Thank you to all who attended 10th Annual International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) where we celebrated A Decade of ICSD!
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Martha is a development practitioner with more than 10 years of experience. Martha is the Delivery, Quality & Impact Lead at Development Initiatives, a global organisation harnessing the power of data and evidence to end poverty, reduce inequality and increase resilience. Martha’s work is mainly around tracking investments towards sectors that matter to those farthest behind such as disaster risk and climate change as well as financing towards pro-poor sectors such as social protection, education, and health in Africa. Martha is currently based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Dr. Zulfiqar A Bhutta FRS is the Distinguished University professor of the Aga Khan University and the Government of Pakistan. He has been with AKU since 1986 and is the Founding Director of the Center of Excellence in Women and Child Health & Institute for Global Child Health & Development, at the Aga Khan University. He holds joint appointments in Toronto (Canada) as the Inaugural Chair in Global Child Health & Policy and Co-Director at the Centre for Global Child Health, Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).
Professor Bhutta has spent decades working on maternal, newborn, and children’s health and nutrition globally. In Pakistan, he chairs the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Health Islamabad as well as the Health & Biological Sciences Panel of the Higher Education Commission, Government of Pakistan.
For his outstanding and impactful contributions in MCH and Policy, Professor Bhutta has been awarded the Roux Prize and the John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award. He has also been ranked amongst the top 100 medicine scientists by Research.com, and is the only scientist from Pakistan and the low- and middle-income countries who made it to the top 100.
Wolfgang Blau is the former President, International and Chief Operating Officer, Condé Nast. He oversaw the Condé Nast companies in Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as the following global functions: Product & Technology, Data & Insight, Licensing, Business Development, Delivery & Business Transformation and the Global Editorial Operations unit. Before becoming President of Condé Nast, Wolfgang was the company’s Chief Digital Officer, a role in which he initiated and managed a change of the company’s internal operating model across Asia, Europe and Latin-America towards forming the world's most influential network of fashion and lifestyle publishing companies.
Prior to Condé Nast, Blau served as Executive Director of Digital Strategy at The Guardian and as Editor-in-chief of Zeit Online, a position that won him Germany’s Chief Editor of the Year award. He started his career as a radio news anchor and worked for seven years in California as a Silicon Valley reporter and columnist for German national newspapers and broadcasters.
As a Visiting Fellow Wolfgang looked at ways to increase journalism's capacity to cover climate change worldwide. In 2021, Wolfgang founded the Oxford Climate Journalism Network together with Meera Selva.
Professor Heinrich Bohlmann is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria where he specialises in the development and application of dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) models for practical policy research. Prof. Bohlmann is also Research Director of the Modelling and Policy Impact Analysis group at the Partnership for Economic Policy, and serves on the Executive Council of the Economic Society of South Africa. He holds a PhD in Economics from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
After graduating at the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH), she obtained a Master's degree and a Doctorate in Anthropology at the Institute for Anthropological Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Complexity Sciences (C3-UNAM) and a researcher at the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt). She is currently an assistant professor at the Institute for Social Research of the UNAM.
She has obtained diplomas in anthropological consultancy, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH); in public policy from the Panamerican Youth Institute (IPJ); in Medical Anthropology from the Faculty of Medicine (UNAM) and in Bioethics from the University Program on Bioethics (PUB-UNAM).
She has been a lecturer at the National School of Anthropology and History, at the Center for Anthropological Studies of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and at the Graduate School of the Institute of Anthropological Research at the UNAM. She has also been a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), at the Institute of Anthropological Research (IIA), at the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), at the Frontiers of Science Program (Conacyt) and in the Research Directorate of the National Cancer Institute.
Her experience with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working for homeless people includes work in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Bulgaria, Romania, Germany and England.
She is a member of the College of Ethnologists and Social Anthropologists, of the Latin American Association of Biological Anthropology and the Medical Anthropology Network. She is part of the Interdisciplinary Research Group -Theories, Methods and Models of Social Complexity and of the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNI).
Her main fields of interest are: applied anthropology, medical anthropology, public policy, vulnerable populations and complexity sciences.
María Cortés Puch is the Vice President of Networks of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
She joined SDSN in 2013 and currently leads its efforts to build a global network of universities, research centers and civil society organizations that pursue sustainable development innovation locally through research, public education, executive training, demonstration projects, convening of social stakeholders and incubation of solutions.
