Mr. Giovanni Allegretti

Architect and senior researcher at the Center of Social Studies, Coimbra University, Portugal

Giovanni Allegretti is an architect and senior researcher at the Center for Social Studies, an internationally recognized Associate Laboratory of the Portuguese Department of Sciences, affiliated to the University of Coimbra, Portugal. From 2001 to 2006, he has been assistant professor in Town Management at the University of Florence, where he received his Ph.D. in Town and Territorial Planning. He studied in Brazil, Denmark and Japan with scholarships from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 1997 his main research topics have been participatory budgets and techniques to foster citizens’ participation in urban planning, topics on which he published several articles, essays and books. He has acted as scientific director for two EU projects in the field of participation: “Participando” and “INCLUIR—Participatory Budget as a Tool for Fighting Social Exclusion”. He is co-director of the Ph.D. course “Democracy in the XXI Century” and coordinator of the PEOPLES’ Observatory on Participation, Innovation and Local Powers. He has also worked for the World Bank as a resource person in training (in South Africa and Senegal) and as an evaluator (Dominican Republic and Congo RDC), and acts as consultant for the Swedish Association of Municipalities and Regions (2007-2012) to support the first experiments in participatory budget in that country.

mr. Alioune Badiane

Acting Director of the Regional and Technical Cooperation Division and Director, Regional Office for Africa and Arab States, UN-Habitat

After completing economic studies in the Senegal National School of Economics (ENEA), Dr. Badiane graduated from Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, in 1983 then went on as a post-graduate to Hunter College, Department of Urban Affairs, at New York City University (1987). He is also a United States Fulbright Alumni of the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program, class of 1987-1988.

Dr. Badiane is an senior urban and regional planner whose working experience spans three decades in both central and local governments and at the international level. He joined UN-Habitat as Chief Technical Adviser and International Human Settlements Adviser to the Government of Haiti in 1991 and has since directed, managed and coordinated UN regional and national projects and programs in Africa, the Arab States and in the Caribbeans. In October 1992, he was appointed Regional Coordinator for Africa, Urban Management Programme, an international joint endeavor between UNDP, UN-Habitat and The World Bank. The huge political and urban challenges presented by Africa provided Dr. Badiane with real opportunities to contribute in shaping new approaches and strategies for urban development and management policy geared toward better governance of cities in Africa. He was appointed UN-Habitat Director for Africa and the Arab States in January 1999, then Acting Director, Regional and Technical Cooperation Division, in April 2011.

In his various positions, Dr. Badiane traveled across Africa and the world and became a member of various networks of leaders and development associations. Through his work with governments, foundations, local authorities, civil society and the United Nations, he has developed strong negotiation skills, managerial capabilities, decision-making abilities, gender sensitivity, sense and value of human relationships as well as leadership and vision.

Mr. PATRICK BRAOUEZEC

Member of the French National Assembly, President of the Communauté d’Agglomération Plaine Commune

Patrick Braouezec was born on December 11, 1950, in Paris. He was a teacher in Saint-Denis, France from September 1971 to September 1990.

Since 2005, he has been the president of the Communauté d’Agglomération Plaine Commune, an agglomeration of eight cities in the northern suburbs of Paris. Before, he was the Mayor of Saint-Denis, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, from 1991 to 2005.

Since 1993, he has been a Member of Parliament of the National Assembly of France for the Democratic and Republican Left (Gauche démocrate et républicaine). Also, Braouezec sits on the National Assembly’s Standing Committee of Constitutional Acts and was a Questeur from 1998 to 2000.

Involved in the international community since the 1990’s, Braouezec was a member of the Committee of the Regions in Brussels from 1994 to 1997. He has been a member of the Executive Bureau of the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) since the organization started in 2004. Currently, he is the vice president of the UCLG Commission of Social Inclusion and Participative Democracy. He also participated in ratifying the European Charter for Human Rights in the City along with other European cities, such as Barcelona, in Saint-Denis, in 2000.

Passionate about sports, Braouezec sits on the Grands Stades / Euro 2016 Committee and has been president of the Fondation du Football’s board of directors since January 2010.

Prof. Yves Cabannes

Urban planner, activist and professor at University College London

Currently Professor and Chair of Development Planning at the DPU, Development Planning Unit, University College London. From 2004 to 2006, lecturer in Urban Planning at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Visiting scholar in European and Latin American universities.

From 1997 to 2003, he was the Regional Coordinator of the UN Habitat/UNDP Urban Management Program for Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to joining the UMP, worked for ten years in Northeast Brazil, for various NGOs, grassroots and Local Governments on low-income housing, income-generating activities and slum improvement in very poor communities.

Coordinator of numerous Research and Research & Development programs in relation with Asian, Latin American, African and Arab partners institutions on urban and municipal governance related issues: participatory planning and budgeting, municipal poverty reduction and social inclusion innovative practices, revitalization of urban centres, community based micro finance, urban agriculture, low income housing and appropriate technologies for local development.

He is an advocate on development issues and acted as Chair for the UN Advisory Group on Forced Evictions (2004 -2010); senior advisor and member of various development initiatives and networks such as the International Alliance of Inhabitants and the International RUAF Foundation, Resource Centres for Urban Agriculture and Food Security.
Urban Development Planner, graduated from Essec, Enpc and PhD from Sorbonne University.

