Programme

Carmen Carvalheira is the Vice President of CCDR Alentejo (Alentejo Regional Coordination and Development Commission). Carmen Carvalheira holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Coimbra and a Master in Urban Engineering.

Aleksi Jäntti has acted as a Deputy Mayor of the City of Tampere responsible for the urban development since June 2017. Mr. Jäntti graduated from the Finnish National Defense College in 1999 and served as an officer in the Finnish Defense Forces until spring 2008. He has international experience in NATO's KFOR operation in Kosovo. Since then he has worked as an entrepreneur in the construction business and as an account manager in the human resources sector. Mr. Jäntti has acted as a member of the City Council and the City Board in the municipality of Lempäälä in 2005-2011 and in the City of Tampere since 2013.

Tadashi Matsumoto leads OECD’s work on national urban policy, cities and climate change and urban green growth. He coordinates the National Urban Policy Programme, a joint initiative with UN-Habitat and Cities Alliance launched in 2016 at Habitat III Conference. Under the framework, he recently led two studies: Global State of National Urban Policy (2018), the first global assessment of national urban policy development in 150 countries jointly conducted with UN-Habitat; and OECD Urban Policy Review of Viet Nam (2018), OECD’s first comprehensive urban policy review in Southeast Asia. He lectures at Tsukuba University, Japan, and SciencesPo, France.

Martin Brynskov, PhD, is chair of the global Open & Agile Smart Cities and associate professor in Interaction Technologies at Aarhus University in Denmark, director of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Cities and Communities (DITCOM) and AU Smart Cities (AUSC), founder and co-director of the Digital Living Research Commons (DLRC), director of the Digital Design Lab, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI).

Dr Brynskov is coordinator of the Coordination and Support Action, Next Generation Internet of Things (NGIoT) and Chair of the Danish Standards Committee on Smart Cities and Communities (ISO TC 268 mirror committee).

Dana Eleftheriadou steers EU policy development on advanced technologies, artificial intelligence, big data and the digital transformation of European enterprises and helps foster Europe’s technological and industrial leadership. She drives policies that are leveraging advanced tech to address the world’s biggest challenges and lead sustainable growth and social welfare.

Project manager and digitalization specialist with City of Oulu, currently building a platform for smart city solutions together with companies, called Business Station. Several years of experience in running large smart city co-operation project within Six Cities Strategy. Strong technical background with 20 years of experience in software development and mobile technologies.

Mr. Kimmo Heinonen works as Chief Advisor at City of Helsinki’s Economic Development Division. He currently focuses his work on developing the entire city as an innovation platform for companies, RDI organisations, and other stakeholders of the City of Helsinki. Mr. Heinonen has an extensive background in local and regional economic development, innovation policies as well as smart city development.

Katja has over 15 years experience in developing people, talent, organizations, leadership and learning in diverse international enterprises, public sector and multicultural environments. Katja has proven effective and efficient results in leading large and complex projects with different stakeholders in large ecosystems. She is extensively experienced in improving business success by developing and implementing strategical people development processes and in promoting digitalization as a profound transformation. Last 5 years Katja has worked in Espoo in 6Aika (EU funded Finlands 6 biggest cities strategy) project developing different new service concepts, tools and services to support the growth of SME’s and startups.

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.

Anders has been working as a specialist in wireless communication and IoT at FORCE technology for 12 years. He holds a Master degree in electrical an electronic engineering and has a specialization in wireless communication. He is also an IoT expert at ISO and IEC, contributing primarily to the IoT reference architecture and is part of the advisory board for the coming Danish labelling for IT-security and data accountability. He is also part of the Danish industry associations EU technical expert panel and part of the standardization political forum and Danish standards.

Lotta has been working with the SALAR organization, on matters of “development in a digital era”, for almost 4 years. Before this she was the CDO of a municipality for 6 years. She holds a bachelor degree in systems science and specializes in information management and information security. She is also at the moment taking part in several expert groups in governmental investigations concerning the conditions and prerequisites for digitalization of the public sector in Sweden. As CIO she is the owner of the tool KLASSA and as such responsible for its continued development.

