Groups:
Accessibility Working Group
This group’s primary focus is to create an open forum to discuss accessibility in immersive technologies, like spatial computing and the metaverse. The group will be contributing to the sector’s development of best practices.
The group will explore specific technological challenges in XR, such as accessibility in haptics, augmented reality, and virtual reality, with a focus on improving user experience for individuals with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive impairments.
Meet the Co-Chairs:
Chris Creed
Chris is a Professor of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) at Birmingham City University, where he leads the HCI Research Group. The group specialises in research around immersive systems and inclusive technologies with an international track record in publishing research at leading HCI venues. Professor Creed’s work is primarily focused on accessibility and assistive technology for disabled people (across a range of impairments) with a particular interest in enhancing the accessibility of immersive experiences. His research has received funding from leading organisations such as Google, Meta, Epic Games, Adobe, Microsoft, AHRC, and Innovate UK. He also has significant experience in collaborating with regional, national and international organisations across a wide range of projects and sectors.
Claire Inglis
Claire is a passionate educator, digital innovation advocate, and proud autistic individual with expertise in simulation development and educational leadership. As Principal Lecturer in Undergraduate Programmes at the Institute of Education, Arts and Society, she focuses on fostering inclusive learning environments. With a background in creating immersive learning tools and advocating for accessibility, Claire is committed to leveraging technology to enhance education for all, particularly those with disabilities and neurodivergence. Additionally, she serves as a trustee at Rosehill Theatre, contributing to community enrichment through arts and culture.
ED&I Working Group
The ED&I Working Group seeks to unify stakeholders across XR to better support diversity and inclusion. The group will stay informed on ongoing diversity initiatives and build collective momentum to advance equity in the XR landscape. The group will also serve as an open forum to discuss ED&I in immersive technology, share knowledge, and contribute to the development of best practices both within the UK and internationally.
The group will engage with international experts to advance ethical practices and identify opportunities for public forums and networking. Its responsibilities are addressing key issues such as barriers to support, funding, transparency, and community building, all with the aim of raising awareness and improving access to XR technology for underrepresented groups.
Meet the Co-Chairs:
Rose Tighe
Rose has been in Product since the early days of Product Management, as it emerged as its own discipline, working across a broad range of companies, from ambitious start-ups to large enterprises, including Sky and Amazon. Her teams have worked on products such as Amazon Prime Video, Sky Q, Sky Kids, and Sky VR.
She spent four years on the leadership team of Sky Labs, serving as both a leader and senior innovation coach, helping multi-disciplinary teams collaborate to find transformative solutions to complex, challenging problems.
These days, Rose works as a fractional product and innovation leader, stepping into companies to help clarify strategy, unlock growth, and build high-performing teams. She is also passionate about tech for good and diversity in innovation.
Based in Brighton, Rose co-organizes Brighton AI, co-leads the Brighton chapter of Women in Blockchain Talks, and is collaborating on a new Tech Cluster initiative. When time allows, she also mentors on several start-up accelerators.
Jo Wright
Jo has over 20 years of experience in the music industry, with a strong background in music technology and digital innovation. She has held significant roles at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and currently contributes her expertise at Digital Catapult. In addition to her primary role, Jo is an accomplished freelance artist manager and music consultant. She serves as Vice Chair of Safe in Sound, an organisation dedicated to amplifying underrepresented voices in the Irish music industry. Jo is also a board member of Thrive, Northern Ireland’s audience development agency, and Ulster Touring Opera, as well as a director at HoloEdge Digital.
Environmental Sustainability Working Group
The Environmental Sustainability Working Group will address environmental challenges within the XR industry. The group aims to set industry standards and best practices for sustainability. This will be done by creating a platform for ongoing discussions about environmental issues in immersive technologies, spatial computing, and the metaverse. The group is committed to advancing sustainable practices within XR and leveraging XR technologies to support sustainability goals in other sectors.
