Ulla Engelmann is a Head of Unit in DG GROW, the Directorate General being responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, at the European Commission. Her portfolio covers Social Economy, European Cluster Policy, Skills for industry, as well as specific aspects of Advanced Technologies including Intelligent Cities Challenge. In a previous function, her unit was responsible for women entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. She worked at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the in-house science service of European Commission, for many years in different functions. She started in the JRC in Ispra (Italy) in 1993 as a post-doc in fusion research, and moved on to manage various units (communication, international relations, and others) in Ispra and Brussels. Dr. Engelmann holds a PhD in analytical and radiochemistry completed at the National Research Centre in Karlsruhe. 

John Higgins is the Chair of the Global Digital Foundation and a Senior Advisor digital and AI to global communications company, Burson Cohn & Wolfe. He will become President of the BCS, the UK’s Chartered Institute of IT in March 2021, and is currently serving as Deputy President. He is chair of the advisory board of the European Commission’s Intelligent Cities Challenge and chairs the University of Warwick's European Advisory Board. He was Director General of DIGITALEUROPE, the association for the digital technology industry in Europe, until April 2017, following nine years leading its UK member association, Intellect, now TechUK. 

John was President of the European Commission’s Strategic Policy Forum (SPF) on Digital Entrepreneurship. The SPF was facilitated by DG Grow for almost three years and examined the current and future impact of new digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence on important sectors of the European economy and society such as automotive, healthcare, SMEs and social enterprise. 

The Queen appointed him a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 for his services to the UK IT industry. 

Dana Eleftheriadou steers EU policy development on intelligent cities and the proximity economy, advanced technologies, artificial intelligence with the view to foster Europe’s technological and industrial leadership. She drives policy initiatives and action plans that are leveraging advanced tech to address the world’s biggest challenges and lead the green and digital transition and social welfare.

She designed and oversees the Intelligent Cities Challenge initiative, which helps over 130 EU cities to make the most of cutting-edge technologies to lead a green and digital recovery. She spearheads work on the Tech4Good initiative to promote technology-powered solutions and business models designed to advance social, environmental and economic causes, as well as on Local Green Deals that support cities deliver the European Green Deal at local level.

She has been working on the EU new Industrial Strategy, Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy, critical AI applications, digitising the European Industry. She served as the EU coordinator of the high-level group Strategic Policy Forum on Digital Entrepreneurship and steers the Member States Board on Advanced Technologies to coordinate national policies and forge the implementation of EU strategies.

She negotiated EU positions in international dialogues, as EU delegate at the G7 ICT and Industry Ministerial and at the G20 dialogue for Innovative Growth; the EU-US dialogue on eCommerce, the Trans-Atlantic business dialogue (TABD), and the OECD. She is member of the World Economic Forum Digital Leaders Group and has been co-author of the World Economic Forum Global IT Report.

Dana Eleftheriadou holds an MBA with distinction from Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), a MEng in Computer Engineering from the University of Patras, Greece and a diploma in Philosophy from MIT, USA.

Filipe Araújo is Porto’s Vice-Mayor and City Councillor for Innovation and Environment, Chairman of the Board of Directors of AdePorto (Porto’s Energy Agency), Chairman of the Board of Directors of Porto Digital Association (supports the Porto City Council in the development of e-government projects and online services), board member of LIPOR- Intermunicipal Waste Management of Greater Porto, Chair of Eurocities Environment Forum, Vice-Chair of Eurocities Environment Forum (2016-2018), advisory board member of Portuguese Association for the Development of Communications, advisory board member of MIL (Media Innovation Labs) of Porto University, and member of the Innovation Advisory Board, of Porto University. 

He has a degree in Electrical Engineering (Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto) and holds a M.Sc. in Telecommunications (UMIST - University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester, UK). He was a guest Professor at the Faculty of Science of University of Porto, between 2007 and 2011 and a Municipal Deputy of Porto between 2005 and 2009. Other relevant executive functions include Service Manager in a telecommunication company and board member of the Youth Foundation.

Head of Economic Development at the City of Espoo, Harri leads the city's Competitiveness and International Affairs Group and chairs the management group of Business Espoo, the business service network of Espoo. His responsibilities are centered around supporting the growth of companies and creation of private sector jobs, and representing Espoo in national innovation collaborations such as the 6aika management group. Harri has also served in two council periods as Program manager of an inter-organizational development program which tackles wicked urban challenges related to competitiveness, employment, entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Harri has a background both in innovation management research as well as private sector work, ranging from consulting and business development to marketing and sales in Finland as well as internationally. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, he has also dabbled in startups. Growing up Harri played a lot of Sim City and Civilization (and still does if he has the time) and considers working in city development to be living the dream! 
 