Martin Brynskov, PhD, is chair of the global Open & Agile Smart Cities and associate professor in Interaction Technologies at Aarhus University in Denmark, director of the Centre for Digital Transformation of Cities and Communities (DITCOM) and AU Smart Cities (AUSC), founder and co-director of the Digital Living Research Commons (DLRC), director of the Digital Design Lab, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI).

Dr Brynskov is coordinator of the Coordination and Support Action, Next Generation Internet of Things (NGIoT) and Chair of the Danish Standards Committee on Smart Cities and Communities (ISO TC 268 mirror committee).

Maria da Graça Carvalho is Member of European Parliament. She was advisor European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation and principal advisor to the President of the European Commission. In 2012 Maria da Graça Carvalho was rapporteur for Horizon 2020 Programme and in 2011 awarded the Prize for best MEP in Research and Innovation. Maria da Graça Carvalho was Science and Education Minister of the 15th Constitutional Government and Science, Innovation and Education Minister of the 16th Constitutional Government. Maria da Graça Carvalho main research area is Energy, Environment and Climate Change, being a professor at Technical Institute of the Lisbon University since June 1992. Maria da Graça Carvalho was a founder member of the Engineering Academy and a fellow of the Academy of Sciences and member of the Spanish Royal Engineering Academy. She was awarded the honour «Grande Oficial da Ordem de Instrução Pública» by His Excellency the President of the Republic Jorge Sampaio and honorary Member of Academia Europaea.

Miapetra Kumpula-Natri is a Member of the European Parliament from Finland. She is eager to seek efficient solutions to restrain climate change from the European level and I want to build sustainable economic growth. However, at the same time, it is important to secure just transition for all the European and Finnish citizens, who are facing the new world from different starting points. Miapetra Kumpula-Natri is looking for more investments for Finnish research, know-how and fair working life conditions through European cooperation.
She wants to help digitalization forward so that Europe would lead the transition, not just adopt foreign innovations. We have to support our development but simultaneously secure the right of people, consumers and workers. On her first term as an MEP, issues relating to the digitalization has been a test for her and she achieved nicknames such as “Digi-MEP” and “Madame Roaming.

Kerstin Rosenow is Head of Unit ‘Research & Innovation’ in DG AGRI, European Commission where she is responsible for programming, managing and monitoring research on agriculture, forests and rural areas and the European Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI). The digital transformation of agriculture and rural areas forms a central element of the work of her unit's work, including the development and implementation of Horizon 2020 themes boosting precision farming and EIP-AGRI initiatives on digital skills.

She's been working in the EC for over 17 years after covering a managerial position in the German administration (Representation of the State of Hessen to the EU). For DG AGRI she coordinated negotiations with pre-accession and candidate countries and the preparation of the 2014-2020 CAP legislative framework. She studied law, politics and administration in Marburg, Grenoble and Bruges.

Dr. Max Lemke, Head of Unit for Internet of Things in Directorate General CONNECT of the European Commission, is responsible for programmes under Horizon 2020 on the digital transformation of key industrial sectors, including in particular agri-food, smart energy, e-health & care, and smart cities and communities. He is as well engaged in the preparation of the new programmes under the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework 2021 - 27 (Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, etc.), in particular in areas such as smart IoT, edge computing, digital transformation of industry. In addition he is responsible for CONNECT’s input to the regulatory framework on liability and safety, in particular the update of the product liability directive for emerging digital technologies. In his previous jobs in the Commission, Max Lemke had a leading role in developing and coordinating the Digitising European Industry strategy and was involved in developing the European Strategy for Artificial Intelligence. Here Dr Lemke was responsible for the areas embedded and cyber-physical systems, advanced computing, and ICT for manufacturing.

Jorge Gonzalez is the Director of TICBioMed, a Spanish association that promotes Digital Health across Europe. Ticbiomed bridges the European ecosystem to connect eHealth startups and SMEs, pharma, insurers, healthcare organizations, investors, and other stakeholders.

The company specializes in open innovation using a demand-driven approach, identifying unmet needs/market opportunities in eHealth. We also help in business model development, commercialization strategy, internationalization and private funding.

