Speakers

Mr. Huchon is since 1998 President of the Regional Council of Ile-de-France. Graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and a former student of the École nationale d'administration,he is a civil administrator in the Budget Department of the Ministry of Finance.He also holds the Presidency of the Syndicat des transports d'Ile-de-France.

He is since 2006, President of Metropolis, President of the Metropolitan Section of UCLG and Vice-President of UCLG. He is the author of Jours tranquilles à Matignon, Ceux qui aiment ne peuvent pas perdre et De Battre ma gauche s’est arrêtée.

He has been Mayor of Cornellà de Llobregat since April 2004. He also led the Socialist ticket in the municipal elections of 2007 and 2011 and won them both times. In July 2007 he took over as senior executive vice-president of the Association of Municipalities of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. In accordance with the Law unanimously approved by the Parliament of Catalonia, the new Barcelona Metropolitan Area was created in July 2011, and he is its Executive Vice-President.

Mr. Golconda Raj Kumar  is an Indian politician and presently holds the coveted position of Deputy Mayor  of  Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in Hyderabad, India. Mr Raj Kumar holds a Bachelor Degree in Accounting and comes from a respected political family background. He joined the Congress party in 1982 and held a number of political positions including Hyderabad City Congress Vice President from 2003 to 2005. He was a member of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation standing committee before got elected as Deputy Mayor. In his speech at the Political Plenary Session he will address the topic of promoting inclusive physical and social infrastructure in Hyderabad.

Dr. Khosla is the Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE) in India. She works with slum communities in a number of Indian cities with the purpose of reimagining slum development; engineering a shift from city to people-led development. Through her work, she is; strengthening capacity of local, state and national government agencies for engaging with the poor, visualizing community information using spatial (GIS) technologies, and localizing implementation strategies for building inclusive cities. She has in-depth understanding of slum communities and city development issues in India, and the relevant procedures and policies and their applications for integrated slums development. Her projects are innovative and have received several best practice awards/citations and are under replication in other cities.

Andra  Robert  is  a  business  manager.  She  has  previously served as an assistant for the Director of Technology of ENGEBRAS - 2005/2008; assistant for  Chief  Executive of DERSA - Road Development SA - 2008/2010; Advisor to the Director  of Planning and Development of CDHU– Company of Housing and Urban Development - 2010/2011. Currently  Ms. Robert works with the subsecretary of the Casa

Paulista  (Paulista  Agency for Social Housing), an agency of the São Paulo State Secretariat of Housing.

The Spanish researcher and educator began his career at the University of Toronto in 1971 and is currently the coordinator of the City protocol Society as well as professor emeritus at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. Although most of his work has been at universities, he was a founder of two Spanish companies, Chemical Technology Transfer Service and SIMPPLE. He spent 12 years as a consultant for Dow Chemical. His current research interests include chemistry, physics, engineering and computer science. He has multiple degrees including a Master of Applied Science, PhD in Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and an MBA.

Edgar Pieterse is holder of the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Urban Policy. He directs the African Centre for Cities and is Professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, both at the University of Cape Town. The ACC is fast emerging as the preeminent urban research centre on the African continent. He previously served as Special Advisor to the Premier of the Western Cape Provincial Government in South Africa and directed a number of urban policy think tanks before his stint in government.

Brazilian economist, MD in Agricultural Development in the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro.

He has participated in the elaboration of the National Plan for Food Security (2011/2015), in the preparation of the Zero Hunger Strategy in the Office of Citizenship, in the Food Summit in Rome (1996) as well as in the coordination of the World Forum on Food Sovereignty in Havana (2001).

Menezes was President of National Council of Food and Nutrition Security (CONSEA) from 2004-2008, during the same period he also chaired and coordinated Policy Area of ActionAid Brazil.

He is a researcher at the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE) and has conducted several studies on the topics of Food Security and Poverty. He is also author of several published texts on social issues.

Mr. Coelho is the Special Secretary for Science and Technology in the city of Rio de Janeiro since June 2010.

He is also Professor of the Faculty of Economics at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) since 1989. Main issues of teaching and research: local development and digital inclusion, knowledge society and digital cities, local economic development. From the UFF, coordinated the digital inclusion project in the state of Rio, which aims to provide access to high speed internet in cities with less than 50,000 inhabitants, who are hardly telcos investments due to lack of viability commercial.