Mr. Claude Carette

Interim director of transportation, City of Montréal

A graduate of Polytechnique Montréal in 1992, Claude Carette has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s in transportation.

He began his engineering career at Roche-Deluc. In 1996, he became an analyst at the Agence métropolitaine de transport, an organization devoted to public transportation. In 2008, he joined the City of Montréal and was promoted, in August 2010, to interim director of transportation.

Over the course of his career, Carette completed a master’s in project management at the University of Quebec in Montréal. From 1999 to 2001, he was a lecturer at McGill University.

As for the voluntary sector, Carette became involved in the Association québécoise des transports et des routes where he held different positions, such as president of the board of directors, from 2006 to 2008.

Carette is currently on the board of directors of the World Road Association (Quebec chapter), the Transportation Association of Canada, and Stationnement de Montréal.

Ms. Chantal-Line Carpentier

Senior Sustainable Development Officer, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations

Dr. Carpentier joined the Division for Sustainable Development of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs as a Sustainable Development Offer in the fall of 2007. She covers sustainable consumption and production, sustainable agriculture, and is Major Groups programme coordinator to the upcoming Rio+20 conference. She previously served five years as Head of the Trade and Environment Program of the NAFTA Commission for Environmental Cooperation after serving two years as project manager. Previously, she worked for two years at the Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and the International Food Policy Research Institute as well as consulting for the UNDP, World Bank, and OCDE. She holds a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech and M.S. and B.S. degrees from McGill University in Agricultural and environmental economics. In 2006, she was selected to participate in the Yale World Fellows program which aims to establish a worldwide network of leaders and foster better international relations. Dr. Carpentier regularly publishes journal articles and book chapters on the intricate relationships between sustainable development policies and trade.

MS. MARIA CARIDAD CRUZ HERNANDEZ
Agronomist, coordinator of the Urban Sustainability Program at the Antonio Nuñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity in Havana, Cuba

Maria Caridad Cruz Hernandez is the project director of the Urban Sustainability Program at the Antonio Nuñez Jiménez Foundation. The program aims to increase permaculture training, ensure sustainable agricultural development, and encourage knowledge sharing in the field. The Foundation now has several projects in five Cuban provinces.

An expert in international cooperation, Hernandez studies solutions for problems related to food sovereignty, sustainable management of natural resources, and permaculture. She has also contributed greatly to the development of sustainable agriculture in Cuba. She coordinated and directed a three-year research project on the history and state of urban agriculture in Havana, Cuba (Agriculture in the City, A Key to Sustainability in Havana, Cuba, Ian Randle Publishers/CRDI, 2003). She was also a member of the Cuban delegation at the third session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver in 2006. She is invited to give conferences in Europe and Latin America on urban agriculture, food security, sustainable development, and participatory democracy in Latin America. Hernandez has carried out several studies with the IPES in Peru and Ecuador as well as with the UN Habitat/UNDP Urban Management Program for Latin America and the Caribbean. She is currently in charge of cooperation projects financed by Bread for the World (Germany), CISP (Italy), and CIDA (Canada).

Prof. Carole Després

Professor of Architecture and Co-ordinator of the Interdisciplinary research group on suburbs, Laval University, Québec City, Canada

Carole Després is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at Laval University in Québec City, Canada since 1989. She holds a professional degree in architecture and a Master’s of Science from the same university, as well as a Ph.D. in Environment-Behavior Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the United States. She was the head of graduate programs in architectural sciences from 1996 to 2006, before taking over the direction of Laval University multidisciplinary Planning and Development Research Center (CRAD) until 2010. She is the co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Research Group on Suburbs (GIRBa) whose mission is to understand, imagine and act on aging suburbs in relationship with limited demographic growth, ongoing urban sprawl, car dependency and the necessity of sustainable development. Her research and teaching deal with residential environments and behaviours, and favours back and forth between fundamental research, action research, and design. Her work includes the development of processes aimed at bridging the gap between knowledge and practice, namely through consensus-building and participatory design.

Ms. Fatimata Dia Touré

Director, Institut de l'énergie et de l'environnement de la francophonie

Senegal native Fatimata Dia Touré is Director of the Institut de l'énergie et de l'environnement de la Francophonie (IEPF), a subsidiary body of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, headquartered in Québec, since September of 2007. Educated in environmental law, she spent 27 years in the service of Senegal’s ministère de l’Environnement et de la Protection de la nature, where she oversaw the portfolios of Nature Protection and Classified Institutions.

She is also on the Board of Directors for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and her country’s representative on the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). She has been called upon to act as an expert negotiator for Senegal in the negotiations of several multilateral accords, including those on climate change, chemical products and desertification. Mrs. Dia Touré moreover served as a focal point of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.

Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf

Executive Secretary, UN Convention on Biological Diversity

An Algerian national, Dr. Djoghlaf has pursued a distinguished diplomatic career that has included postings with the government of Algeria and UNEP.

