Mr Michael Koh is the Executive Fellow at the Centre for Liveable Cities, Ministry of National Development, Singapore, where he is involved in research, organisation of the World Cities Summit and Mayors Forum, capability development and international advisory projects.   

He was previously the Head of Projects and Design at SC Global overseeing both overseas and Singapore development projects. He served 6.5 years as CEO of the National Heritage Board (NHB) and 3.5 years as concurrent CEO of the National Art Gallery (NAGA). Before joining NHB, Michael held appointments at Singbridge Holdings and Mapletree Holdings, and was the Director of Urban Planning & Design at the Urban Redevelopment Authority and he spearheaded the city planning and urban design of Singapore’s Central Area.  

Michael serves as a Board member on the National Library Board, and has served on the Boards of the NHB, Land Transport Authority, Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, Civil Service College, Hotel Licensing Board, Street and Building Naming Committee, and National Art Gallery. Michael chairs the Public Library Advisory Committee, and the Persons with Disability sub-committee. 

Currently he is the Milan Chief Resilience Officer and the City Lead for the H2020 Lighthouse project Sharing Cities at the Municipality of Milan.  He is an advisor of the Italian Ministry of Environment Land and Sea on Urban Adaptation Policy to Climate Change.

In recent years was the Co-Founder of Climalia, specialised consulting company providing climate services in Italy, where he operates as Resilience Specialist. Piero was an Acclimatise Associate.
 
Piero is a member of the European Commission Mayors Adapt Practitioners Work Group and Member of FiRe 2016 Implementation Working Group at Climate Policy Initiative. He is member of the Advisory Board of the EU FP7 Ramses Project that aims to structure a cost\benefit analysis methodology for Urban Adaptation Plans. 
 
He has extensive expertise in projects financed by the European Commission, including the LIFE+ project BlueAP Bologna Local Urban Environment Adaptation Plan for a Resilient City (Senior Expert), LIFE+ RECOIL Recovered waste cooking oil for combined heat and power production (Technical Director), MED Greenpartnerships as Senior Expert and MED ZeroCO2 Small communities for big changing.
 
He further specialised in Urban Resilience, Environmental Economic Accounting, Energy Scenario and Climate Change Impact Models through his working experience at the Stockholm Environment Institute – Tallinn Office. In past years he collaborated with EU MP, Umberto Guidoni. 

He writes for different specialised magazines and web-portals on climate change issues. 

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.

Valentina Superti is a Director in DG GROW (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) at the European Commission. She is responsible for the policies on tourism, textiles, social economy, and the digitalisation of industry. Previously, she was Resources Director (from 2015 to March 2021), and Director responsible for the single market for goods from 2014 to 2015. 

Her previous responsibilities include serving as Deputy Head of Cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Antonio Tajani, in charge of Industry, SMEs, Galileo and Copernicus, from 2011 to 2014. Starting in 2004 until 2010, Valentina had a number of head of unit responsibilities in the Directorate General for Human Resources and Security of the European Commission, ranging from personnel policy to ethics. In 2002 Valentina joined the private office of Vice-President Neil Kinnock, when she dealt with budgetary and personnel matters, after having served in the Legal Service of the European Commission, dealing with competition law matters. From 1990 to 2000, Valentina worked as a competition lawyer in the Competition Directorate General of the European Commission. Her responsibilities included handling of cases in Anti-Trust matters, then Mergers and Acquisitions, finally State Aids. She worked as a trainee lawyer in Milan in 1988, and in the Legal department of Montedison, Milan, in 1989. 

Valentina is graduated in Law at the Catholic University in Milan, Italy, in 1988. She took a Master in EU Law at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, in 1989.

Mr Hartog has Dutch nationality and was born and raised in Utrecht (the Netherlands). He obtained a degree in political economics at the Erasmus University (Rotterdam) and subsequently a post-graduate degree at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium). He has worked in the European Commission since 1989, first in Trade policy, then in Regional policy and in Maritime policy and lately in Information Society and Media policy. He is a Head of Unit since 2003. His present responsibility (since July 2016) is Head of Unit for Technologies for Smart Communities in DG Communication Networks, Content and Technology. Mr Hartog is married and has two daughters.