Marcos António Nogueira is H2020-AURORAL Project Coordinator. Mechanical Engineer, Marcos is a former researcher in the field of mathematical modelling, he has authored numerous publications together with RGESD at IST. As adviser, he was responsible for the design and development of systems used by international industrial groups and public authorities at all levels of public administration.

Marcos has led the development of a significant number of projects and programs for public entities, with special emphasis on cities and regions in Portugal and in other member states of the European Union. He operates from Brussels where he heads Alentejo EU Office.

Jaana Sinipuro is a Project Director at Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund. Sitra is “a think, do and connect tank” that collaborates with partners from different sectors to trial and implement bold new ideas that shape the future. The basis of Sitra’s work is a vision of Finland as a pioneer of sustainable well-being.

Jaana is an experienced ICT and management professional. She believes that the successful digital services of the future will be based on trust and create value for everyone. The Fair Data Economy project aims to set up European-level rules and guidelines for the economy where services and data-based products are created in an ethical manner.

Teemu Ropponen is the General Manager of MyData Global, an award-winning international nonprofit. The purpose of MyData Global is to empower individuals by improving their right to self-determination regarding their personal data.

Teemu’s personal mission is to help build a fair and open digital society. He is particularly interested in how personal data and open data can be combined to empower citizens, and how data and open collaboration create new business, tools for democratic participation and transparency.

Raf holds a Masters Degree of Applied Engineering in Electronics and is involved in strategic e-Government projects for local and regional governments since 2002. As an advisor e-government strategy for the regional government administration of Flanders in Belgium, Raf tries to implement a more rational, interoperable e-government, promoting open data, open standards and open processes.

Since 2018 Raf is streamlining processes in the region of Flanders in Belgium by putting citizens in control of their personal data using SOLID as an interoperability facilitator and MyData as a policy framework.

Yalena draws on many years of experience in the technology arena across various industries in Europe, Asia and Africa, including software development, IoT, digital strategy and cybersecurity. She is currently a Solution Architect in the Applied Data & Technology team at Connected Places Catapult, which facilitates the testing of new and emerging technologies in the advanced urban services sector and looks at innovative uses of urban data across the public and private sectors. She is also a Smart Cities Strategy Adviser for the UK government.

Julia Thomson is the Smart Cities Policy Lead for the Greater London Authority. She oversees the Mayor’s Smarter London Together roadmap and advises the Chief Digital Officer in utilising data and technology to meet the needs of Londoners. Julia is interested in how technology can improve city services and spaces for a diverse range of people, and the role of government in shaping the use of emerging technologies. She has over 10 years’ experience working across a wide range of public policy areas in both London and Melbourne. With a Master of Urban Planning and a Bachelor of Science, Julia sees technology as one of the key tools that policy makers can use when working in the built environment, and takes a collaborative, cross-disciplinary and inclusive approach to smart cities policy.

Frederico is a Partner at Deloitte. His professional record counts with almost twenty years of experience providing IT consulting services for several industries, both on national and international markets. Throughout his career, he has developed and led several projects in

Enterprise Applications and Risk Management. Before joining Deloitte Frederico was Sovena Group’s IT Director for almost 5 years. During that period of time he led several areas, which gave him the profound knowledge and experience with IT systems that now supports his strategic approach to cyber risk.

With a Degree in Mechanical Engineering by Instituto Superior Técnico and a Post-degree in Management by the San Telmo Institute, Madrid, Frederico is an ISO27000 Lead Auditor and Lead Implementer by the BSI Group and has the Certification in Cybersecurity and Executive Strategy by the Stanford Center for Professional Development.