Prior to joining the SDSN, María worked for UNESCO at the Science Policy and Sustainable Development Division for two years. Previously, she coordinated the European energy and transport programs at the Polytechnic University in Madrid, and worked for two years as a Scientific Officer at the Spanish Office for Science and Technology in Brussels, analyzing EU policies for international cooperation, transport and energy. She began her professional career with the National Institute of Aerospace Technology in Madrid as a Technology Transfer Officer.
Maria holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (Fulbright scholar) and BSc. and MSc. degrees in Physics from the Complutense University in Madrid (with one year at Paris VII as an Erasmus scholar). She currently lives in Madrid with her family.
Sandrine Dixson-Decleve is an international and European climate, energy, sustainable development, sustainable finance, complex systems thought leader. She is currently the Co-President of the Club of Rome and divides her time between lecturing, facilitating difficult conversations and advisory work. She currently Chairs the European Commission, Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR) and sits on the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Platform. She also sits on several Boards & Advisory Boards including EDP, BMW, UCB, Climate KIC, Leonardo Centre, Imperial College London, Laudes Foundation and is a Senior Associate and faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). In addition, she is an Ambassador, for the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and the Well Being Alliance (WeAll) and a Fellow of the World Academy of Science & Art. In 2017 Sandrine co-founded the Women Enablers Change Agent Network (WECAN).
Recognitions and previous positions include: Sandrine recently published “Quel Monde Pour Demain” lucpire editions and Earth for All: A survival guide for humanity. She was recognised by GreenBiz as one of the 30 most influential women across the globe driving change in the low carbon economy and promoting green business. She has spent her career working with and bringing together business leaders, policy makers, academia, and NGOs to unpack complex challenges.
Until recently, Sandrine was on the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Platform and Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Expert Group, Assembly Member, Climate Mitigation & Adaptation Mission (European Commission, DGR&I) and chaired the UCL Bartlett School of Environment Energy & Resources Advisory Board. She was Chief Partnership Officer for UNSEforAll, and Director of the Prince of Wales’ Climate Leaders Group and the European Office of CISL. Over her 33-year career, she has advised HRH The Prince of Wales, Members of the European Parliament, European Commission President’s, Commissioners and officials, Governments in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, international organizations (OPEC, ADB, OECD, UNEP, USAID, UNFCCC, IEA) and business leaders of large international, European and African companies. Sandrine was Vice Chair, European Biofuels Technology Platform 2008-2016; Board member, We Mean Business 2014-2016 and the Sustainability Advisory Board of the Oil and Gas major Sasol from 2007-2010. She was also a Member of The Guardian’s Sustainable Business Advisory Board. She continues to advise policy and business leaders from across the globe.
Dr. Martin Drews is a Senior Researcher at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He was recently appointed a member of the Expert Advisory Group of the European Climate Risk Assessment (EUCRA), and he co-chairs the Collaborative Program on High Impact Events and Climate Change of the European Climate Research Alliance (ECRA). He leads Work Package 3 of ARSINOE, which aims to develop a novel dynamic multi-sectorial resilience modelling and assessment framework, uniquely incorporating elements of a systems innovation approach, operations research, data science, high-resolution climate change scenario projections and novel data-driven land surface modelling. Dr. Drews is a physicist, mathematical and regional climate modeller and has for the past 20 years worked with climate change risk and adaptation assessments, improvements of regional climate and impact models and with interdisciplinary topics related to climate risks, economics and sustainable development, the water-energy-food nexus and climatic extremes. His most recent work focuses on compound climate events, storm surge extremes, coastal adaptation and decision-making and on drought and wild fire.
Juan C. Duque is a PhD in Business Studies from University of Barcelona and MSc in Eco-nomics and Business from Pompeu Fabra University. He is currently a Full Professor in the School of Applied Sciences and Engineering at EAFIT University (Medellín Colombia), founder/director of RiSE-group (Research in Spatial Economics); and affiliated faculty at the Center for Geospatial Sciences at the University of California (Riverside). Duque is a world leading expert in the field of region design and has a wide experience in the formulation of new methods for spatiotemporal analysis. He is a member of the editorial board of International Re-gional Science Review, Computers Environment and Urban Systems and Computational Ur-ban Science. He has participated in consulting for institutions such as: The World Bank, UN-Habitat, Inter-American Development Bank, Andean Development Corporation, San Diego East Economic Development Council, ESRI, European Commission, Barcelona City Council, among others.