Alice Charles leads the Cities and Real Estate workstreams at the World Economic Forum. This includes the Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization, the Real Estate Industry Action Group, the Net Zero Carbon Cities: An integrated approach initiative, the production of all cities and real estate related content and events at World Economic Forum Summits (including Davos).  

She is also a Member of the European Commission Intelligent Cities Advisory Board, a Member of the UN Habitat Stakeholder Advisory Group, a Member of the Commission for Innovation and Inclusive Growth for the City of Belfast,  a Member of the Mayors' Global Council for the City of Buenos Aires, a member of the Visiting Committee of the Senseable City Lab, MIT, a Member of the Urban Leadership Council (ULC) for the Coalition for Urban Transitions, Jury Member of the WWF One Planet City Challenge and a Jury Member of the Real Play City Challenge.  

She has nineteen years’ experience working in the areas of cities, urban development, town planning, real estate, infrastructure, environment, climate change and public policy globally. She was previously an External Board Member of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA), Ireland Planning Advisory Committee from 2010 to November 2020. In addition, she previously worked for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government (now called the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government), Ireland, Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament), Ireland, Jacobs Engineering (formerly SKM Colin Buchanan) and Avison Young (formerly GVA), London, UK. 

She has a Masters in Global Leadership through the World Economic Forum, in conjunction with The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Cornell Tech, INSEAD, London Business School and the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), a Master’s in Business Administration from University College Dublin Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, a Postgraduate Diploma in Town and Country Planning from Queens University Belfast and a 1st Class Honours Degree in Environmental Planning from Queen’s University Belfast. She is a Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a Member of the Irish Planning Institute. In 2017 she was awarded the Irish Echo 40 under 40 Award, which recognizes outstanding global contributions of Irish and Irish Americans, before reaching the age of 40. 

Goele Haest, director of business and city marketing, studied communication sciences at KU Leuven and started her career in the cultural sector. At the age of 23 she became director of one of the Antwerp cultural centers. After a 2 year stopover as communications manager for ‘ABC2004’, Unesco World Book Capital, she became responsible for the entire network of culture and meeting centers of the city. In 2010 she was appointed HR director and became part of the city management board. In 2020 she chose to lead the business and city marketing department, which is responsible for the implementation of the city’s ambitions with regard to work and employment, economy and industry, tourism, marketing and communication and the counter services. She is driven by the passion of working for the city in which she lives. 

Sébastien Viano gained master’s degrees in International Relations from the University Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne and in European Politics from the Brussels Institute for European Studies. He also holds the diploma of the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies. From 2005 to 2008, he worked in DG External Relations of the European Commission. From 2009 to beginning 2015, he served as parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament providing political advice to MEPs in the following committees ITRE, ENVI, IMCO and AFET. Since March 2015, he has joined the City of Nice and the Metropole Nice Côte d’Azur as Director of European Affairs, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and External Funding in the Directorate General Enterprise, Economic Development, Tourism et Employment. 

Cristina Moram is councilor for European Projects and Sustainable development at the Cartagena city council in Spain. This political stage comes after a professional background in the private sector that has helped Cristina to have an overall vision of human resources, leadership, team management, and coaching as a tool for personal and professional growth. 

Graduated in Psychology, she has more than 18 years of specialisation in the health sector. For nine years Cristina took on responsibilities on human resources management and customer service in the Spanish company Practiser, a company with more than 40 years of successful track record and a large and relevant portfolio of clients and subscribers. 
 

Anna Riccioni is an IT Officer for the Municipality of Reggio Emilia (Italy), where she is involved in several digital transformation and smart city projects. She is responsible for coordinating the Smart City Protocol and she is in charge of organizing periodic meetings with Local Stakeholders for promoting digital agenda initiatives. Previously she worked in the private sector as a process business consultant for Municipalities and she was involved in business analysis for e-Government citizen portals and for tax management software. In 2010 she got a PhD in Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy). Thanks to her previous experiences, she has developed a consolidated knowledge of different e-government domains including tax management, e-Voting, digital and remote signature, technology-enhanced teaching and learning.

After working several years as product manager and account manager for different digital projects such as UiTPAS (discount and loyalty scheme for leisure), UiTdatabank (crowdsourcing event information) and Culturefeed API’s (distributing eventdata through API’s, widgets and open source platforms) and lecturing for University College Leuven Limburg (UCLL) in digital innovation in social profit, Tim decided to make his hometown of Leuven smarter and to work as a Policy Advisor Smart City for the city of Leuven. Tim is dedicated in providing a framework for tying together all the different smart city projects in Leuven and advancing the city in their use of IoT, data technology and insight.