Meet the Co-Chairs:
Mitch Turnbull
Mitch is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a career spanning over thirty years. She has written, produced and directed films, live shows and media content for UK and international broadcasters, studios and organisations including BBC Studios, Disneynature, Smithsonian Channel, National Geographic Channel, PBS, Discovery Channel, WWF and the Prince and Princess of Wales’ The Royal Foundation. Since 2015 Mitch has created award-winning immersive content for BBC Studios, Magic Leap, Oculus, Lenovo and the UN. She’s acted as a BAFTA VR Advisory Associate, has contributed to industry papers including Digital Catapult’s ‘Creative Tools and Workflows For Immersive Content Creation’ and is an Immersion Fellow with the South West Creative Technology Network. Award-winning immersive credits include ‘Magic Kingdoms’ for BBC Studios/Magic Leap, ‘Growing a World Wonder’ for the UN and most recently ‘The Anticipation of Rain’ for Ithra’s Creative Solutions programme in Saudi Arabia. Mitch has recently taken up a role with the University of Bristol as a Senior Research Associate in Immersive Natural History Experiences. Mitch is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts.
Dr Bianca Wright
Bianca is passionate about investigating the possibilities, challenges and risks of new and emerging technologies including immersive: XR, virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality and gaming. She has led and worked on a range of projects in academia and industry, most recently focusing on immersive technologies and collaborative industry partnerships in education.
Bianca is the Curriculum Lead: Immersive (Associate Professor – Academic) at Coventry University and leads the immersive strategy for the College of Arts and Society.
An award-winning technology journalist whose work has appeared in consumer and trade magazines and websites in the US, the UK, Australia, South Africa and Europe, Bianca was first runner-up in the print business magazine category at the 2002 Telkom ICT Journalist of the Year Awards. She also won second place in the 2002 AISI Media Awards special category IDRC Award For Reporting on Research and Innovation. She has written a number of white papers about technology and business.
In 2012, she was selected as one of the Top 40 Under 40 business achievers by the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber. She completed the VR Mobile 360 Developer nanodegree through Udacity. Bianca’s PhD focused on serious games and gamification. Bianca is also co-chair of the Metaverse for Good committee for the VR/ AR Association (VRARA).
Ethics Working Group
The Ethics Working Group will focus on creating an open forum to regularly discuss ethics in immersive technology, spatial computing, and the metaverse. It seeks to contribute to the development of ethical standards in the sector, establishing the UK as a global leader in ethical practices for immersive technologies.
Bringing together existing research, the group aims to create a central repository that highlights key definitions, current issues, and emerging ethical challenges in XR. The group will identify practical steps to establish industry guidelines, as well as to develop tools and software to support ethical innovation. Focus areas will include data privacy, responsible content creation, and addressing inequalities, with the aim of ensuring that immersive technologies are developed in a responsible and ethical manner across the sector.
Meet the Co-Chairs:
Anton Christodoulou
Anton is passionate results driven business leader, CTO, and speaker, with a proven track record of leveraging disruptive innovation and cutting edge technology to drive business transformation and growth. Over 20 years experience in defining, developing, articulating and executing exec level technology transformation projects, based on clear customer needs, milestones and in-depth domain knowledge. A driver, innovator and agent for change in some of the world’s most dynamic, creative and challenging companies, including Imagination, Walt Disney, Seagram Universal, British Telecom, Thomas Cook and Concert.
Responsible for Imagination’s pioneering XPKit® experience platform, designed to supercharge audience engagement, loyalty and conversion. Founding board member of Innovate UK’s Immersive Tech Network and founding trustee of Trust 3.0 charity, the digital privacy advocacy group.
Lynne Hall
Lynne is a Professor Emerita of Interactive Experience at the University of Sunderland. Lynne has over 30 years of experience designing, developing and evaluating user experience with emerging technologies from approaches to empathic engagement with embodied AI-agents to innovative interactions with dance and sculpture in AR/VR, leading large-scale and outward-facing research projects. She has researched technologies in the home and family, including evidence presented for the Online Safety Act. After leaving Sunderland in 2022, Lynne set up Crane Innovation Limited and has focused on applications targeting the home and families, with regionally funded projects providing metaverse experiences for rural creatives and audiences; and currently, with a Creative Catalyst award developing novel ways to engage with XR focusing on the over-55s.
Working Group Members Call
With the co-chairs in place, each of the four Working Groups are now open for its inaugural members call.
The membership call is open to those active in the immersive tech sector with relevant experience for each of the working group’s topic on Accessibility, ED&I, Environmental Sustainability and Ethics.
The role is not compensated as these working groups are supported by voluntary participation. If this sounds like something you’d like to be involved in, please complete the application form by 13 October. Thank you for your interest.