...sometimes people need a short "who is he?" for bid documents, flyers, etc. or some media quotes for conference intros. Searching in Google is useful too.
I struggle with this kind of thing, to be honest, but here's my version - feel free to chop it about any which way you like:
Professor Stephen Heppell
born: in the Chalfonts, Buckinghamshire, England
CEO Heppell.net,
Professor. Chair in New Media Environments, Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, Bournemouth University,also:
Emeritus Professor Anglia Ruskin University
Visiting Professor Universidad Camilo José Cela, Madrid.
Executive chairman Learning Possibilities+Stephen's "eyes on the horizon, feet on the ground" approach, coupled with a vast portfolio of effective large scale projects over three decades, have established him internationally as a widely and fondly recognized leader in the fields of learning, new media and technology.
Stephen has worked, and is working, with governments around the world, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, with schools and communities, with his PhD students and with many influential trusts and organizations.
Press and media comments:
and a couple of nice things said about my old lab - I left it in 2004, having founded it:"Europe's leading online education expert" Microsoft 2006
"Stephen has a vast portfolio of successful, large scale, learning projects behind him". JISC 2006
"In a career that spans academic research, teaching, policy development, public and private sector collaboration, development of educational applications, politics, radical thinking and leftfield innovation, it is hardly surprising that the recipient of this evening's award is often referred to as the "funkiest on-line guru on the scene". Royal Television Society 2006
"the most influential academic of recent years in the field of technology and education" Department for Education and Skills (DfES), UK, 2006
"Money alone won't make the Internet fly. Ultimately, it's success lies with kids and other folk who don't follow dot-com stocks. That's where Stephen Heppell comes in. He's a digital do-gooder, helping to bring ordinary people into the Internet age.... looking about as threatening as Santa Claus with his twinkling blue eyes and bushy beard" Wall Street Journal 2000
"He could clearly be a very wealthy man because of his unique foresight, but he's decided that he wants to help children and parents get the most out of IT and Education" European Wall Street Journal 2000
"one the world's foremost experts on contemporary learning", Queensland Courier 2011
"Ultralab is Europe's leading leading research institute pioneering leading edge applications in support of proven educational precepts." Oracle Corporation 1999
"one of the most respected research centres in e-learning in the world" Financial Times 2001
Stephen's ICT career (he is credited with being the person who put the C into ICT), began with the UK government's Microelectronics Education Programme (MEP) in the early 80s, after he had been teaching in secondary schools for some years - which he enjoyed enormously.
Stephen founded and ran Ultralab for almost a quarter of a century, building it into one of the most respected research centres in e-learning in the world - at one time Ultralab was the largest producer of educational CD-ROMs in Europe - before leaving it in 2004 to found his own global and flourishing policy and learning consultancy heppell.net which now has an enviable portfolio of international projects all round the world.
An early pioneer of multimedia - heading Apple Computer's Renaissance Project (pioneering the development and use of CD ROM in education), Stephen went on to pioneer, and be the guiding "father" of, early social networking in Learning with seminal projects including:
- the pre-internet Teletext and email social networking project *ESW in the 1980s,
- the pioneering nationwide Schools OnLine for the UK Department of Trade and Industry in 1995/6
- Tesco Schoolnet 2000 from 1999 - the then Guinness Book of Record's largest internet learning project in the world.
- Think.com with Oracle from 1999,
- Talking Heads linking every UK headteacher into an on-line community of practice;
- Stephen created in 1997, and guided for ten years Notschool.net, at the time a uniquely effective project to re-engage children excluded from school by behaviour or circumstances;
- In 2003 Stephen created the remarkable on-line, work placed, research based, undergraduate degree ultraversity, variants of which are running in a number of UK universities today.
In recognition of all this work, along with just 51 others including Damien Hirst, Jarvis Cocker, Harrison Ford, Lauren Bacall, Muhammad Ali, Stephen became an Apple Master in the 1990s.
Stephen was a founder board member for Teachers.TV - a UK public service TV and broadband channel for professional development of teachers;
he sits on the board of the UK's Skillset - guiding professional development and training in the Creative Industries;
he sits on BAFTA's Board of Trustees and Council having formerly chaired it's Technical Innovation Jury, sat on its Film Committee, and sits on Channel 4 TV's Education Advisory group. Indeed Stephen sits on quite a number of steering and advisory boards - like the UK Science Museum's "Making Modern Communications Advisory Panel". He is a member of the Adobe Education Leader Program.
Stephen sits on the Advisory Board of Educurious Partners, Inc., and is Technology Advisor to the GEMS Education in Dubai.
Stephen holds the chair on New Media Environments at the Centre for Excellence for Media Practice at Bournemouth University, where all his PhD students are currently based - Stephen's eclectic activities there range from support for new pedagogic approaches to air traffic control education through to helping develop a manifesto for media education.
Complementing the work designing on-line communities, Stephen is at the heart of a global revolution in physical learning space design, with a string of major new projects worldwide including a 0-21+ academy in the UK and a complete makeover of a national education system in the Caribbean. His research project in 2003 exploring for CABE and RIBA in the UK on the impact of new pedagogies on the design of learning spaces kickstarted a new rhetoric of third millennium school design in the UK and beyond. Stephen is designing, with his daughter Juliette, a signature suite of school furniture with Isis.
Stephen is, and has been, a regular face on TV - from Newsnight to the BBC Breakfast sofa and Sky News, to Channel 4's Things to Come - and on radio too: from BBC Radio 4's You and Yours to the Steve Wright Show - or even back to Phil Miles on Australia's Island Sound radio in 1992!
Recent awards include:
In June 2006 Stephen was awarded the Royal Television Society's Judges Award for Lifelong Services to Educational Broadcasting.
In 2008 he received the prestigious BETT Award for Outstanding Achievement in ICT Education
Stephen's work is worldwide; Stephen is retained by a number of organisations and governments to help with future policy and direction.
People who really know Stephen will know of his passion for sailboat racing - which extends to work on learning approaches for Olympic level elite coaches, having himself been an international level coach. Current raceboat is an unlikely but delightful 1907 Oyster Smack listed in the UK's Historic Ships Register.