Laura Durnford is an experienced media and communications professional with a history in science journalism, radio production and presentation, project and community communications, and in supporting international, multistakeholder projects and virtual teams. After gaining a Master of Science (MSc) in Science Communication from Imperial College London and a Bachelor's (BSc) in Applied Biology from Liverpool John Moores University, Laura worked in London, UK, as a visiting lecturer at Imperial College and radio producer with the BBC World Service Science Unit and independent radio production companies. A move to the Dutch international broadcasting organisation RNW gave her a weekly science magazine show and the opportunity to create documentary style programmes on a wide range of topics. In nine years, this work gathered six international awards. Laura’s next role was with the pan-European research and education networking organisation now known as GÉANT. Covering corporate, internal and community communications, the promotion of events and services, the creation of web and print content, and coordinating a European working group for best practices exchange, she supported the delivery of internet infrastructure and over-the-net services for research and education, with a particular focus on Eastern Partnership countries and on Trust and Identity services. In 2021 she pulled together a team, plan, scripts, interviews and rehearsals for a conference 5-day live ‘tv’ stream, and directed the hosts, presenters and interviewees in collaboration with the technical team located in a different country. Laura now works with the European Science Communication Institute (ESCI) as a Science Communicator and Project Manager. She currently leads the communication and dissemination work in the EU-funded Green Deal climate change project IMPETUS. At ICSD 2022 Laura is moderating the panel discussion in the 2nd plenary session: “Systemic Solutions and Innovations for Climate-Resilient Regions”.
Andrija Erac, SDSN Networks Manager, coordinates SDSN Europe, an initiative that seeks to mobilize and coordinate the knowledge and science across networks for a sustainable and resilient European Recovery. He also oversees the work of SDSN national and regional networks in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Russia, Switzerland, and Western Balkans. In addition, he supports the work of the Lancet Pathfinder Commission which aims to assess and synthesize lessons from the implementation of practical, evidence-based pathways to zero carbon societies. Previously, Andrija worked as a Deputy Manager at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), managing high-value commercial and investment negotiations and disputes. In this role, Andrija worked with a variety of sectors (construction, energy, transports etc.) and actors (multinational companies, state owned enterprises, state entities, IGOs) in over 30 countries. Andrija also worked with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on anti-corruption and business integrity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Andrija holds both a Bachelor’s degree in political sciences and a Master's degree in Economic Law from Sciences Po, France.
Laura Helmuth is editor in chief of Scientific American. She has previously been health and science editor at the Washington Post, digital news director at National Geographic, science and health editor at Slate, science editor at Smithsonian, and a news editor and reporter at Science. Helmuth is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers. She is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s standing committee on advancing science communication. She serves on the advisory boards of SciLine (a program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that connects reporters with scientific experts), High Country News, Spectrum and 500 Women Scientists. Helmuth has a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended the University of California, Santa Cruz’s science communication program. She speaks frequently on science communication, how to use social media effectively and how to fight misinformation. Her favorite hobbies are bird-watching, hiking and kayaking.
Michael Keith is Director of the PEAK Urban Research programme. Until October 2019, he was the Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford (seconded until 2024). He was until 2021 co-ordinator of Urban Transformations (The Economic and Social Research Council portfolio of investments and research on cities) and is the Co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities. He is also Co-Investigator of the Open City research project.
His research focuses on migration related processes of urban change. His most recent works include ‘Urban transformations and public health in the emergent city’, and African Cities and Collaborative Futures, both published by Manchester University Press and The Unfinished Politics of Race, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.
He has experience outside the academy working in the community and voluntary sector and as a politician for twenty years in the East End of London, leader of a London local authority and founder, chair and board member of a wide range of urban regeneration companies and pub-lic/private partnerships. He has also several decades experience in the voluntary sector, initially in organisations focusing on racism and the criminal justice system and more recently as the co-founder and chair of the Rich Mix Cultural Foundation, the largest multicultural arts centre in the UK.
Abigael Kiprono Kima, 24, is a young energy expert and climate activist from Kenya. She is the producer and host of the new Hali-Hewa podcast (Hali-Hewa is a Swahili term for ‘climate’), profiling African activists and climate experts across eight 30-minute episodes airing through to COP27 on themes including a just energy transition, loss and damage, youth participation in intergovernmental processes and indigenous rights with Climate Home News as a partner
syndicating this series.
