Karien was Research Manager at STBY and is now freelancing as a project manager in London. She has been working in the communication and digital media industry for the last 10 years. With a fascination for technology and innovation, she started her career at the University of Amsterdam as the coordinator of the UvAweb2000 were she supported both the technical development as well as the user involvement around themes like on-demand content and personalisation.
Karien moved to IRP, where she coordinated similar developments of user-centred CMS systems. Here she was also closely involved in setting up the MMBase foundation; the first Dutch, community-led, open source development foundation. Continuing in digital innovation she worked as a project leader on online strategies at a leading digital marketing agency for clients like Microsoft, Boots and L’Oreal.
In recent years her focus has gradually shifted towards creative technology for social innovation. As the Manager of the Creative Learning Lab at Waag Society, she led research projects and managed the development of concepts and prototypes. Her projects ranged from managing a national platform for structural creative innovation in education to the development of a broad range of creative tools for learning.