He assumed the position of Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on January 3, 2006. He was named to his previous position as Assistant Executive Director of UNEP in June 2003, following his success as Director and Coordinator of UNEP's Division of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), where he played a key role for some seven years and successfully raised UNEP’S profile.

Throughout his impressive career, Dr. Djoghlaf has increased his extensive knowledge of global environment processes within the UN system and within the CBD process. Notably, he was the General Rapporteur of the Preparatory Committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), better known as the “Rio Summit”. He was Vice Chairman of the Eleventh Session of the Intergovernmental Committee on Science and Technology for Development and Vice President of the Negotiating Committee on the Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as Chair of one of the two negotiating committees of the Convention to Combat Desertification.

Ms. Debra Efroymson

Regional director for HealthBridge Canada in Bangladesh and South-to-South Ecocity Alliance

Debra Efroymson is Regional Director for HealthBridge, a Canadian NGO working on health and health equity, including Liveable Cities. Debra has lived and worked in Asia since 1994, and has been working on ecocities since 2004. She has given many talks and written numerous articles and four books on ecocities, liveable cities, public spaces, climate change, economics, urban transport, carfree cities and related subjects. Based in Dhaka, she works in other countries in Asia as well, supporting local NGOs to work for policies and programs to make cities more equitable and liveable.

Debra is also a Core Adviser to the International Ecocity Standards project of Ecocity Builders. She speaks five languages in addition to her native English, and has worked and traveled in Latin America and Africa. Her most recent passion is economics: specifically how to overcome the myths that suggest that we must sacrifice the environment and people’s health and wellbeing in order to achieve economic growth.

On South-to-South Ecocity Alliance: Consisting of partner organizations in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia, South-to-South Ecocity Alliance was created to enhance south-to-south sharing and cooperation, in the pursuit of sound urban design for better health, gender equity, poverty reduction, and a cleaner environment.

Ms. Hilary French

Programme Officer, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Hilary French is a Programme Officer at the United Nations Environment Programme's Regional Office for North America, where her work focuses on climate change and resource efficiency. She has previously been an advisor to UNEP on a broad range of issues, including civil society engagement, consumption and production, green jobs, and globalization and the environment. Ms. French comes to UNEP from the Worldwatch Institute, where she has served as Vice-President for Research, as Director of the Globalization and Governance Project, as Senior Researcher, and most recently as Senior Advisor for Programs.

She has published and lectured widely on global environmental and sustainable development issues, including co-authoring fifteen of Worldwatch's annual State of the World reports and authoring the book Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization. Ms. French earlier worked briefly for Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs, and interned with the United Nations Development Programme in the Ivory Coast and with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. She has also worked as a consultant to private foundations and as a Visiting Professor at Williams College. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

dr. HOWARD FRUMKIN

Dean of the School of Public Health, University of Washington, USA

Howard Frumkin is Dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health. He is an internist, environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and epidemiologist. From 2005 to 2010 he served leadership roles at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first as director of the National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and later as Special Assistant to the CDC Director for Climate Change and Health. Previously, he was Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Emory Medical School.

His research interests include public health aspects of the built environment; air pollution; metal and PCB toxicity; climate change; health benefits of contact with nature; and environmental and occupational health policy, especially regarding minority communities and developing nations. He is the author or co-author of over 180 scientific journal articles and chapters and several books.

Mr. Jan Gehl

Professor Emeritus of Urban Design, School of Architecture, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark; Partner, Gehl Architects

Mr. Gehl is an Architect MAA & FRIBA, Professor Emeritus of Urban Design at the School of Architecture in Copenhagen. He has been awarded the Sir Patrick Abercrombie prize for exemplary contributions to town planning by the International Union of Architects as well as an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Jan Gehl was awarded an international honorary fellowship to the Royal Institute of British Architects (Int. FRIBA) in 2006 and to the AIA, the American Institute of Architecture and the Canadian Institute of Architecture in 2008.

Jan Gehl is the author of many books including Life between Buildings; Public Spaces, Public Life; and Cities for People.

Ms. Fabienne Giboudeaux

Deputy Mayor of Paris with responsibility for green spaces

Elected in 2001 as an urban planner in the 20th arrondissement, a Paris city councillor since 2004, Chair of the Société Immobilière d’Economie Mixte de la Ville de Paris (with its mandate of eliminating sub-standard housing) from 2006 to 2008, Fabienne Giboudeaux today serves as Deputy Mayor of Paris with responsibility for green spaces.

Mr. Walter Hood

Professor and former Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design in Oakland, CA

Walter Hood is Professor and former Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design in Oakland, CA. Hood has worked in a variety of settings including architecture, urban design, community planning, environmental art, and research. He was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in Landscape Architecture in 1997, and has exhibited and lectured on his professional projects and theoretical works nationally and abroad. Hood's work was recently featured in the exhibition and publication, Open: New Designs For Public Spaces at the Van Alen Institute, NY; Metropolis Magazine; the New York Times; and Dwell Magazine. His firm designed the gardens and landscape for the new De Young Museum in San Francisco with Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Walter Hood's published monographs Urban Diaries and Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations illuminate his unique approach to the design of urban landscapes. These works won an ASLA Research Award in 1996. His essay "Macon Memories" is featured in Sites of Memory, Princeton Architectural Press, 2001. Hood participated in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Revelatory Landscapes Exhibition in 2000-2001. He is currently researching and writing a book entitled Urban Landscapes; American Landscape Typologies. His area of teaching, the American Urban Landscape, is intertwined with his design work, creating a didactic approach to the design of urban landscapes.