The first three episodes of the Hali Hewa podcast are now live, featuring: Elizabeth Wathuti, a young climate activist from Kenya and Founder of Green Generation Initiative; Wanjira Maathai, the Vice President and Regional Director for World Resource Institute; and Professor Youba Sokona, the Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Abigael is also the Africa Youth Lead for the Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary under the Parvati Foundation advocating for the protection of Arctic Sea Ice, and is engaged in mentoring young people through the Green Generation Initiative and the Jubal Band in her hometown Iten. Abigael has been awarded the Erasmus Credit Mobility Scholarship and was the first woman to be awarded the Eco-Hero Award by Team54Project.
Twitter: @AbigaelKima | @HaliHewaPodcast | IG: @abigaelkima | @halihewapodcast
Chrysi Laspidou is a Professor at the Civil Engineering Department, University of Thessaly in Greece. She is the Vice-President of Research and Technology at Water Europe and a member of the Steering Committee of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Knowledge Action Network at Future Earth. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Nexus project cluster. Her research interests include resource Nexus and water informatics, mathematical modeling and simulation of physical-chemical and biological processes that take place in natural aquatic systems and other ecosystems, as well as urban water issues, resource depletion and sustainability, virtual water and water-carbon-ecological footprint. She has conducted research in many different aspects of water, from performing mathematical modeling of aquatic system processes to computational biology relevant to ecosystem function, to the socio-economic aspects of water use and water resource management. She is involved in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) projects that are mainly on innovative multisensors and/or biosensors, smart urban water management, smart cities and ICT for improving ecosystem function and quality. She has published over 60 articles in
scientific journals and conference proceedings and is actively involved either as a Principal Investigator, or as a Coordinator in research projects funded by the European Commission, or national sources.
Jason Maitland is highly regarded as a Risk and Sustainability Champion, a transformational change agent, an educator, and a mentor. He has been influencing leaders for over 20 years and continues to drive organizational change that is making the world of work a safer and healthier place for everyone through the design and application of practical sustainable solutions. Jason brings a wealth of experience from both corporate and non-profit organizations. He is currently the President of the Sustainability Institute of Trinidad and Tobago, whose focus is transforming societies to achieve balanced social, economic, and environmental progress today and tomorrow.
Andrea Marinoni is an associate professor of Applied Remote Sensing with the Earth Observation group, Centre for Integrated Remote Sensing and Forecasting for Arctic Operations (CIRFA), Dept. of Physics and Technology, UiT the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway, where he leads the Earth Observation innovation area of Visual Intelligence SFI.
He received the B.S., M.Sc. “cum laude” and Ph.D. degrees in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in 2005, 2007 and 2011, respectively.
From 2013 to 2018, he has been a research fellow at Telecommunications and Remote Sensing Lab., Dept. of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. He has been a visiting researcher at the Communications Systems Lab., Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA (2009); Earth and Planetary Image Facility, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel (2015); School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, P.R.C. (2016-2017); School of Computer Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, P.R.C. (2016); Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R.C. (2016-2017); Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal (2017). In 2020 and 2021 he has been a visiting professor at dept. of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy. In 2022, he has been a visiting professor at the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley, CA, USA. Since 2020, he is a visiting academic fellow at the Dept. of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.
In 2011, he has been the recipient of the two-year “Applied research grant”, sponsored by the Region of Lombardy, Italy, and STMicroelectronics N.V.. In 2017, he has been the recipient of the INROAD grant, sponsored by University of Pavia and Fondazione Cariplo, Italy, for supporting excellence in design of ERC proposal. In 2018, he has been the recipient of the “Progetto professionalità Ivano Becchi” grant funded by Fondazione Banco del Monte di Lombardia, Italy, and sponsored by University of Pavia, Italy and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for supporting the development of advanced methods of air pollution analysis by remote sensing data investigation. He has been the recipient of Åsgard Research Programme and Åsgard Research+ grants funded by Institut Français de Norvège, Oslo, Norway, in 2019 and 2020, respectively, for supporting the development of scientific collaborations between French and Norwegian research institutes. He has been the recipient of the Peder Sather grant award funded by the Peder Sather Foundation.