Dr. Antonio F. Skarmeta received a M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Granada and B.S. (Hons.) and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Murcia. In 2009 he was appointed Full Professor. Antonio has worked on different research projects in the national and international area in the networking, security and IoT area, like Seinit, Deserec, Enable, Daidalos, SWIFT, IoT6, Openlab, GEN6, SMARTIE and SocIOtal. He is the head of the research group ANTS since its creation in 1995 and a member of TDL. He is also advisor to the vice-rector of Research of the University of Murcia for International projects and head of the International Research Project Office and national representative for MSCA

Ms Piia Karjalainen is Secretary-General of the MaaS Alliance. She lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. The MaaS Alliance is an international public-private-partnership, established in 2015, bringing together more than 100 member organisations worldwide, supporting the development of Mobility as a Service ecosystem, based on the principles of openness, inclusivity, sustainability and user-centricity. Karjalainen is leading and coordinating all the activities of this international Mobility as a Service community. Previously she has been working in various positions at the European Parliament and the Finnish Ministry of Transport & Communications, mainly dealing with transport strategies, ITS, Mobility as a Service, policymaking and EU regulation. She holds a Master of Science in Economics.

Luz María Ostau De Lafont is a STi Solutions Developer at Ruta N, Medellín, the city's public innovation office. She has 8 years experience working in the public, private and social sectors. Luz María is a Political Scientist, specialized in Political Communication from EAFIT University. Master in Cooperation for Development from the University of Pavia. Mother of Helena, 1, learning how to live more sustainably.

Paola is passionate about solving societal challenges! She is always looking for new tools to create social change! In Medellín she co-created the “Cities for Life Network”, a city open innovation by citizen participation movement with the municipality and was part of the design and implementation of the first-ever Metropolitan Open Data Strategy in Medellín.

Currently she is creating Platos sin Fronteras, a local nutrition education community incentivizing chefs, nutritionists and food enthusiasts doing nutrition knowledge transfer to the most needed. During the COVID crisis their biggest concern is decreasing food insecurity and bringing food aid and nutrition education to their beneficiaries.

A pioneer in the smart city space in the Philippines, Kris R. Villanueva-Libunao, an Internationally Certified Sustainability Practitioner, is the Executive Director and Chief Sustainability Officer at SmartCT (Smart Cities PH, Inc.) and currently training under the ASEAN Smart Cities Leaders Programme. She is also a Smart Sustainable Cities Instructor with IoT Academy and International Telecommunication Union Academy (ITU-Academy).

With almost a decade of policy research consultancies with government agencies, international government organizations, and private companies, Kris’ current commitment is to create a movement transforming how the world thinks, does, and plans smart cities in the Philippines and developing countries.

Dr. Jong Sung Hwang is an ICT strategy expert who served in a number of key positions in the IT policy planning in distinguished organizations. He is a member of the Gov3.0 Committee of the Korean government, which designs and coordinates government and public sector innovation programs at a vice-ministerial level, and currently heads the Center for Gov3.0 of the National Information Society Agency. Dr. Hwang is a former Chief Information Officer of Seoul Metropolitan Government as well as the former Secretary General of the World e-Governments Organization of Cities and Local Governments (WeGO). He is also a Member of the Global Advisory Board to the Smart City Exhibition and World Congress (SCEWC), and of the Steering Committee of the IoT World Forum. In particular he has long experiences in designing national IT strategies and developing a new breed of smart services. He drafted the first Korean IT Promotion Basic Plan in 1996 and initiated the u-City project, one of the world first smart cities, in 2005. As a CIO of Seoul, he launched the Smart Seoul 2015 initiatives in 2011 and made Seoul as a model case of smart city recommended by the ITU. Dr. Hwang holds a Master’s degree and a Doctoral degree in Political Science from Yonsei University in Korea.

Calum has a wide-ranging smart cities and digitalisation background having worked on the delivery, strategy, and management of a range of innovation projects and programmes across Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and South-East Asia. He also has worked on advising and scaling tech-driven enterprises, including startups focusing on secure networks and connectivity, digital identity, and safety and security.

Engr. Ariel O. Iglesia is a pride of CALABARZON hailing from Gumaca, Quezon. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He was also one of the topnotchers in the 1987 Board Exam for Agricultural Engineer. Engr. Iglesia finished his Master’s Degree in Public Administration at Polytechnic University of the Philippines Manila under the Civil Service Commission – Local Scholarship Program (CSC-LSP).