Since December 2020, Xavier Troussard is leading the New European Bauhaus Unit created at the Joint Research Centre. The New European Bauhaus is a co-creation initiative intended to be a bridge between science and technologies on one side, and arts, culture and design on the other to meet the expectations of citizens for new forms of living together. It is planned to be both a think tank and a do tank to revisit our living places and associated life styles around three dimensions - sustainability (including circularity), qualitative experience (including aesthetics) and inclusiveness (including affordability).

Before, Xavier worked at the DG for Information, Communication, Culture and Audiovisual where he contributed to the establishment and development of the EU audiovisual policy before representing the European Commission and leading the EU coordination in the negotiation of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. As Head of the ’Culture policy, diversity and Intercultural dialogue’ Unit in the Directorate General for Education and Culture, he developed the European Agenda for culture and an EU strategy for cultural and creative industries. He contributed to the shaping of the first EU Creative Europe Programme and managed its MEDIA sub-programme.

Xavier Troussard graduated in Law and General Administration from the University of Rennes (France) and from the College of Europe in European Studies (Bruges, Belgium).

PhD in Sociology. Lecturer, expert, politician and social activist. Former mayor and president of one of the Polish regions, active in many European local and regional government organisations. Regional policy and urban development expert. Speaker at international conferences on urban related issues. Member of the European Parliament since 2004, Vice-Chairman of its Committee on Regional Development in the years 2004-2009, Vice-Chairman of its Special Committee on Policy Challenges and Budgetary Resources for a Sustainable European Union after 2013 in the years 2010-2011. Currently Vice Chairman and Chief Whip of the EPP Group. Member of the Parliamentary Committee on Budgets (standing co-rapporteur on the Multiannual Financial Framework, EPP vice-coordinator) and substitute member of the Regional Development Committee. President of the European Parliament's URBAN Intergroup since 2009. It is a cross parties and cross-committees grouping with a horizontal approach to discuss urban related issues. It brings together over 52 MEPs. It works with 137 partners from local, regional, national and European level that represent the interests of European’s towns and cities or work in the domain relevant for urban development. 

Nicolás Rivillas Hincapié  is the Deputy Manager of Design and Innovation of the Urban Development Company (EDU) of Medellín. He studied architecture and owns a master in Project Management (PMP). He has nearly 13 years of experience managing planning, infrastructure and real estate projects, both nationally and internationally, seeking the coherent leverage of organisations and territories through innovation and management of change tools.

Tadashi Matsumoto leads OECD’s work on sustainable urban development. He provides strategic leadership and oversees the research and analysis on the zero-carbon transition, climate resilience in cities, sustainable urban design and planning, integrating housing and transport policies, urban green growth, localising SDGs, decarbonising buildings and urban biodiversity. He currently leads the OECD programme on A Territorial Approach to Climate Action and Resilience and coordinates the National Urban Policy Programme, a global partnership with UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance. He has also led OECD’s contribution to Habitat III Conference, World Urban Forums and climate COPs. 

Tadashi is a lead author of Compact City Policies (2012), Urban Green Growth in Dynamic Asia (2016) and Building Resilient Cities: An Assessment of Disaster Risk Management Policies in Southeast Asia (2018), among many other OECD reports. 

Before joining the OECD in 2009, Tadashi worked for the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism for more than 10 years. Tadashi holds a MUP (Urban Planning) from New York University and a Ph.D. from Tokyo University (Engineering). He lectures at Tsukuba University, Japan, and Sciences Po, France.

Mr. Dimoulis is Scientific Advisor to the Mayor of the Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontian Islands on Waste management, Circular Economy and Public Health affairs. He holds a BA in Public Health and he has M.Sc. in Waste Management. He is certified in Sustainable Tourism from Global Sustainable Tourism Council and he is currently participating in the 1st training programme on DevOps approach in the Smart Cities. He has participated in relevant conferences, both as a speaker and as an attendee.  