Mr. Rodrigues is CEO and Founder of MtoM Consulting, a Brazilian Company developing Advanced Marketing & Operations Technologic Platforms for Smart and Human Cities, Smart Buildings and Intelligent Ecosystems. It has the roll to identifying strategic business opportunities, developing interaction between its various products and services with various stakeholders to integrate the platforms, and correlation between them on a integration point of view,  promoting strong interactions on different levels on the Urban Ecosystem, likewise Government and Public Institutions, Private Companies, Educational Entities and other players on the Urban Ecosystem.

Over the last 10 years her research has interrogated the nature of the informal economy and informalisation processes in South Africa. A persistent theme has been to understand how urban social movements, policies and governance shape the living and work environment of the working poor. As the global research-policy network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing or WIEGO's Urban Policies Programme Director, this focus, although similar in content, is now extended to the global South.

Tanya Zack is a town planner. Her major areas of focus have been in housing research and policy development, community participation and evaluation of large scale development projects. She has worked within local government and as a private consultant, both on policy work and in practical projects. She has a close relationship to Wits University where she obtained a PhD for work on critical pragmatism in planning.  Tanya grew up in the inner city suburbs of Johannesburg. Alongside her consulting work in urban policy development, she is currently immersing herself in the inner-city, documenting experiences through photography and the collection of stories – with a particular focus on the so-called 'Ethiopian Quarter' of the city.

Camaren Peter’s research is concerned with transitions to sustainability at multiple scales, and he is deeply engaged with emerging theories of sustainability. A key aspect of the research that he is engaged with involves formulating sustainable development strategies at different implementation scales, namely; the global, regional, national, provincial and city scales. More recently, he has devoted his attention to understanding transitions to urban sustainability in developing world cities, and is deeply interested in how they may be influenced by global technology trends, and changes in the global economy and ecology.

Topic of Discussion:

Sustainable, Resource-Efficient Cities in the Global South: More than Just a Technological Challenge!

Dr. Barbara Lipietz is an interdisciplinary planner with a background in history and development studies. She is Lecturer at the Bartlett's Development Planning Unit (UCL) where she co-directs the DPU's MSc in Urban Development Planning and convenes the DPU Research Cluster on Urban Transformations. She is editor of the 'Forum' section of the journal CITY which seeks to stimulate debate on the city from a variety of experiences and viewpoints - especially those outside the confines of academia and the 'global north'. Barbara has research, policy and consultancy experience in urban policy and urban governance, including moderating the e-dialogue on participatory governance for the World Urban Forum in Rio.

Ms. Rose Molokoane is National Chairperson of the 80,000-member South African Homeless People's Federation, their national savings coordinator, and a Board Member of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI). A South African veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, she is one of the most internationally recognized grassroots activists involved in land tenure and housing issues.Rose Molokoane has travelled to Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines as well as many African nations to share SDI’s methods. She was awarded the Habitat Scroll of Honour in 2005 for her tireless struggle to bring land and homes to the poor.

Ms. Liao has been a human rights officer with OHCHR since 2006, serving as Regional Human Rights Officer based in Northern Uganda, OHCHR Deputy Representative and Field Coordinator for the Uganda Office, and Justice and Legal Coordinator for the Human Rights Unit of United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS). Before joining OHCHR Ms. Liao was rule of law focal point for United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in its Humanitarian Policy and Advocacy Unit, initiating the UNICEF work on UN common position on Justice for Children. Prior to her work with United Nations institutions, she worked for the Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and as a researcher and lecturer for different law schools. Ms. Liao holds a Bachelor of Social Welfare (B.S.W. Calgary), a Bachelor of Laws (LLB Osgoode Hall), Masters of Law (LLM Columbia) and is completing the dissertation for her Doctors of Law at Columbia University (JSD).      

Dr. Renu Khosla is the Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Excellence (CURE) in India. She works with slum communities in a number of Indian cities with the purpose of reimagining slum development; engineering a shift from city to people-led development. Through her work, she is; strengthening capacity of local, state and national government agencies for engaging with the poor, visualizing community information using spatial (GIS) technologies, and localizing implementation strategies for building inclusive cities. She has in-depth understanding of slum communities and city development issues in India, and the relevant procedures and policies and their applications for integrated slums development. Her projects are innovative and have received several best practice awards/citations and are under replication in other cities.

The Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship was founded by Sir Richard Branson to create a launch-pad for aspirant South African entrepreneurs.

Ms. Webster also heads-up Virgin Unite Africa, the non-profit arm of the Virgin Group on the African continent, which she joined in 2011, after spending nine years dedicated to the plight of orphaned and vulnerable children across South Africa.  She also worked as an independent social development consultant for clients such as Renew EN USA, a smart energy solutions provider, and the NGO Could You? Based in New York, which drives philanthropic foreign direct investment from high-nett worth individuals and media in the United States to relevant African-led initiatives. In addition, Webster currently serves as the vice chair of the Lonely Road Foundation and is a trustee of Cheese kids for Humanity.

Previously Mr. Hatang was the Head of Information Communications and spokesperson for the South African Human Rights Commission. He participated in the post-1994 transformation of the National Archives, including providing archival support for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and is a former Director of the South African History Archive (SAHA) at Wits University. He serves on the boards of SAHA and the Open Democracy Advice Centre. He is a founding member and member of the Advisory Council of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC). He is a member of the editorial team for Nelson Mandela’s book Conversations with Myself and co-editor of Nelson Mandela: By Himself: the Authorised Book of Quotations and Notes to the Future.

Ms. Kirabo has broad knowledge and experience of more than 15 years in senior management and strategic leadership in Government and non-governmental institutions, both national and international.  Since February 2011, she has served as Governor of Eastern Province, Rwanda’s largest province. Ms. Kirabo has also overseen the development and urbanization of the Province, which borders the capital, Kigali, in a sustainable manner.

Amanda Gouws is Professor of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in the USA.  Her specialization is South African Politics and Gender Politics. Her research focuses on women and citizenship, the National Gender Machinery and representation.  She is the editor of (Un)Thinking Citizenship: Feminist Debates in Contemporary South Africa. (UK: Ashgate and Cape Town: Juta, 2005).  In 2007 she was the Edith Keeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor at Northwestern University, USA.  In 2011 she was selected as a Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation Centre in Bellagio, Italy, where she was working on a book on the Women’s Movement in South Africa. In 2012 she received the Wilma Rule Award for the best paper at the International Political Science Association Conference in Madrid, Spain, in the category Gender and Politics with the title “Multiculturalism in South Africa: Dislodging the Binary between Universal Human Rights and Culture/Tradition”.  She is a Commissioner for the South African Commission on Gender Equality.

Journalist and Public Relations MBA

Ms. Claes co-organized the 1^st Forum « Dynamic cities need Women » in Brussels in 2007, and manages one of the pilot directions of the Ministry of the Brussels-Capital to implement gender in labor processes. She holds a Master’s degree in Law from Université libre de Bruxelles (1983). Previously, she has worked as lawyer , as an officer for the Ministry of the Region Bruxelles-Capitale, as the representative for Belgium in the European Union, and as international relations  adviser to the Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital.

Ms. Alabdallat has been participating since 2012 in international conferences and workshop related to women empowerment. Her work has covered the gender perspective in many areas, including water supply, health, human trafficking, violence, good governance, and political participation. She is a member of several associations and committees, and works voluntarily for governmental and non-governmental organizations. Her academic background is in Library science and information systems, and she has already worked for the educational sector, for the Jordanian Olympic committee, and for the Greater Amman Municipality, where she was as the head of library section, and also head of marketing section in cultural department, working on projects aimed to promote culture in cooperation with NGOs and the private sector, targeted on youth, children and women.

Elaine Rosa Salo is Director of the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, from 2009. She worked at the African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town as a senior lecturer since 2000. Salo has published extensively nationally and internationally. Her research focuses on gender and identity, violence, social construction of masculinities, feminism, sexuality, patriarchy and women’s rights. Salo is professionally affiliated with various societies and associations. This inludes membership of the African Studies Association, United States of America; International Association for the Study of Sexual Cultures in Society, AEGIS European Association of African Studies ; Anthropological Association of Southern Africa; Gender and Women Studies Africa collective. She is furthermore member of the Editorial Board of the following journals: Society in Transition, Development Journal of Southern Africa; Agenda, Feminist Africa; Jenda - Journal about gender in Africa. Elaine Salo has broad experience in public service.