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.

Søren Hansen is an expert on master planning, urban development, transportation and transport planning services as well as environmental assessment studies. Over the last 10 years, Mr. Hansen has been developing livable cities strategies in urban development projects. He is an experienced Project Director with a demonstrated history of working in and across the civil engineering industry disciplines. He also has strong professional skills in engineering, urban master planning, design management, business development, feasibility studies, and comprehensive infrastructure planning.

Hinako Maruyama is a Senior Urban Development Specialist in the East Asia Department of the Asian Development Bank. She works with governments in the People’s Republic of China to formulate and implement strategic and innovative urban and rural projects. She supported multi-sectoral projects in the PRC secondary cities and promoted a nature-based approach in addressing urban flooding and restoring the local environment and water quality, human capital development and creation of innovation ecosystem, and institutional strengthening of urban and rural health and elderly care systems.