He has been focused mainly on educating and providing awareness to the citizens (producing of the environmental education telecast "Green Stories", creation of a voluntary class for adults with the title “Basic principles on household waste management”) and communities (“Green Corners Corfu”) on the proper management of household solid waste, the principles of circular economy and how to successfully apply “Waste separation at source”.  

He is also the Assistant Project Manager of Corfu’s ICC Team and dedicated to all relevant commitments that are coming from their participation in the ICC initiative. 

Daniel is a Telecom Engineer from the University of Malaga. He started his career as a strategy and business consultant at Arthur Andersen.  Later, he led the deployment of a city-wide Powerline Communications network for Spanish utility Iberdrola, before moving on to manage the regional knowledge coordinator Andalusian Technology Network.  At present, he is director general of the Spain-based Smart City Cluster, where he helps make cities better all around the world. 

Philippe Froissard graduated in nuclear engineering in Grenoble (France) in 1988 and completed his PhD in nuclear physics in 1992. He worked on nuclear fusion research at the JET Joint Undertaking in Oxfordshire (UK) and then at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) in Cadarache until 1999. He joined the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation in 2000 and held several positions since dealing in particular with Human Resources and Mobility, International Cooperation and Research Infrastructures R&I policies and activities. In 2019, he moved to the Future Urban and Mobility Systems Unit, responsible for R&I strategy and activities on surface transport and for the Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission. He was appointed Head of this unit in January 2021.

After obtaining her Degree in Law from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, she completed a master's degree in International Legal Studies at The American University (Washington DC) and took part in a Lam Exchange Program with the University of San Diego (California) in Mexico and Guatemala. 

She began her professional career in Madrid as Legal Advisor of the International Division of Banco de Santander, a function she held until she moved to Brussels to begin her career as a European civil servant. She has extensive professional experience within the European Commission, holding various positions of responsibility since 1991 in different areas.  

From December 1994 to June 1999, she was responsible for the negotiations of the EU / Latin America Cooperation Agreements in the Directorate General for External Relations. Subsequently, she coordinated and monitored the development instruments of the 7 EDF in the Directorate General for Development, as geographical manager of Guinea Bissau. During her time in the General Directorate of Education and Culture she held the position of Deputy Head of Unit and was in charge of a team in the Finance unit, giving support and service to the operational units in the budgetary, financial and contractual areas.  

In January 2013, she joined the General Directorate of Enterprise, Internal Market and SMEs as Deputy Head of the Human Resources Unit, a responsibility she will continue to hold in the Agency of the European Commission of Small and Medium Enterprises, (EASME) in the 2014 as Head of Unit.  

Currently, she is Head of Unit at SMP / COSME Pillar, responsible for managing COSME pillar of the Single Market Programme (SMP) and of the COSME legacy (2014-2020), the first EU Programme for the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises, of which one of its pillars is the European Business Network (Enterprise Europe Network).

Anna Athanasopoulou is Head of Unit, ‘Proximity, Social Economy and Creative Industries’, at the European Commission. An EU official since 2002, she has held different positions at services and Cabinet-level at the European Commission and the Council of the EU, relating to tourism and textiles, culture and media policy, creative industries, and external relations. Before joining the EU civil service, Anna worked as Adviser to two Ministers of Culture in Greece and as Director of Programme Planning for the Athens 2004 Cultural Olympiad. In parallel, she lectured on History of Art and Cultural Management. Anna studied Archaeology (University of Thessaloniki), specialised in History of Art, where she holds an M.A. (George Washington University) and a Ph.D (Courtauld Institute of Art), and is the author of publications on History of Art and cultural policy.

Gesa Ziemer (Prof. Dr. Phil.) is director of the City Science Lab, a collaboration with the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge/USA and academic lead of the technology and innovation lab UNITAC for the United Nations. She is professor of Cultural Theory at the HafenCity University Hamburg. Her research is focused on Digital City Science, new forms of collaboration and public spaces. She received the Humbold Foundation grant for the Feodor-Lynen Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge/USA and is member of the Scientific Council of Germany.  