His main goal is to assess, infer and predict the interactions between human and environment. To this aim, his research is focused on the development of machine learning and data analysis methods for reliable information extraction on these interactions and their implications for human welfare from multimodal datasets, as well as on the implementation of frameworks for reliable decision-making processes for sustainable development.
He is the founder and current chair of the IEEE GRSS Norway chapter. He is an ambassador for IEEE Region 8 Humanitarian activities. He is leader of IEEE GRSS Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society School (GR3S) committee, for the organization of the schools sponsored by IEEE GRSS worldwide. He is a research contact point for the Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium (NORA – http://www.nora.ai). He is a topical associate editor for machine learning for IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations. He has served as guest editor for four special issues of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing on multimodal remote sensing data analysis and sustainable development.
Dr. Toby C. Monsod is Ruperto P. Alonzo Chair Professor of Development Economics at the U.P. School of Economics. She publishes in the areas of public economics, economic development, institutional economics, and housing economics, and has received the NAST Most Outstanding Book Award for her work on three volumes of the of the Philippine Human Development Report. Before joining the academe in 2008, she worked with community-based groups as well as served as Assistant Secretary of Trade and Industry and Secretary General of the then-Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.
Aline Mosnier is the Scientific Director for the FABLE (Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-use, and bioEnergy) Pathways Consortium and the co-Director of the Food/land
team at SDSN. She works with researchers in more than 20 countries to develop long-term quantitative national pathways towards sustainable land use and food systems which are globally consistent. Prior to joining SDSN, Aline worked at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) where she contributed to the development of the global partial equilibrium model GLOBIOM. Her work focused on international trade and trade policies for agricultural products, indirect impacts of biofuel policies, climate change impacts on agriculture, and reduction of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics. With teams from local research institutes, she has worked on the co-development of regional versions of GLOBIOM nin the Congo Basin, Brazil, and Indonesia. Finally, she has developed the FABLE calculator, an open Excel-based model on the food and land system. Aline holds a PhD in Agricultural and Environment Economics from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences of Vienna and a Masters in Development Economics from CERDI-Université d’Auvergne of Clermont-Ferrand.
Susan Parnell is the Deputy Principal Investigator with PEAK Urban.
Sue is an urban geographer and holds a Chair in Human Geography at the University of Bris-tol. Her research is focussed on contemporary urban policy research, including local govern-ment, poverty reduction and urban environmental justice.
Her early academic research was in the area of urban historical geography and focussed on the rise of racial residential segregation and the impact of colonialism on urbanisation and town planning in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1994 and democracy in South Africa her work has shifted to contemporary urban policy research (local government, poverty reduction and urban environmental justice). By its nature this research has not been purely academic but has in-volved liaising with local and national government and international donors. Sue is also on the boards of several local NGOs concerned with poverty alleviation, sustainability and gender eq-uity in post-apartheid South Africa. She serves on a number of national and international advi-sory research panels relating to urban reconstruction.
Gunter Pauli (1956) is an entrepreneur who has pioneered innovative business models throughout his professional career. In the 1980s, during a major economic crisis, he led a think tank to identify high-growth service companies in Europe. In the 1990s, he created a think tank to prepare for the Kyoto Protocol after building and operating the first green factory that applied the zero emissions concept. In the 21st century, Gunter set out to accelerate the solutions he described in his landmark book "The Blue Economy," a Club of Rome report translated into more than 50 languages.
Aromar Revi is the founding Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS). He is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi. He is a global practice and thought leader, and educator with 38 years of interdisciplinary expe-rience in sustainable development, public policy and governance, human settlements, global en-vironmental and technological change.
Aromar is a global expert on Sustainable Development; Co-Chair of the UN Sustainable De-velopment Solutions Network (SDSN), from where he helped lead a successful global cam-paign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 11) in the UN’s 2030 development agenda.
Aromar’s research and practice lies at the interface of sustainability science, climate science and emerging ‘urban science’. He is a leading climate scientist and a Coordinating Lead Author of the seminal 2018 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report and the Summary for Urban Policymakers series.
Aromar has led 220 major practice, consulting and research assignments in India and interna-tionally, has published over 130 peer reviewed publications and books and has helped struc-ture, design and review development investments of over $ 15 billion and on multiple interna-tional projects in over a dozen countries.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership, and many other international awards and honors. He has twice been named among Time magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders. He was called by the New York Times, “probably the most important economist in the world,” and by Time magazine, “the world’s best known economist.” A survey by The Economist in 2011 ranked Professor Sachs as amongst the world’s three most influential living economists of the first decade of the 21st century.
