Ms Mandy Lau

Ms Mandy Lau is a designer and social entrepreneur working at the intersection of design, education and disability inclusion. Originally from Hong Kong, she is a Monash graduate who completed her Master of Design (Industrial Design) with Distinction on a Monash International Scholarship for Excellence.

Ms Lau is the Founder of Reach & Match, an inclusive education social enterprise that uses design and play, through a multisensory learning kit, to help children with different abilities to learn, play and connect. It began as her Master's research at Monash and, over more than a decade, has grown into an inclusive learning system used in early learning centres, special education settings, therapy services and public libraries.

Reach & Match has reached more than 35,000 children in over eight countries, from well-resourced cities to remote and conflict-affected communities. It has been used in emergency response and in rural communities such as Thailand and Papua New Guinea. In the United States, it is approved under the Federal Quota Fund, which makes it available to schools nationwide supporting children with vision impairment and multiple needs.

As one of the seven global winners of the OpenIDEO Education in Emergencies Challenge, and with funding from the Australian Government, Reach & Match supported more than 2,400 children in Marawi, in the Philippines, who were affected by conflict and had no access to school. It has been implemented in partnership with UNICEF, Save the Children, World Vision and the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, supporting education recovery and school readiness programs. In 2020, it was also named among HundrED's 100 Brightest Education Innovations globally.

Ms Lau’s work has received international recognition, including the James Dyson Award in Australia, the Red Dot Design Concept Award, a Good Design Award and a Zero Project Award for Inclusive Education. She is a Monash University Vice-Chancellor's Social Inclusion Award recipient, a Westpac Social Change Fellow, and a Singularity University Impact Fellow. She has advocated for inclusive education on global stages, including at the United Nations in Vienna.

Guided by curiosity and deep listening to people's experiences, she continues to explore, through her practice and her advocacy, how design can help build more inclusive systems.