Geertje Pronk is a researcher and program manager at KWR water research. After research positions in geochemistry and ecohydrology at the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and the University of Waterloo (Canada), she now works on bridging the gap from science to practice in the water sector.  

She aims to connect scientists, stakeholders and end-users to help solve current and future challenges in maintaining water quality and sustainability. Among other things she manages innovative and future-looking research projects in the collective research for the Dutch and Flemish drinking water utilities.  

Within the Horizon 2020 project B-WaterSmart, she is mentor and coordinator of the living lab Flanders, in which local stakeholders address societal challenges around water availability and work towards a water-smart society and economy for Flanders. 

An architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a founding part- ner of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati. He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. 

A leading voice in the debate on new technologies’ impact on urban life and design, Car- lo has co-authored over 500 publications, including “The City of Tomorrow” (Yale University Press, with Matthew Claudel), and holds several technical patents. His articles and interviews have appeared on international media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Scientific American, BBC, Project Syn- dicate, Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore, Domus. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, MAXXI in Rome, and MoMA in New York City. 

Carlo has been featured in Esquire Magazine’s ‘Best & Brightest’ list and in Thames & Hud- son’s selection of ‘60 innovators’ shaping our creative future. Blueprint Magazine included him as one of the ‘25 People Who Will Change the World of Design’, Forbes listed him as one of the ‘Names You Need To Know’ and Fast Company named him as one of the ’50 Most Influen-tial Designers in America’. He was also featured in Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List: 50 people who will change the world’. Three of his projects – the Digital Water Pavilion, the Copenhagen Wheel and Scribit – have been included by TIME Magazine in the list of the ‘Best Inventions of the Year’. 

Carlo has been a presenter at TED (in 2011 and 2015), program director at the Strelka Insti- tute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, curator of the BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin, and was named Inaugural Innovator in Residence by the Queensland Government. He was the curator of the Future Food District pavilion for the 2015 World Expo in Milan and chief curator of the "Eyes of the City" section at the 2019 UABB Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism of Shenzhen. He is currently serving as co- chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization. 

Marek Teplanský is the Head of Unit at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy responsible for inclusive growth, urban and territorial development. In previous position within the same Directorate-General, he was dealing with the programming and implementation of Cohesion policy programmes in different Member States. 

Luana Bidasca is a policy officer at the European Commission’s Directorate for Mobility and Transport in the Research and Innovation Unit where she develops urban mobility policy and r&I priorities for local transport authorities. Since March 2021, she is contributing to the Climate Neutral and Smart City Mission. In her previous roles she worked for a wide range of non –governmental and city associations, developing policy or managing projects in the areas of road safety and risk mitigation and smart cities. 

Rosa Väisänen is a M.Sc. in Architecture working as a Specialist in Sustainable Urban Development in the City of Espoo, Finland. Together with the city community, her goal is to put the UN sustainable development goals into action especially in the built environment. With a background in participatory design, Rosa’s approach to urban planning and development is based on co-creation, social innovation and creativity.  

Currently Rosa is working on the co-creation of Kera, an old industrial district transforming into a smart and clean urban neighborhood as well as a collaborative platform for the sustainable ideas and solutions of citizens, researchers, industries and the public sector alike. The idea of Kera as a testbed was born out of Espoo’s goals to reach carbon neutrality by 2030 and implement significant circular solutions in the city. In Kera, Rosa is passionate about facilitating dialogue and real-life experimentation: for her, this is a key way to support and promote urban resilience, emission reductions, new innovations, increased communality, learning and well-being.

Michela Magas is an innovation catalyst who bridges the worlds of science and art, design and technology, and academic research and industry, with a track record of over 25 years of innovation. She is innovation advisor to the European Commission and the G7 leaders, Member of President von der Leyen’s High Level Round Table for the New European Bauhaus, and Chair of the Industry Commons Foundation. In 2017, she was awarded European Woman Innovator of the Year and in 2016 she was presented with an Innovation Luminary Award for Creative Innovation. She is the founder and CEO of MTF Labs, a global community platform of around 8000 creative innovators and scientific researchers. The platform provides a test case for innovation in areas as diverse as neuroscience, forestry and microcomputing, and has been hosted worldwide by partners including Microsoft Research New England, Centre Pompidou in Paris and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican in London. Over 20 years she ran Stromatolite Design Lab in London with global clients such as Apple, Nike and Nokia, and prior to that was Art Editor at the Financial Times.