mr. Muscadin Jean-Yves Jason

Mayor of Port-au-Prince

Muscadin Jean –Yves Jason was elected Mayor of the City of Port-au-Prince in 2007. He leads the city with a two-member Council and a multi-disciplinary staff. Jason’s mandate translates into the challenge of revitalizing the socio-economic and environmental fabric of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s Capital City and, to organize the traditional popular annual “carnaval” amongst others. Mayor Jason brings many years of experience working in public affairs in Haïti.

Jason is a seasoned public administrator with over 20 years of experience working, teaching, advocating, and developing programs to promote and support national and historical archive systems in Haiti. Educated in human resources management, public administration, finance, anthropology and history, Jason has worked for both the public and the private sectors in Haiti, including Haiti’s National Archives, Banque de l’Union Haïtienne, the City of Port-au-Prince where he first served as an Advisor and Consultant to the Mayor from 1995 and then as the Director of Administrative Affairs from 1995 to 1997.

Mayor Jason is a graduate of the Université d’Etat d’Haïti (Haiti’s State University) where he obtained degrees in Business and Management, Anthropology and Sociology. In addition, he has received various certifications and special training from several world-renowned institutions in Paris, Montréal, Fort de France, Madrid, Pointe à Pitre etc.

Prof. Jeff Kenworthy

Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, Australia;
Goethe University Institute for Human Geography, Germany

Jeff Kenworthy has spent 32 years in the transport and urban planning field and currently teaches courses and supervises postgraduate students in the city policy and urban sustainability fields.

He is author and co-author of over 200 other book chapters and journal publications in the area of city policy. He recently co-wrote a book on Ecomobility with his North American colleagues Preston L. Schiller and Eric C. Bruun.: An Introduction to Sustainable Transportation.He has extensive experience in the areas of compact housing developments, public transport systems and sustainable transport policy and has worked as a consultant for local, state and federal governments in Australia, as well as private organisations and the World Bank. He has also acted in an advisory capacity in the Premier's Department in WA. Dr Kenworthy has lectured internationally in 24 countries and over 60 cities to universities, government agencies and community organisations on city policy issues.

Mr. Michel Labrecque

President, STM (Montréal Public Transit Authority)

Michel Labrecque is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Société de transport de Montréal since January 29, 2009.

From November 2005 to November 2009, he served as city councillor for Montréal in Le-Plateau- Mont-Royal borough. He was responsible for the Plan de Déplacement Urbain (urban mobility plan), and for economic development. He also served as Chairman of the Montréal Agglomeration Council’s commission on large equipment and agglomeration activities.

Mr. Labrecque was President and Chief Executive Officer of the MONTRÉAL HIGHLIGHTS Festival from its founding in 1998 until its tenth edition in February 2009. Thanks to this new festival, Montréal winters will never be the same. The event attracts more than 750 000 festivalgoers to its gastronomic, artistic and festive activities and to its All-Nighter, La Nuit blanche.

From 1985 to 2000, as President of Vélo Québec, he was involved in the creation of Maison des cyclistes, the Tour de l’Île de Montréal and La Route verte (4000 km of bikeways), the longest cycling route in the Americas.

Since 1992, he has been a radio and television commentator for Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec
(Plaisirs, VSD Bonjour, Indicatif présent, Vélo-mag, Consommaction, Télé-services, Bazzo.tv).

A great defender of the environment, he served as Chairman of the Board of Montréal’s regional environment council (CRE), thus taking part in drawing up Ville de Montréal’s strategic plan for
sustainable development.

In 1999 and 2000, he was a lecturer on festival event management at UQAM.

Mr. Christer Larsson

Director of City Planning, Malmö (Sweden)

Christer is Director of City Planning for Malmö, Sweden. He is responsible for strategic development planning for the city, which included in recent years the renewal of the Western Harbour site and the urban reconfiguration of Malmö.

Christer is Chairman of Nordic City Network, and is active on international architectural competition juries. He is central in knowledge transfer projects concerning Malmö´s sustainable development.

Clayton Lane, AICP

Chief Operating Officer of EMBARQ

Prior to joining EMBARQ, Mr. Lane co-founded and directed PhillyCarShare, the non-profit organization that provides environmentally friendly “cars by the hour” from hundreds of neighborhood locations in Philadelphia. Under his leadership, the organization helped remove about 20,000 cars, reduce driving by 50 million miles, and save about 4 million gallons of gas.

Mr. Lane has also served as a Professional Associate and Lead Planner for Parsons Brinckerhoff, where he became a recognized expert in transit planning and FTA New Starts projects. He designed rail and bus facilities and services; developed operating cost models; projected ridership; led long-range planning efforts; assessed regional land use impacts; and taught “best practices” regarding the same.

