1st ICC City Lab

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

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

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

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

Christophe Rouillon is mayor of Coulaines in France, second Vice-President of Le Mans Métropole with responsibility for budget and European funds, Vice-President of the Association of French Mayors and has been a member of the European Committee of the Regions since 2005. In October 2019 he became president of its Socialists Group. 

He studied Public Law and Political Science at the Universities of Sorbonne and Paris Assas and holds a degree in Public Law from the University of Maine Le Mans. He also completed the Aspen programme for young politicians and postgraduate studies in European studies at the National School of Administration (ENA).  

At the age of 25, he was appointed as a consultant to the Cabinet of Justice Minister. In 2001, at the age of 34, he was elected mayor of Coulaines, and was reconfirmed in his position in the 2004, 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2020 local elections. As member of the Committee, he has been rapporteur on key dossiers, including on a "Recovery Plan for Europe in response to the COVID-19". 

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.

Martina has over 20 years of experience in Environmental Policy and Programme Management, with a particular focus on energy, buildings and transport. In the UN Environment Programme, she has served in different functions out of Paris and Nairobi, now heading UNEP’s work on Cities and the Secretariat of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction. 

Before joining UNEP, Martina worked on Trade and Environment and Economic Instruments in the Area of Environmental Protection with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the European Commission and the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development. 

She is a fully qualified lawyer, specialised in environmental law.

Soo-Jin Kim is the Head of the Urban Policies and Reviews Unit and the Deputy Head of the Cities, Urban Policies & Sustainable Development Division in the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities. She has 20 years of experience advising cities and national governments in building stronger, cleaner and fairer societies. She developed the OECD Principles on Urban Policy and co-authored numerous reports and papers on cities, including Cities Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Crisis, Governing the City and Making Cities Work for All. She serves several policy networks such as the OECD Working Party on Urban Policy, the OECD Roundtable of Mayors and Ministers, and the OECD Programme on Smart Cities and Inclusive Growth. She is also supervising a diversified body of work ranging from housing affordability to public procurement in cities. She graduated from Sciences Po Paris and holds a Master’s in Comparative Public Law from the Paris Sorbonne I University. 

Since November 2018, Leonie van den Beuken is Program Director of Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), an independent innovation platform residing under the Amsterdam Economic Board. ASC connects governments, companies, knowledge institutions and societal organisations to work on a smart, green and healthy Amsterdam Region. As Program Director, Leonie is responsible for bringing together public and private stakeholders to innovate on four societal transitions: energy, mobility, responsible digitalization and circular economy. Since its inception in 2009, ASC has played a key role in accelerating Amsterdam’s innovation ecosystem and connecting it to regional, national and international levels.  Previous to joining Amsterdam Smart City, Leonie held several other senior roles at the Port of Amsterdam and City of Amsterdam, as director of spatial planning and area redevelopment. Leonie started her career working with Amnesty International to protect human rights in Latin America. Leonie is an optimist, driven by a desire to create better, more liveable cities for all by working across institutional and sectoral boundaries. 

Dr. Päivi Sutinen is the Director for City as a Service Development at the City of Espoo, the second largest city in Finland. Dr. Sutinen has made over 25 years career as a director and developer at the two biggest cities in Finland: Espoo and Helsinki. Her previous positions include e.g. Corporate Services Director, Director for Occupational Health Services, Recruiting Manager, Development manager at the University of Applied Sciences and Section Director in the Vocational Education Institute. In Espoo, Dr. Sutinen leads the development of the business models and innovations of the City as a Service -concept. In 2014, she was appointed to the steering group of 6Aika, which is a joint strategy between the six largest cities in Finland – Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Oulu, Tampere and Turku. Aim is to tackle the common urban challenges together. 

Mark joined ICLEI – Local Government for Sustainability in 2003. He is a member of ICLEI Europe’s Board of Directors and responsible for ICLEI’s Sustainable Economy and Procurement work. For 25 years he has worked for, and on behalf of, local, regional and national governments in project, policy and strategy development on sustainability issues such as smart cities, innovation, business and city interaction, procurement, climate change and transport.  

Mark is the Global Director of ICLEI’s Sustainable Procurement Centre, lead of the United Nations One Planet Network on Sustainable Public Procurement, Vice-Chair of the International Green Procurement Network and a member of the European Commission’s Green Public Procurement Advisory Group.  

Mark has a BSc (Hons) degree in Environmental Science and a Masters in Environmental Management.

Toronto is Canada's largest city and fourth largest in North America and home to a diverse population of 2.8 million people. Lawrence Eta serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the City of Toronto.  Lawrence offers strategic advice and guidance to the Mayor, Council, City Manager, Senior and Corporate leadership team. Lawrence provides vision and leadership for developing, implementing and innovating best in class technology solutions to enable the goals of the City of Toronto. In addition Lawrence's responsibility and accountability entails fiscal stewardship and aligning strategic technology investments that advances principles of access, affordability and resiliency with equity as a key factor for the public.

Over the span of his career Lawrence has been involved in a wide range of technology industries, holding various senior leadership positions including, Global Director of Customer Success within the Internet of Things (IOT) sector, Vice President of Technical Architecture and Director of Business Technology Solutions for an international business process outsourcing organization and Director of Information Services for one of Canada's top 60 pension and benefits plans. A successful track record of leading large transformative business and technology initiatives, he excels at leading organizations technology transition in delivering services in an evolving global environment.

Bianca Dragomir is on a mission to instil purpose, speed and scalability in cluster leadership to meet climate goals. She is passioned by building open, bold, entrepreneurship-driven ecosystems, leading a new generation of innovation clusters across Europe and beyond.  

Bianca was awarded “European Cluster Manager of the Year 2016/18” by the European Commission for her work as CEO of the Valencian Cleantech Cluster AVAESEN in Spain, which she currently leads. She was an advisor to the European Commission’s High-Level Industrial Roundtable ‘Industry 2030’ on developing a smart, innovative and sustainable industrial strategy for the future of Europe and is currently a member of the European Commission’s expert group on industrial clusters.   

Like a ripple effect, Bianca launched the first cleantech start-up accelerator in Spain and expanded it to 12 EU countries, in partnership with the EIT Climate-KIC. She created Spain’s first Smart Cities Think Tank — linking governments as ‘problem owners’ with businesses and VCs as ‘solution providers’ to co-create greener cities. 

She imparts her “7 Stepping Stones” scalable cluster business model to clusters and governments worldwide as a keynote speaker, is founder of “TheCAP” Cluster Accelerator Bootcamp and leader of the bold new movement “Clusters of Change”.  

Bianca brings to the table proven practical solutions based on extraordinary outcomes, combined with a unique perspective, visionary foresight, and energetic optimism. 

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. 

Michael Donaldson is the Commissioner of Technological Innovation, Electronic Administration and Good Governance of the Barcelona City Council. He has a law degree and a master's degree in public management. He has worked as director of strategic planning and central services in the municipalities of Rubí and Gavà. He is a trainer in open government and transparency issues and has published several articles and chapters of public management.