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.

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.

Wiwandari Handayani is an Associate Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Diponegoro University, Indonesia.

She is an expert in the field of urban–rural linkage and regional planning. Her research focuses on urban and regional resilience in the context of disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, and governance. She recently assisted the Semarang City Government to develop the Semarang Resilience Strategy and leads the governance cluster within the Cascading Semarang Consortium.

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.