Mr. Lane earned his master’s in city planning and his master’s of science in transportation from M.I.T., and holds a bachelors degree in civil engineering systems from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ms. Karen Leibovici

Vice-President, Federation of Canadian Municipalities; Edmonton City Councillor

After completing her Master's Degree in social work, Karen Leibovici began a career as a social worker in Montreal. A strong interest in labour relations soon led Karen to become involved in the Ville Marie Social Service Workers Union, where she participated as a member and later served as President.

Moving to Edmonton in 1980, Karen worked for the City of Edmonton as a Labour Relations Officer and the City's Equal Opportunity Officer. In this capacity, she represented management in negotiating collective agreements with civic unions. Karen also developed the City's Equal Opportunity Policy, which was referenced by numerous municipalities across Canada.

Elected MLA for Edmonton-Meadowlark in 1993, Karen held her seat for two terms. She excelled in various roles, including Labour Critic, Health Critic, Intergovernmental Affairs Critic and Caucus Whip. Karen has made many presentations regarding advocacy and taught at the University of Alberta.

Karen was elected to Edmonton’s City Council in 2001 and re-elected in 2004, 2007 and 2010. She has served as Chair or Vice-Chair of numerous committees such as Transportation and Public Works Committee, Executive Committee, and the Community Services Committee and has been re-appointed to the Edmonton Police Commission.

Karen's involvement with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has increased over the years since her original appointment in 2005. Karen was elected as 2nd Vice President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. In addition she is also the Chair of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Green Municipal Fund.

Karen is Chair of the Edmonton Stop Marijuana Grow Operation Coalition (ESMGOC), an organization that received Honourable Mention for the 2008 Minister's Awards for Municipal Excellence.

Karen is also involved in several Council Boards and Initiatives including the Contaminated Gas Stations Task Force, Transforming Edmonton, Traffic Safety and the Northern /Circumpolar Initiative.

Dr. Karsten Lindloff

City of Essen, Environmental department (till May 2011)

Diploma in urban planning, University of Dortmund

PhD in urban planning: success factors in co-operation-processes of regional devel-opment, 2003

R&D-project: "agenda 21 in 10 German Landkreise (counties)" 1997-2000, University of Paderborn

R&D-project: innovation-agency for sustainable, secretary for future studies

Manager for environmental-planning in the city of Essen, Ruhr with the main topics: air-protection, noise-reduction-planning, energy-planning, climate-change, climate-adaptation, general environmental planning, rainwater-management (Part of sewage-management)

R&D-Project: urban strategies for climate adaptation (City of Essen, University of ¬Duis-burg-Essen, 2010-2012

R&D Project: "climate-initiative Essen" path for energy-efficient-cities, 2008-2016, City of Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of human studies Essen (KWI)

Coordinator of the integrate energy and climate-action plan of the City of Essen (IEKK)

Project-director at the German Energy Agency, Berlin, since May 2011

Main research topics: networking, services for energy-efficiency, governance of envi-ronmental planning, monitoring of environmental planning

Ms. Megan Meaney

Canada Office Director, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability

Megan is recognized by cities across Canada as an authority on municipal sustainability. She has worked extensively with local governments in Canada and the US, large and small, urban and rural, from coast to coast to coast. She has been with ICLEI since 1999, over which time she has held many rolls in strategic energy planning, climate mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity, as well as sustainability management. Megan has sat on various advisory committees, including the Canadian Standards Association, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Urban Institute.

As the Director, Megan is responsible for the successful leadership and management of the organization according to the strategic direction set by the Board of Directors. She is responsible for overseeing ICLEI’s mission, governance, strategic planning, partnership development and financial health. She is also a member of ICLEI’s global senior management team which collaborates on operations in regions around the world.

Megan has a Master’s degree in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University as well as Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a diploma in Environmental Engineering.

Mr. Nicolas Michelin

Architect and Urban Planner, Agence Nicolas Michelin et Associés, ANMA, Architecture, Urban Planning and Landscape architecture Practice, Paris

Nicolas Michelin is an architect and urban planner and was born in Paris in 1955. He created the ANMA practice in the year 2000 with Michelin Delplace and Cyril Trétout after having been associated with Finn Geipel as part of LABFAC in the 1990s.

As well as being a practicing architect, Nicolas was also the Director of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Versailles architecture school between 2000 and 2009 where he also created the “La Maréchalerie” Art Centre. Michelin was also the curator of the 2008 edition of the city of Bordeaux’s Agora, the Architecture, urbanism and design biennale dedicated to sustainable development in architecture and urban planning practice.

Following this event he published a work on sustainable development « Alerte ! Et si on pensait un peu plus à elle?” (Published by ArchiBooks in 2008) which outlined his position on the roles that architects and urban planners should play in developing effective sustainable development approaches.

In 2011, the practice has won numerous design competitions including an eco-quarter in Dijon and a “Zero Energy” student’s residence in the Cité Universitaire in Paris. Moreover, the practice was the winner of the competition for the new Ministry of Defense in Paris, nicknamed the “French Pentagon” within the Opale Consortium and lead by the engineering group Bouygues. This building of 145,000m2 has been designed to be a “natural machine” certified HQE Haute Qualité Environnementale –equivalent LEED – and which will produce all of its own energy needs 10 months a year. Construction is planned to break ground at the end of 2011.