Professor Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. He is University Professor at Columbia University, the university’s highest academic rank. During 2002 to 2016 he served as the Director of the Earth Institute. Sachs served as Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the Sustainable Development Goals, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on both the Sustainable Development Goals and Millennium Development Goals, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.
Wai Sern is a Research Associate primarily concerned with the environmental issues of our time. His work at the Institute allows him to explore this topic in depth as well as the complex interconnections between environmental concerns and the other main pillars of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). His work covers several of the SDGs, primarily affordable and clean energy (SDG7), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), responsible consumption and production (SDG12) and climate action (SDG13). Ongoing projects include the modelling of food, agriculture and biodiversity pathways, off-grid solar energy and urban river rejuvenation.
Dr. Chheang Vannarith is a public policy analyst and a government relations strategist. He was honored Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2013. Currently he is serving as the President at the Asian Vision Institute (AVI), Chairman of the Advisory Council of the National Assembly of Cambodia, Founder and Chairman of Angkor Social Innovation Park (ASIP), Founder and Chairman of Mekong Peace Boat, and Director of Asia-Pacific Secretariat of Think Tank 2022. Prior to these appointments, he was a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Southeast Asia Consultant at the Nippon Foundation, Lecturer at the University of Leeds, Executive Director at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, and Assistant to Defense Minister of Cambodia. His research interests focus on international politics of the Asia-Pacific, governments and politics in Southeast Asia, social innovation, and sustainable development.
Pengjun Zhao is a professor in Urban and Transport Planning at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Peking University, and the director of Centre for Urban Planning and Transport Studies at Peking University. He is also the Editor-in-Chief for Cities (Elsevier). His research mostly focuses on sustainable transportation, travel demand management, sustainable mobility and transport equality.
2022 ICSD Speaker Series: Sustainable Development Leaders in the Workforce (PART ONE)
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 11:00am – 13:00pm EDT
As a celebration of the ICSD’s 10th anniversary, the Masters in Development Practice (MDP) Program is organizing three sessions before and after ICSD where sustainable development professionals will discuss their current field of employment and its future, as well as what knowledge, skills, and personal attributes are crucial in the workforce of the 21st century. The goal of the speaker series is to enhance the impact and value of ICSD to students by expanding content on job readiness in the age of the sustainable development goals.
Speakers are asked to:
**Separate registration required.**
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2022 ICSD Speaker Series: Sustainable Development Leaders in the Workforce (PART two)
Wednesday, September 14, 2022, 08:00am – 10:00am EDT
As a celebration of the ICSD’s 10th anniversary, the Masters in Development Practice (MDP) Program is organizing three sessions before and after ICSD where sustainable development professionals will discuss their current field of employment and its future, as well as what knowledge, skills, and personal attributes are crucial in the workforce of the 21st century. The goal of the speaker series is to enhance the impact and value of ICSD to students by expanding content on job readiness in the age of the sustainable development goals.
Speakers are asked to:
**Separate registration required.**
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Narrating Local Stories through the Lens of the SDGs
Sunday, September 18, 2022, 08:00am – 10:00am EDT
Through the summer program of the Center for Sustainable Development and its partners at Mission 4.7, ArcGIS StoryMaps, Arizona State University, Bluebells School International, ESRI, SDGs Today & Worldwide Teach-In, the Eco Ambassador Program students developed StoryMaps to tell local environment and sustainability stories while applying mapping, data and communication skills. The program featured climate storytelling skills, GIS mapping and data skills with access to educational tools such as Turn it Around Cards and examples of how SDGs can be a concrete part of teaching and learning contents including lesson planning.
This ICSD side event will showcase the highlights of the summer program to share some of the core educational elements of the climate and sustainability storytelling with the use of StoryMaps, creative writing skills, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)-based lesson planning and educational tools that facilitate telling a compelling climate and sustainability story from diverse local perspectives, and all speaking to sustainable development & SDGs.
Each block will be three hours with one plenary for the first hour and concurrent parallel sessions for the following two hours. We have strived to make our program inclusive to an international audience.