He is a strong advocate of good local governance, financial accountability, and ethical leadership in public service. For the past 30 years, he held various positions in the Department of Interior and local government. Rising from the ranks, he served as the Assistant Regional Director of DILG Region IV-A for 9 years from 2009 to 2018. This is until his reassignment to DILG MIMAROPA. Shortly after, he was reassigned to DILG Region VI (Western Visayas) as its Regional Director. Now back to his home region, Engr. Ariel O. Iglesia is DILG Region IV-A’s Regional Director.

Marcus Foth is Professor of Urban Informatics in the QUT Design Lab, Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology. He is also an Honorary Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Professor Foth’s research brings together people, place, and technology. His transdisciplinary work is at the international forefront of human-computer interaction research and development with a focus on smart cities, community engagement, media architecture, internet studies, ubiquitous computing, and sustainability.

Dr Monique Mann is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. Dr Mann is an Adjunct Researcher with the Law, Science, Technology and Society Research Centre at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Inder is the CEO of IUDX Program and is also an Industry Professor at IISc. He was previously Vice President of Software at Ericsson, where he was instrumental in launching their Edge computing efforts. Before that, he was Vice President of Networking at IBM, where he had responsibility for all of IBM’s hardware and software networking products. He has also served as Chief Architect of AT&T and Chief Technology Officer of Prodigy.He has founded, built-up, and successfully sold two venture-funded start-up companies, ReefEdge and Iptivia, and is an investor and board member in a few others.

Since 1995 I have worked for various public and private organizations, always in the new technologies sector. Since 2015, I held the position of project manager for new technologies in the City of Ronda, assuming the projects under the areas of smart city and electronic administration.

Raf holds a Masters Degree of Applied Engineering in Electronics and is involved in strategic e-Government projects for local and regional governments since 2002. As an advisor e-government strategy for the regional government administration of Flanders in Belgium, Raf tries to implement a more rational, interoperable e-government, promoting open data, open standards and open processes.

Since 2018 Raf is streamlining processes in the region of Flanders in Belgium by putting citizens in control of their personal data using SOLID as an interoperability facilitator and MyData as a policy framework.

Dr. Okan Geray has more than 20 years of experience in management consulting in various industries and countries. He has worked in A.T. Kearney global management consulting firm before he joined Dubai Government in 2002. He has worked in Dubai eGovernment, Dubai Smart Government, and more recently in Smart Dubai Department as the Strategic Planning Advisor . His responsibilities include Strategic Planning, Policy Making and Global Thought Leadership.

He was the Co-Chair of Enhancing Innovation and Participation Working Group in United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) joint global initiative by ITU and UNECE. This working group addressed Smart Governance, Smart Economy and Smart People aspects in smart cities. He has led two deliverables globally in U4SSC; namely “Guidelines on Strategies for Circular Cities” and “City Science Application Framework”.

Kari Aina Eik is Secretary-General of the Organization for International Economic Relations, Austria, Vienna (OiER), Head of the United for Smart and Sustainable Cities Program Implementation Program (U4SSC IP) and Leader of the UN`s United for Smart and Sustainable Cities U4SSC Implementation Program which is supporting cities, regions and communities worldwide in identifying needs, finding sustainable solutions, partnerships and investments.

She is also Vice-Chair of the ITU Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for Artificial Intelligence and other Emerging Technologies (FG-AI4EE) and Board member of the World Council for SDG 11, the Real Estate Advisory Board (REM) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the H22 project of Helsingborg, Sweden and The North West, Aalesund, Norway.

Robert Lewis-Lettington is Chief of the Land, Housing and Shelter Section at UN-Habitat. He is a lawyer by training and has worked in both public and private international law for more than twenty years. Robert’s principal areas of expertise are international institutions and processes, human rights, environmental law, science and technology law and urban development. Robert is also an experienced programme and project manager having worked in most geographic regions and a large number of countries. Robert also plays the bagpipes badly.

Davor Meersman is CEO of Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) and is a global change maker with more than 15 years of international experience in setting up leading infrastructures and organisations on the forefront of technological innovation. He is a member of the United Nations SDG 11 Global Council, member of the European Commission's Steering Committee on Advanced Technologies for Industry, member of the Advisory Board of the ETSI Task Force on Citizen-Centric Standards, Ambassador of ISSIP, and a judge and mentor for Belgium's largest start-up incubator programme Start-It KBC (500+ startups). He holds a PhD in Information Systems from Curtin University, Australia.