Nils is a senior researcher at imec-SMIT and is coordinating Smart Flanders, a programme that supports 13 cities in Flanders, Belgium, with opening up data. The goal of the programme is to tackle urban and societal problems by making more data available in a way that makes it as easy as possible to reuse. 

A house painter by trade, Jonas started working full time in Oslo Building Workers Union in 2007, where he was responsible for organizing migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe. More than 50 per cent of the union’s members are today from countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Latvia. For the last three years he has been working for the General Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), where he has been working with social dumping, labour market crimes, temp agencies and wage theft. He has also been a councellor for the leader of the Norwegian Labour Party (2014-2017). 

Angelika Marning is Development Consultant at Rummelig imidt, a European Socialfond project in the region of Central Demark. In collaboration with multiple partners, the project has been focusing on circular economy’s potential for social inclusion through generating new jobs for people outside of or on the edges of the labor market.

Anne Marie Frederiksen is Development Consultant in the City of Aarhus – department of Social affairs and Employment. 

Being highly-motivated and passionate on all subjects relevant to Tourism, Dolores has been involved in strategic plans and programmes to support the development of smart tourism destinations. She has worked for two of the Balearic Islands most important tourist municipalities, Calvià and Palma. Thanks to that plus her experience working  in the Regional Government of the Balearic Islands , as well as the private sector, she was appointed vice-president of the TURISTEC Tourism cluster, and the technological Platform Planetic (current positions). The experience accumulated in the field of tourism, innovation, sustainability and the wide range of EU projects in which she participated, made it possible for her to gain valuable and transferable skills with an overall vision of the needs of cities and regions in terms of improving their policies when becoming Smart Cities/Smart Destinations: smart mobility, risk management, governance, energy efficiency. 

Dolores has worked on EU projects for the last 20 years, and has excellent communication skills and a special talent when it comes to bringing together international partnerships. Cofounder of the Balearic Islands Digital Innovation Hub for Tourism and Artificial Intelligence (DIHBAI-TUR). Dolores is a Law Graduate with an Executive Master in Innovation and currently the technical director in AnySolution. 

Dolores is the coordinator of the Green and Digital transition in Tourism for the Intelligent Cities Challenge and the lead and tourism thematic expert for the City of Cartagena.

Dominic Papa is the Vice President of Smart State Initiatives at the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA). The ACA is the state of Arizona’s economic development organisation and represents 91 cities and towns and 15 counties.  In the role Dominic leverages his expertise in emerging governance models and strategic partnerships to drive a broad portfolio of Smart State projects. 

João Moutinho is the Business and Internationalization Director of BUILT CoLAB. In the past he was the Coordinator of the Mobile and Urban Computing Department and Co-Director of the Centre for Computer Graphics of the University of Minho - Portugal, Associate Researcher of INESC TEC, Researcher, Assistant Professor, Researcher and FCT PhD Fellow in INESC TEC in the Department of Electrotechnical Engineering of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto - Portugal. He holds a Bachelor's, a Master's and Ph.D. with Cum Laude distinction in Electrotechnical Engineering by the University of Porto. He is the author of several papers in journals, conferences and periodical publications and co-inventor of two patents. He is also speaker at various events of Smart Cities, Sensors, Logistics, Mobility, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), 5G applied to Autonomous Driving and Communication Routes. He also is the PTPC’s coordinator for Energy Efficient Buildings (E2B) and the representative for it in the European Construction technological Platform (ECTP). He was technical coordinator of several Smart City projects in northern Portugal and an Entrepreneur with several local and national entrepreneurship awards. He is also Vice-President and Head of Environmental Protection and Heritage Section of a Non-Governmental Organization for the Environment. 