Each block will be three hours with one plenary for the first hour and concurrent parallel sessions for the following two hours. We have strived to make our program inclusive to an international audience.
2022 ICSD Speaker Series: Sustainable Development Leaders in the Workforce (PART THREE)
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 11:00pm (20th) – 01:00am (21st) EDT
As a celebration of the ICSD’s 10th anniversary, the Masters in Development Practice (MDP) Program is organizing three sessions before and after ICSD where sustainable development professionals will discuss their current field of employment and its future, as well as what knowledge, skills, and personal attributes are crucial in the workforce of the 21st century. The goal of the speaker series is to enhance the impact and value of ICSD to students by expanding content on job readiness in the age of the sustainable development goals.
Speakers are asked to:
**Separate registration required.**
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Global Schools Advocates in Action: The Teacher Perspective on Transformative Education
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 3:00am – 4:30am EDT
The Global Schools Program is a K12 network of 1,580+ schools and 1,350+ Advocates and program alumni from ~90 countries. Global Schools has been working internationally to support schools and educators with evidence-informed training and localized classroom resources to integrate sustainable development into school curricula, operations, and activities. Global Schools’ mission is to create a world where every primary and secondary school student is equipped with the knowledge, values, and skills necessary for effectively responding to the greatest challenges of this century and shaping a sustainable and prosperous world.
In this session, education practitioners and Global Schools Advocates will share their work integrating education for sustainable development into K12 school communities. Each educator will share a specific case study or experience in their own context. ICSD attendees will have the opportunity to hear best practices, lessons learned, and tips and strategies on the effective use of SDGs in the classroom. This practical session will inspire others and celebrate the international community of teachers on the occasion of the Transformative Education Summit, in support of Mission 4.7.
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The Evolution of SDG Data Hubs : Featuring the SDG Data Alliance
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 09:00am – 10:00am EDT
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a call to action to find solutions for urgent social, economic, and environmental challenges around the world. To understand and effectively track progress on the SDGs, we need reliable, quality, disaggregated, and timely data. In recent years, geospatial data and tools have proven essential not only for monitoring and understanding the SDGs, but for disaster response, climate change action, health, infectious disease tracking, and more. They are important for helping us access more frequent data at a more granular level.
The UN, the Kellogg Foundation, the PVBLIC Foundation, and Esri launched the SDG Data Alliance in July 2021 to support the development of an SDG Data Hub for each of the 17 SDGs across developing nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Based on geospatial frameworks and technology, the Data Hubs will assist developing countries in measuring, monitoring, and reporting on their progress toward all SDGs, with a focus on reducing inequality and will empower people to ensure inclusiveness and equality.
Esri is developing a solution template to support individual countries’ ability to create, organize, and implement an SDG Data Hub. The SDG Data Hub will assist countries in the monitoring and reporting of key SDG Data to illustrate and showcase progress toward the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
This side event will provide attendees with an overview of the SDG Data Alliance, the SDG Data Hub template, and opportunities to collaborate.
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Mapping Plastic Waste Challenge Winners
Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 10:00pm – 11:00pm EDT
An estimated 80% of plastic waste in the oceans comes from land-based sources and a substantial portion of that comes from unmanaged or poorly-managed dumpsites. Southeast Asia has become a hotspot for plastic waste, where over 75% of recyclable plastic is lost in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines annually. To contain and clean up plastic waste from the land and ocean environments, governments need to understand where plastic waste is concentrated and use innovative approaches to collect timely information on plastic waste dumpsites.
Satellite imagery and spatial analysis can provide insight into the location and characteristics of plastic waste dumpsites and help monitor changes in near real-time. SDGs Today’s partner, Earthrise Education, has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm to detect plastic waste dumpsites using satellite imagery and other geospatial features with support from the Minderoo Foundation. The collected data could help evaluate the risk of plastic waste entering the ocean.
To enhance the accuracy of the algorithm and build capacity among students to utilize Earth Observation data and geospatial analysis, SDGs Today and Earthrise Education teamed up to launch a pilot project titled, the “Mapping Plastic Waste Challenge,” which provided students in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China with tools and educational material needed to help build this automated system to monitor plastic waste and help take a step forward toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Under Water.
This ICSD side event will feature the winning students who participated in the challenge and lessons learned in this phase of the project. Join us to learn more about how students used satellite imagery to identify plastic waste dumpsites!
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