Ms. Kirstin Miller

Executive Director, Ecocity Builders; Facilitator, International Ecocity Framework and Standards

Kirstin has been with Ecocity Builders since 1997 and currently serves as Executive Director. She is a frequent speaker locally, nationally and internationally on the Ecocity topic. She works closely with Ecocity Builders’ President Richard Register in the development of the organization’s “toolbox” of strategies, such as car free by contract housing, environmental restoration transfer of development rights, ecological demonstration projects and ecological zoning overlay mapping. In addition to serving as Executive Director for Ecocity Builders, Kirstin is Lead Facilitator of the International Ecocity Framework and Standards, an international guide to help cities and citizens analyze and evaluate their city in an integrated framework that supports systemic thinking and solutions. She additionally teaches a class on The Ecological City Structure at the University of California, Berkeley Extension in San Francisco and is a Board Member of the International Ecocity Conference Series Committee. Her articles and essays on ecocities, urban ecology and the environment have appeared in a number of publications, including Orion Afield, Ecotecture and Wilderness and Human Communities, The Spirit of the 21st Century.

Ms. Jennie Moore

Director, Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship, British Columbia Institute of Technology

Jennie Moore is Director, Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. She facilitates development of new educational programs to meet the needs of BC's emerging green economy and helps transform BCIT's campuses to become living laboratories of sustainability.

Jennie's work has received local, national and international acclaim including a national award of Environmental Citizenship. She is a LEED Accredited Professional and member of the Canadian Institute of Planners. She has a Masters of Arts in Natural Resources Planning specializing in ecological sustainability and urban systems, and she participated in the UBC Task Group for Planning Healthy and Sustainable Communities while the Ecological Footprint was being developed.

mr. Konrad Otto-Zimmermann

Secretary General, ICLEI World Secretariat

Konrad Otto-Zimmermann is the Secretary General of ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability. With more than a thousand members in 68 countries, ICLEI is the largest international network of metropolises, cities, towns and regions dedicated to sustainable development.

Mr. Otto-Zimmermann has an Engineering Degree in Architecture and Urban Planning, Technical University of Hannover, Germany, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, University of Public Administration, Speyer, Germany. He has held positions in Germany in national and local government as well as having served as inter-municipal consultant.

Konrad Otto-Zimmermann is a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Urban Management and alumni of HRH The Prince of Wales' Business & the Environment Programme, Cambridge, UK. He also has several board and advisory functions such as with the International Green Purchasing Network, the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, and the World Economic Forum’s SlimCity initiative.

He is author, editor, or co-editor of 11 books and hundreds of articles in various magazines on local environmental planning and management and non-motorized urban transport. In addition, he was a lecturer at over 200 congresses, conferences, symposia and training sessions, as well as initiator and scientific director of congresses on sustainable cities, Local Agenda 21, local environmental management, environmental impact assessment, non-motorized urban transport and eco-procurement.

Mr. Amara Ouerghi

Director, Metropolis International Institute

Mr. Amara Ouerghi is the holder of a Master Degree in Urban and Regional Planning of the McGill University in Montréal as well as of a Bachelor Degree in Business Management – major in Finance from the University of Québec in Montréal and of a Certificate of graduation in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Mr. Ouerghi is a member of the Order of Urban Planners of Québec and of the Financial Management Institute of Canada.

Mr. Ouerghi was advisor and Deputy President of the Montreal Urban Community. He also held the position of Director of the Urban Planning and Metropolitan Affairs Department at the Montreal Urban Community. Within the framework of his previous duties, he has specialised in the fields of Urban Planning, Economic Development, Tax System and Local and Metropolitan Governance. He was actively involved in major files and reforms in the Montréal region.

He is a Special Advisor at the City of Montreal. He is the Director General of the International Institute for the Management of Major Metropolises.

Mr. Ouerghi is Regional Secretary of Metropolis – North America. He coordinated several permanent Metropolis commissions on urban transportation, metropolitan governance and financing services and infrastructure. Mr. Ouerghi is actively involved in the organization of many conferences and international events.

Ms. Janice Perlman

Founder & President of the Mega-Cities Project

Janice Perlman is an independent consultant, writer and researcher. Her book FAVELA: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro is based on a longitudinal study of four generations of migrants and squatters in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For this work Dr. Perlman received a Guggenheim Award and a Fulbright Award.

In 1987 Dr. Perlman founded The Mega-Cities Project, a global non-profit organization based in New

York, with teams in 21 of the world’s largest cities. Its mission is to shorten the lag time between ideas and implementation in urban problem-solving. The organization has brokered over 40 transfers of grassroots urban innovations across boundaries of geography, ethnicity and nationality.

Prior to The Mega-Cities Project, Perlman was a tenured professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She also taught at Columbia University, New York University, CUNY, Trinity College and several Brazilian universities. Outside of academia, Perlman has served as Coordinator of an Inter-Agency Task Force on National Urban Policy; Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the NYC Partnership; Director of Science, Technology and Public Policy at the New York Academy of Sciences; External Evaluator for CHF International / Gates Foundation and NY Academy of Medicine / Kellogg Foundation; Advisor to the World Bank’s Urban Projects Department; and as a consultant for many NGOs.