Davor Meersman is CEO of Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) and is a global change maker with more than 15 years of international experience in setting up leading infrastructures and organisations on the forefront of technological innovation. He is a member of the United Nations SDG 11 Global Council, member of the European Commission's Steering Committee on Advanced Technologies for Industry, member of the Advisory Board of the ETSI Task Force on Citizen-Centric Standards, Ambassador of ISSIP, and a judge and mentor for Belgium's largest start-up incubator programme Start-It KBC (500+ startups). He holds a PhD in Information Systems from Curtin University, Australia.

Ajiv MAHARAJ is an Urban Economist and Urban Planner who holds a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and a PhD in Economic Geography. He is currently Deputy Head of the Economic Development and Investment Promotion Unit at the Durban Metro, and heads the research, policy, strategy and innovation department. His interests are in urban economics and city strategy.

Dr. Moges Tadesse is an academician, researcher and development practitioner with over 20 years of experience. He is an Economist by training and specializes in development policies and strategies for poverty reduction, diversified livelihoods, and food security in both rural and urban areas across Ethiopia.

Currently Dr. Moges, as a Chief Resilience Officer (CRO), is leading the Addis Ababa City Resilience Project Office for which he is responsible for the implementation of the city resilience strategy, undertaking resilient action research, preparation of bankable proposals, working in collaboration with stakeholders, partners and donors to realize the vision of making Addis Ababa safe, livable, and prosperous City.

Dr Hochadel is an expert in global cities and the Director of Global Business at Connected Places Catapult in London, England. She works with local leaders, entrepreneurs, city and national governments around the world, including the Gulf states, India, Malaysia, Africa, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Dr Hochadel has over two decades of experience in politics & public policy and community, government and international relations. She has served as special adviser to Congressional and Presidential candidates across the United States, as well as for British Members of Parliament; has been a guest lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; and proudly serves as a member of the United Nations Global Happiness policy sub-committee.

Experienced new business development manager with a history of leading cross-border trades, digital transformation projects and partnerships. Enthusiastic and skilled in international sales & marketing and creating an ecosystem via data-driven approach and insights. Aside from enjoying the thrill of new business development, he has a strong interest in innovation and opportunity discovery in Africa and wishes to take part in CITYxCITY discussion to create a Pan African network with like-minded people, municipalities and companies.

Kennedy is the Africa and Middle East Lead at SC Ventures a business unit of Standard Chartered Bank that is responsible for enabling digital transformation across the group including creating new business models and investing in disruptive financial technology.

He is based at the Nairobi based eXellerator lab that incubates tech ideation in the Africa Middle East region working closely with Stanchart’s country leadership teams, clients and the Fintech community applying a technology driven mindset and human-centred design (HCD) methodology to industry problems generating relevant value propositions for these markets.

Davor Meersman is CEO of Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) and is a global change maker with more than 15 years of international experience in setting up leading infrastructures and organisations on the forefront of technological innovation. He is a member of the United Nations SDG 11 Global Council, member of the European Commission's Steering Committee on Advanced Technologies for Industry, member of the Advisory Board of the ETSI Task Force on Citizen-Centric Standards, Ambassador of ISSIP, and a judge and mentor for Belgium's largest start-up incubator programme Start-It KBC (500+ startups). He holds a PhD in Information Systems from Curtin University, Australia.

As the vice mayor or Porto and the chair of the Eurocities Environment Forum, Filipe Araujo has a strong ambition to have his city lead by example when it comes to sustainability. He is very focused on renewable energy production, green roofs and green infrastructure, an increase of the green areas, mobility decarbonization, incentives to public transportation, organic waste collection and circular economy as a whole.

Filipe uses his passion to contribute to the very best quality of life in his city.

Miguel is the Global Leader for Smart Cities at Deloitte. He also leads Government & Public Services and Transportation, Hospitality, Services and Automotive Sectors at Deloitte Portugal.

