Maria is an engineer with over ten years' experience working with regional, rural, and vulnerable communities to access critical services such as water and sanitation. Her recent work in Nauru working in the water, sanitation, and solid waste management sectors particularly highlights the unique way in which these services can impact nutrition, agriculture, and climate-resilience. Maria has experiences in combining urban agriculture with water and sanitation solutions for the climate resilient and nutrition- smart recovery of Nauru.

Stefano Marta works for the Cities, Urban Policies and Sustainable Development Division in the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities at the OECD. Stefano is currently coordinating the Programme “A Territorial Approach to the Sustainable Development Goals,” which support cities and regions in implementing the SDGs in various OECD and partner countries. Stefano also coordinated the OECD project on “Reshaping Decentralised Development Cooperation.”

Rifai has worked with co-founder John Taylor since initiating the Solo Kota Kita project in 2009; he manages the office in Solo, overseeing and getting involved in all aspects of projects, from facilitating workshops to networking to overall management.

Rifai received his Masters degree from the Development Planning Unit, University of College, London. He has worked on urban issues with UN HABITAT Indonesia, UNDP and the ILO.

Mark Thomas is a highly regarded strategist and smart cities expert and he leads Serviceworks. 

Mark received the Leadership Award for Outstanding Contribution towards building Smart Cities, and is part of the Top 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders. 

Maarit Kahila is CEO and co-founder of Maptionnaire. Maptionnaire is a tool that helps create map-based surveys to get ideas and insights from residents – and thus encourages public participation.

Maarit is passionate about making the interaction between residents and experts smoother and thereby supports the creation of more livable and lovable cities. Her tool is helping cities to change their way of interacting with residents in a more inclusive way by making the community engagement process easier and more efficient.

Dil Rahut joined the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) as a Senior Research Fellow in January 2021 and was appointed Vice-Chair of Research in April 2022.

His research focuses on development microeconomics, agricultural economics, and environmental and natural resource economics. He is currently implementing experiments and field research in agriculture, natural resources, and climate in Asia.

He is concurrently visiting professor at the Center for Spatial Information Science, University of Tokyo, Japan, and a special advisor to East Japan Railways Company (JR East) for India High-Speed Rail. Between 2013-2017, Seetha acted as the focal point for ADB-wide knowledge management, working to spur innovative solutions to the varied development challenges in Asia.

Tuul has worked in various sectors of ADB’s operation in Mongolia, including transport, energy and social protection. Currently, she is responsible for the urban development sector and manages several ADB-financed projects aimed to improve utility services and management in provincial towns. Prior to joining ADB Mongolia Resident Mission in 2005, she was a project manager for a World Bank-funded urban project and a researcher in the Democratic Party of Mongolia.