Joshua Ciba joined the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) as BIM Manager in 2019. As BIM Manager, he is responsible for the implementation of the methodology BIM (Building Information Modelling) within the company. This includes the development of new standards and regulations as well as the support of BIM projects in quay wall, dike and bridge construction. His standardisation activities focussing on the development of data catalogues and the quality management in the field of port and hydraulic engineering. 

In addition, Joshua Ciba acts as working group leader "Port-Waterway" within the buildingSMART group "BIM in Transport Infrastructure", where the harmonisation of the transport infrastructure sectors applying BIM is to be achieved. Joshua Ciba is also involved in BIM standardisation at BIM.Hamburg. 

Before joining the HPA, he completed his civil engineering studies with focus on water, environmental and coastal engineering at Leibniz University of Hanover with a master’s degree.

Deputy Director LEE Soo-jeong is the head of Global City-to-City Cooperation Team under City Diplomacy Policy Division, Busan Metropolitan City, Republic of Korea.  

Deputy Director Lee is an expert in international relations with years of experiences.  Currently, she coordinates Busan City's sister/friendship city relations in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, engagement with international organizations including Metropolis and UCLG, and city-to-city exchange projects such as EU ICC and IURC. 

Niels van der Linden is a senior director for Capgemini Inven. He studied Public Administration and State Law. He leads the Public Insights & Data team in the Netherlands and is overseeing all the work on digital policies at the European Commission. Key domains of expertise are Skills and Digital Government. He has been involved leading various projects for the Commission that supported the implementation of the Skills Agenda of Europe.  

Sebastian H. Christophersen is an innovation consultant at the department for Innovation, Technology & Creativity at the City of Aarhus, Denmark. Sebastian has an educational background within emerging technologies, interaction design, and experience economy from Aarhus University (DK) and Georgia Tech in Atlanta (US). From 2010-2016 he was working with business development of the film and gaming industry in Denmark, since then he has been working within the Smart City domain. Sebastian has for the last 10 years worked extensively with EU projects and initiatives within these two domains. Currently Sebastian is involved in the following EU-projects: IoTCrawler (H2020 - development of an IoT Search-Engine framework and DivAirCity (H2020 - combining diversity, air pollution data, civic tech, and co-creation to create nature-based solutions). Sebastian is also lead of the project development team of the department. 

Edoardo Colombo is an expert at the intersection of innovation, digital communication and tourism and has advised governmental agencies, companies and organizations to enhance change in the collaborative economy.

Author of the book “Turismo Mega Trend - Smart destination e turismo digitale: AI, Blockchain, Cyber IoT e 5G” Ed.Hoepli 2020 and president of the think tank Turismo Italiae.

Member of the Board of Executives of Valica a digital advertising and destination management marketing company and Olidata listed vehicle dedicated to innovation. Advisor to ANCI Associazione Città dei Motori - Cities of Motors to develop the strategic plan for the improvement of the motor touristic product.

Shareholder of We The Italians a media company dedicated to information and contents about Italy, aimed at the Italian-American community. 

He has been member of the Task Force for the Digital Agenda of the Presidency of the Council and advisor to the Italian Digital Champion, Francesco Caio and member of the Board of Directors of the Agency for Innovation of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Government, participating to the creation of first Sino Italian Technology Transfer Centers.

Luca Flora is a project manager at McKinsey where he mainly serves clients in the public and social sector as well as in healthcare and pharma/MedTech. He is a leading expert on strategy, digitization, customer experience, customer engagement, and value assurance. He has, for example, helped the government of a large European country to formulate and execute a strategy to digitize and connect public data repositories to enable the implementation of digital public services and engage citizens. Through his government work, he is involved in the pan-European project “The Single Digital Gateway” of the European Union and has served as an expert for multiple government digitization projects internationally. In multiple projects across industries he has helped to design and develop data-driven digital solutions as well as to drive adoption and user engagement, e. g. at a large public healthcare payor for which he developed a personalized user-centric digital solution for insured persons suffering certain sudden medical incidents such as heart attacks and strokes. His is passionate for developing and implementing impactful, forward-looking, customer-centric digital solutions. 