William Rees, Ph.D.

Population Ecology, Professor at SCARP, University of British Columbia

William Rees has taught at the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) since 1969. He founded SCARP’s “Environment and Resource Planning” concentration and from 1994 to 1999 served as Director of the School. Prof Rees’ teaching and research focus on the public policy and planning implications of global environmental trends and the necessary ecological conditions for sustainable socioeconomic development. Much of his work is in the realm of human ecology and ecological economics where Prof. Rees is best known as the originator of the “ecological footprint analysis.” Dr. Rees’ book on this method, Our Ecological Footprint (1996, co-authored with then Ph.D. student Mathis Wackernagel) is now available in nine languages. He is presently supervising several eco-footprint projects ranging from the sustainability implications of globalization to getting serious about urban sustainability.

Prof. Rees is also a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a co-investigator in the “Global Integrity Project,”; a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and a Founding Fellow of the One Earth Initiative. A dynamic speaker, Prof. Rees has traveled all around the globe to lecture on areas of his expertise. In 1997 UBC awarded William Rees a Senior Killam Research Prize in acknowledgment of his research achievements and in 2000, the Vancouver Sun recognized him as one of British Columbia’s top “public intellectuals.” In 2006 Prof. Rees was elected to the Royal Society of Canada and in 2007 he was awarded a prestigious 3-year Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship.

Mr. Richard Register

Founder and President of Ecocity Builders; Founder of the International Ecocity Conference Series

Richard Register is one of the world’s great theorists and authors in ecological city design and planning. He is also a practitioner with four decades of experience activating local projects, pushing establishment buttons and working with environmentalists and developers to get a better city built and running. Among his many “firsts,” he convened the first of the Ecocity International Conference Series in Berkeley, California.

He was founding president of Urban Ecology (1975) and founder and current president of Ecocity Builders (1992), both nonprofit educational organizations.

Richard Register is the author of a number of books including Ecocity Berkeley and Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with nature.

Mrs. Louise Roy

President, Office de consultation publique de Montréal

Louise Roy is a public consultation and problem solving practitioner. She has been acting as an independent expert in this field for over 30 years in Quebec, Canada and abroad. Throughout her career, she led or participated in several consultation, mediation or conciliation processes, particularly related to energy production, water management, domestic and nuclear waste management, as well as land use planning and watershed management.

On behalf of the International Academy for the Environment, a few years ago, and currently of l’Association internationale des Maires de langue française, she runs workshops on public consultation and conflict management. Since the early 2000s, Mrs Roy developed a more specific interest on urban issues. She is the acting chair of the Office de consultation publique de Montréal.

Mr. Jeff Stein, AIA

President, Cosanti Foundation in Arizona, USA

Award winning Boston architect, editor and writer, is President of the Cosanti Foundation in Arizona, USA. The Foundation, begun 60 years ago by internationally renowned thinker Paolo Soleri, is responsible for ongoing design and construction of the experimental urban laboratory Arcosanti, an EcoCity in the making. A longtime Soleri collaborator, Stein was formerly Dean of the Boston Architectural College, where he managed the BAC's 2009 Solar Decathlon entry; and headed the department of architecture at Wentworth Institute, also in Boston. He has taught in the Career Discovery Program at Harvard Graduate School of Design; at the Technicum Winterthur, Zurich; and at Ecole de Architecture Languedoc-Rousillon, in Montpellier, France. Mr. Stein was Commissioner of Education for the Boston Society of Architects, on the editorial board of ARCHITECTURE BOSTON, and was the award-winning architecture critic for the New England newspaper, BANKER + TRADESMAN. Stein lectures widely about Arcosanti, including at the Tel Aviv-Yafo Centennial Conference on Urban Sustainability. He recently completed an American translation of the Swiss text, THE ECOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF BUILDING, with his wife, art historian Emilie Altemose.

Mr. Hiroaki Suzuki

Lead Urban Specialist: Finance, Economic and Urban Department, The World Bank;

author of Eco2Cities

Hiroaki Suzuki has more than 20 years of experience in World Bank operations in infrastructure and public sector management in various regions. After working in the East Asia and Pacific Region, as East Asia Urban Sector Leader/China Urban Sector Coordinator for five years, he joined the Bank’s corporate Finance Economics & Urban Department (FEU) in 2009 as Lead Urban Specialist and Eco2 Team Leader. He is the main author of Eco2 Cities: Ecological Cities as Economic Cities. Before joining the Bank, he assumed management responsibilities in Japan’s Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (current JICA) and in a management consulting company in Japan. He graduated from Yokohama City University and MIT Sloan School of Management and obtained a French Diploma from Caen University, France. His personal interest is Kendo (a Japanese sword martial art). He lives in Virginia, USA, with his family.

Mr. Hans Tippenhauer

President Hope for Haiti Foundation (Fondation Espoir Haiti); member of President Martelly's Transition Team

Hans Tippenhauer started his career at Caribe General Electric in Porto Rico. In 1992, he returned to Haiti where he worked as a consulting engineer and founded the Department of Industrial Engineering in the Faculty of Science at the University of Quisqueya in Port-au-Prince.