Mikko Rusama is the first Chief Digital Officer (CDO) at the City of Helsinki and Chairman of the Board at the Forum Virium Helsinki, the City’s innovation company. Helsinki’s vision is to be the world’s most functional city that makes the best use of digitalisation. Mikko is heading Helsinki’s digital transformation. His task is to advance utilisation of digitalisation in the City organisation, produce digital reforms essential to the implementation of the City Strategy and manage the related processes of change.

Ger Baron is the Chief Technology Officer of the City of Amsterdam. His professional career started at Accenture, where he worked as an analyst in the consulting department. In 2007, he was hired by Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM) in the role of project manager, specifically to develop and enhance the role of ICT. Baron was responsible for starting up the Amsterdam ICT-cluster and he initiated several projects in public-private partnership. Among these were a number of projects related to the development of Amsterdam’s Smart City initiative. Currently, Mr Baron is responsible for innovation, R&D and innovation partnerships within the City of Amsterdam. In addition, he serves as president of the City Protocol Society.

For over 25 years Ben has worked as an executive, strategist, and designer in the context of operating systems, media applications, games, web services, products, and the built environment. For the last two years, he has been building the Foundation to help cities and other public organizations develop and share what we call Public Code, software and policy that is open, legible, and useful at the civic scale. He is also an advisor to multiple startups across innovation sectors, from Aectual to Funomena to Wave, and to businesses at scale engaged in market transformation, like Arup and Slack.

Prior in his career, he was a Design Fellow at Samsung, providing guidance to multiple business units and leading a project on room-scale programmable environments. He co-created the massively multiplayer game that became Flickr [and also named it], founded the Experience Design Lab at Frogdesign, and was CEO of Bloom Studios, whose data visualization iPad app Planetary was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution.

Jose Antonio is the Microsoft Western Europe Public Sector Government Industry Executive. He joined Microsoft in 1995 and holds a wealth of Microsoft experience in field sales, sales strategy, partners management, operations and marketing. A frequent speaker at International events like SmartCityExpo, Mobile World Forum, TEDTalk, EU Events… UNESCO SmartCities SME Consultant. Telecommunications Engineer MS at UPM Madrid, Human Sciences MS at UFV Madrid, Enterprise and Institutional Communication Management MS at UAB Barcelona, and Financial Business MS online INSEAD.

Jose Antonio has recently achieved a PhD at UFV, Madrid with Thesis “Beyond SmartCities: How to create an Attractive City for Talented Citizens”.

Lieven is an internationally recognised Smart City expert at Information Flanders with responsibility for driving transformational change in Government. His knowledge of how technology and open data can pioneer new opportunities to improve citizens' lives, combined with a first-hand understanding of how co-creation can unlock innovation, enables him to successfully coordinate several EU CIP and H2020 research consortia like Open Transport Net, PoliVisu and DUET.

Sara Lena Kordasch works as a Geodata and IT-expert at the City of Vienna in the department surveying and mapping. She is in the project lead of the Digital geoTwin - a sematic, vector-based 3D city model for Vienna. Besides she works on various geodata and IT-topics and uses her skills to automize, optimize and innovate the process of geodata processing. She graduated from the University of Vienna with a Bachelor's Degree in Geography and a Master's Degree in Cartography and Geoinformation back in early 2019. While studying, she focused on GIS and the advantages- and disadvantages of spatial vector formats. Sara Lena took her position at the City of Vienna while finishing her master studies and appreciates working together with a great team of colleagues at the City of Vienna.

Mr. De Lathouwer is OGC's President. In this role, he manages the consortium, provides oversight and direction to the Consortium’s strategy, budget, outreach & marketing, and membership recruitment goals, in close collaboration with the CEO. Mr. De Lathouwer also continues to be the General Manager for OGC Europe.

Ulrich Ahle is Chief Executive Officer of the FIWARE Foundation. FIWARE is an initiative whose mission is to build an open sustainable ecosystem around public, royalty-free and implementation-driven software platform standards that will ease the development of new Smart Applications in multiple sectors.

Formerly Vice President and leader of Manufacturing, Retail & Transportation business and responsible for Industry 4.0 at Atos in Germany, he is also founder and member of the Board of the Industrial Data Space Association in Germany.