Thomas in an Associate Partner in the Berlin Office, where he serves clients in the pubic and healthcare sector. He leads McKinsey’s work on CX in government across Europe and is an expert on customer experience and customer feedback mechanisms. He has led several efforts on citizen-friendly service design and citizen-centric transformation with public sector and healthcare clients. Thomas also is an expert on public data management and data-centric transformations and leads the McKinsey’s work on public registers and administrative data bases.

Sven Bottesch is a consultant in the Berlin office. He mainly serves clients from the public and social sector as well as companies in the health care and the pharmaceutical industry. 

In the public sector, Sven has supported state agencies in Europe in the development and implementation of their digital and data strategies. A lot of his work is focused on citizen centricity (customer experience) and the usage of agile working principles in the public sector. Among others, he developed agile labs for state agencies, enabling them to deliver solutions faster with a stronger focus on the needs of and benefits for citizens and other stakeholders. He also helped a statutory health insurer to perform a holistic customer experience transformation, bringing the organization to the next level of data-enabled customer centricity.  

In the health care and pharmaceutical industry, Sven supports clients both on strategic and operational questions. His projects include topics like expansion and market entry strategies, supply chain or procurement transformations. 

Working as a Senior Officer at ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), Elsa support cities in their transition towards greener and fairer economic models. She build on several years of experience in urban development finance, public procurement, land use planning and collaborative governance to provide public authorities with practical solutions to address their sustainability challenges Highlights of Elsa’s careers include having facilitated successful private-public partnerships for urban development projects worth up to £2.5bn in the UK. She is also the lead author of the Intelligent Cities' Challenge's guide providing for cities with tools to accelerate and scale up the implementation of their sustainability goals through Local Green Deals. She holds a Bachelor in spatial economics, law and environmental governance from the University of Cambridge (UK). 

Since almost 8 years, Katrien Rycken is the director of the citywide organisation ‘Leuven 2030’, propelling the social just climate transition forward. She graduated as a master in engineering architecture and studied urban geography in France. Rycken worked as a unit leader on integrated building projects and public-private partnerships at Sweco, until she started in 2013 as the director of ‘Leuven 2030’.  

Rycken facilitated the establishment of the ngo ‘Leuven 2030’ and helped it grow to more than 550 companies, organizations and citizens of the Leuven community that partner up with the City of Leuven to build towards a resilient, prosperous future for all. Together with her team, she leads the systemic approach of this complex transition. She’s in charge of the professional development of the scientific, communicative, participatory, operational aspects of Leuven 2030, and a proud ambassador of the European Capital of Innovation Award 2020. 

Kristina Dankić, PhD, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, Department of Psychology, works in the Department of Health and Social Welfare as the Advisor. Kristina has expertise in social and health marketing, project management, research, statistical data analysis, data management, strategic planning and in development of IT applications for social welfare. She has gained international and national successes related to social marketing and project management (European Public Sector Award EPSA 2015 for the web applications eBenefits_Advisor; State Award of the Association of Cities of the Republic of Croatia, Innovation and Best Practices in the Local Self-Government 2013, WHO European Healthy Cities Network). 

Lena Tsipouri is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economic Sciences, University of Athens. She studied Economic Sciences at the Universities of Athens and Vienna, completed her PhD (Doctorat d’ Etat), at the University of Paris II, receiving the first prize of the year 1988 and subsequently undertook postdoctoral research under a Fulbright Fellowship at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prof. Tsipouri teaches Economic Development, European Economic, Integration, Economics of Technological Change and Theory of the Firm. Her scientific research and publications, as well as her presentations at various refereed scientific conferences and policy workshops are about Research & Innovation, Regional Development and Corporate Governance. She is professionally involved in consulting work for EU institutions, the OECD and the UN on the same topics as her scientific research and is a member of several professional associations.

Susan Floyd-Matar was born and studied in the UK before settling in Nice, France where she has been living and working ever since. Her professional experience in the tourism field includes working for a local DMC, the Nice Convention and Exhibition Centre and currently the Nice Cote d’Azur Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau where she manages the websites, social media and booking platform as part of the Communication and Marketing team. 

