Lars Ballieu Christensen
Advisor, Managing Director
Lars Ballieu Christensen (born 1963) works with information technology and design for people with special needs. He founded Sensus, a research-based consultancy organisation, in the mid 1980’s. Since then he has advised numerous governments, national and international organisations, NGOs and private companies on accessibility, inclusive design and access to digital information. Furthermore, he is the inventor or co-inventor of a number of innovative enabling technologies, including the award winning RoboBraille service (email-based Braille and audio translation service; PharmaBraille (email-based Braille translation service for the pharmaceutical sector), Motto Captura/CapturaTalk (mobile solution for the dyslexic), SB4 (multilingual Braille translation) and ForkBra (first PC-based Braille translation solution in Denmark).
In addition to his work for Sensus, Lars is the RoboBraille Co-ordinator and leader of the RoboBraille Consortium, a European-wide organisation operating the RoboBraille service with financial support from the European Commission, Danish Ministry of Education and the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs. As a co-founder, he serves as a board member and chief technology officer of Motto Captura ApS.
A recognised authority on e-accessibility, Lars is the author of multiple articles in Danish and international journals on accessibility, inclusion, information technology, disability and Braille translation. Furthermore, he has co-authored the Danish guidelines for accessible web design and is a member of the Danish Expert Committee on Accessibility at the National IT and Telecom Agency and well as the Danish Standards Expert Committee on IT Accessibility. He regularly lectures at universities and conferences on web-accessibility, information technology and disability. Although not limited to any particular disability, Lars has extensive working experience with high-tech solutions for the blind, partially sighted, deaf-blind, deaf and dyslexic.
Lars holds master degrees in computer science and journalism from the University of Roskilde, Denmark. In 1996 he was awarded the Ph.D. degree in computer science and communication by the University of Roskilde in recognition of his dissertation “Applying Information Technology as an Intelligent Interface for the Blind.”
The RoboBraille service has won numerous awards, including the 2010 BETT Award for Special Needs Education Solutions (Becta, Besa, emap)
- 2009 ACCESS-IT@Learning Award for affordable learning solutions (e-ISOTIS, AbilityNet)
- 2009 National eWell-Being Award for Reaching the Digitally Excluded (UKCEED)
- 2008 eInclusion Award for e-Accessibility (European Commission)
- 2008 Well-Tech Award for Accessibility and Innovation (Well-Tech)
- 2007 Social Contribution Award (British Computer Society)
Contact Lars by telephone: +45 48 22 10 03 or by email: lbc[at sign]sensus.dk.