From 1993 to 1997, Tippenhauer ran Haiti Packaging, a Bigio Group company, which he returned to profitability. Later, he became a senior consultant at Groupe Croissance.

He was also the vice president of the Presidential Commission for the Social and Economic Integration of Youth, the Association of Industries of Haiti, and the Haitian Environmental Foundation.

From 1999 to 2000, Tippenhauer hosted two weekly radio programs, Rendez-vous de l’excellence and Jeune Ayiti on Radio Vision 2000. He also co-produced and c0-hosted the first TV show in Haiti to feature political debates.

Today, he is the President of the Fondation Espoir, a member of the World Movement for Democracy’s Steering Committee, and the coordinator of the World Movement’s Latin American and Caribbean Network for Democracy. A long-time civil society and political activist, he is now a member of President Martelly’s Transition Team.

Tippinhauer has a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and is an expert in strategic planning and management for the Goldratt Institute’s “Think Tank” in New Haven, Connecticut.

MR. BRENT TODERIAN, MCIP

Director of City Planning, City of Vancouver, BC, Canada

Brent Toderian was appointed Vancouver’s Director of City Planning in 2006, succeeding celebrated Co-Directors Larry Beasley and Dr. Ann McAfee. His broad mandate involves development and architectural approvals, including many projects related to the 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as city-wide and community visioning and policy, including leadership of the award-winning “EcoDensity” city-wide initiative and other initiatives key to achieving Vancouver’s goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020. Since assuming the Director’s role, Brent has been promoting a candid dialogue around bold new opportunities for sustainability, creativity, and architectural risk-taking.

Brent came to Vancouver from the City of Calgary, where as Manager of Centre City Planning + Design, he oversaw visioning, development and design in Calgary’s Downtown, Midtown and Beltline communities. Brent also created and was leading Calgary’s award-winning Centre City Plan, which took an unusually holistic approach to the future success of Centre City.

A passionate advocate for creative city-building, urban design and architecture, Brent speaks and writes globally on the subjects, has taught and lectured at numerous universities, has provided peer mentoring to many global cities, and is a co-founder and President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism while sitting on numerous other boards and groups related to cities. Called a “sophisticated urbanist” by the Vancouver Sun, and an “urban firecracker” by the Globe and Mail, Brent practices what he calls holistic urbanism in all aspects of his work.

Mr. Thorsten Tonndorf

Head of the Urban Development Planning Division, Berlin

Born in 1962, Thorsten Tonndorf studied urban and regional planning and political science in Berlin, Germany, and Milan, Italy. He acted as research assistant at the Institute of Urban Research (Institut für Stadtforschung und Strukturpolitik GmbH) in Berlin and, in 1992, as project manager for community development consulting at Arthur D. Little GmbH, also in Berlin. Since 1993 he has held various positions in the Senate Department for Urban Development, Berlin and is Head of the Urban Development Planning Division since 2004.

Mr. Gérald Tremblay

Mayor of Montréal

Elected mayor of Montréal in November 2001, Gérald Tremblay was re-elected to a second term in the fall of 2005. In addition to his role as mayor, Mr. Tremblay is chairman of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) and the Montréal Agglomeration Council.

A lawyer and member of the Barreau du Québec since 1970, Gérald Tremblay holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Harvard Business School. He developed a business turnaround concept while acting as senior partner and general manager of a consulting firm under the Sobeco Ernst & Young Group. After helping to revive the Fédération des Caisses d’entraide économique du Québec, he was noticed by the Government of Quebec at the time, which was led by Robert Bourassa. He was president of the Société de développement industriel du Québec from 1986 to 1989 and then served on the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec and Hydro-Québec’s board of directors, becoming member of the latter’s executive committee.

In 1989, Gérald Tremblay was elected as the Liberal MNA for Outremont and appointed Minister of Industry, Commerce, Sciences and Technology from 1989 to 1994. During his mandate he designed and advanced Quebec’s economic development strategy based on the industry cluster concept.

Today, in addition to being mayor, president of the CMM and the agglomeration council, Gérald Tremblay is shouldering other responsibilities in various Canadian and international bodies.

professor Peter A. Victor

Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University

Dr. Peter Victor is an economist who has worked on environmental issues for over 40 years as an academic, consultant and public servant. His most recent book is Managing without Growth. Slower by Design, not Disaster. (Edward Elgar, 2008)

Dr. Victor is a Professor in Environmental Studies at York University and from 1996 to 2001 was Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies. This followed several years as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environmental Sciences and Standards Division in the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. Prior to that Dr. Victor was a principal of VHB Consulting and Victor and Burrell Research and Consulting where he undertook many influential policy-related economic studies in Canada and abroad.

Dr. Victor has served on numerous boards and advisory committees and he has appeared as an expert witness before various Commissions. From 2000 to 2004 he was President of the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science, Canada’s oldest science organization, and from 2004-2006 he was Chair of Environment Canada’s Science and Technology Advisory Board. Currently he is a member of the Advisory Committee on the National Accounts for Statistics Canada, the Academic Advisory Panel of TruCost, the Board of the David Suzuki Foundation, and the editorial advisory board of several journals.