Tatjana Perše is the eGovernment Advisor.  She has a background in Computing and Mathematics (MSc). Her current responsibility includes e-Government and e-Inclusion projects, open data, communication and dissemination, stakeholder engagement, co-creation and EU projects.  Tatjana is a representative of the City of Rijeka in major city networks (Major Cities of Europe, EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum, Green Digital Charter, European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), and Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC)).

Paola Chiarini joined the Innovation and Research Unit at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport in 2015. As a policy officer, she is currently in charge of several files spanning from research and innovation in logistics to issues related to the preparation of the next framework programme for research. She has a long experience in managing EU-funded research projects, having worked for five years on space research in the Commission’s Research Executive Agency.  

Before joining the European Commission, Paola worked in the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe as the coordinator of a project supporting the involvement of small and medium sized companies in aeronautics research projects. 

She holds a degree in international studies and a post-graduate degree in management.

Pirita Ihamäki PhD, M.Sc. is a multi-expert in development, creativity and experience in creating unique innovations and increasing vitality. Impressive work history with 15 years of experience in development positions. Pirita Ihamäki is a specialist in leading digital business ecosystems and head of the Gamecoast network and Robocoast's international relations with ECCP, EDIH and DIH centres.

Stephanie Haag is an Associate Partner in McKinsey & Company's Munich office. She is a both member of McKinsey's Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure Practice and the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility. Stephanie mainly serves clients in mobility and infrastructure industry, as well as client across industries in business building. Core topics of expertise are around rail and airlines, future mobility, modal share, urban mobility, EV charging infrastructure, and sustainability.  

Some of her most recent project experiences include: 

• Market scan for public EV Charging Infrastructure and business case for intermodal company 
• Design of cost transformation programs and post COVID-19 strategies for rail operators 
• Development of levers to increase modal share and design of optimization for infrastructure investments 
• Development of digital strategies for airline groups, rail operators and urban mobility incumbents 
• Identification of options to upgrade road infrastructure by using data and applying intelligent traffic management  

Stephanie holds a BSc in Aviation Management from European Business School (EBS) and a MSc in Strategic Management from Rotterdam School of Management.

Tilman Tacke is an economist and partner at our Munich office and at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). Since joining McKinsey & Company in 2004, he has advised governments, development agencies, and foundations on matters related to economic growth, employment and investment attraction. Through working with the governments of some of the poorest as well as some of the richest economies in the world, Tilman has developed a perspective on the economy as a system and differing institutional setups to govern economic activity. 

Tilman joined the McKinsey Global Institute in 2018 and leads its economic growth-related research, with a thematic focus on the economic aspects of the “social contract”, labor markets, and inequality as well as a regional focus on Europe. His recent work includes the analysis of trends across 1,100 regional labor markets in Europe and an assessment of changes to the social contract among developed economies since the beginning of the 21st century. 

As a leader of McKinsey’s work in sports, Tilman also advises national football federations and European football clubs on topics related to economic and performance enhancement. 

Tilman grew up in the Black Forest in Southwestern Germany. 

Tim Vervoort works for the Modal Shift team of the Department of Mobility in the city of Antwerp. He graduated last year as a Master in Transportation Sciences at Hasselt University. Together with his colleagues at the city of Antwerp, he prepares and executes transportation policies. Among other topics, Tim is the point of contact for all urban logistics-related matter in the city. His ambition is to work towards sustainable urban logistics for the city of Antwerp through lower pollution levels, less kilometers driven, more consolidation and higher levels of traffic safety.  

Tim represents the city of Antwerp in many national and international (EU-) projects, such as the LEAD-project. The city of Antwerp’s recently approved climate plan aims to introduce low-emission urban logistics by 2025, which is one of the topics he’s currently working on.  

Of key importance to achieve this, is to maintain constructive stakeholder dialogues. Since the start of his career, Tim has had many conversations with market players to identify their needs, and to share Antwerp’s ambitions.