Aromar Revi

Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), INDIA

Aromar Revi is the Director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) and an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and the Law and Management schools of the University of Delhi. He is an international practitioner, researcher and educator with over 30 years of interdisciplinary experience in public policy and governance, political economy of reform, development, technology, sustainability and human settlements.

He is co-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and of its Urban Thematic group where he led a successful global campaign for an urban Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for the UN. He has led over 100 major research, consulting & implementation assignments in India and abroad; has published 60 peer reviewed publications and books; lectured & taught at over 35 of the world’s leading Universities and think tanks across 6 continents; helped structure, design & review development investments of over $ 8 billion; worked on 3 of the world’s 10 largest cities; and across all of India’s 29 states and in multiple international projects in half a dozen countries.

Alejandro Echeverri

Director of URBAM, the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies at EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia.

Alejandro believes in the ethical responsibility of designers towards our cities in contributing to a better society. He is cofounder and director of URBAM, the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies at EAFIT University, Medellin, Colombia. As the city's director of Urban Projects, he led the conceptualization and implementation of Social Urbanism strategy for the city's most impoverished areas. As a result of these efforts and the belief in the power of design, Medellin is now considered a blueprint  for the future of other cities in the developing world. He is also active in design through his studio, Alejandro Echeverri + Valencia Arquitectos, focusing on projects with low environmental impact. His work has earned him the Colombian National Architectural Award, SCA in 1996, the Pan-American Biennale in Urban Design Award 2008, the Curry Stone Design Prize in 2009, the 10th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design from Harvard in 2013, among others.

Anthony Acciavatti

Principal, Somatic Collaborative, New York, USA

Anthony Acciavatti is an architect, cartographer, and historian. He teaches at Columbia University in the City of New York and is a principal of the design firm Somatic Collaborative. He has spent the last decade hiking, driving, and boating across India’s Ganges River Basin in order to map it and to understand the growing conflicts over water for drinking, agriculture, and industry. The results of this field and archival work are published in his recent book, Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River (2015) Along with the book, Ganges Water Machine is an internationally traveling exhibition.

Dr. Harini Nagendra

Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India

Harini Nagendra is a Professor of Sustainability at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. Her research examines issues of social-ecological sustainability in forests and cities in the global South, with a focus on natural resource commons such as lakes and forests. She received a 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award in recognition of her research and practice on the urban commons. Prior to joining APU, Harini was a Hubert Humphrey Distinguished Visiting Professor at Macalester College, Saint Paul, a DST Ramanujan Fellow at ATREE Bangalore, a Branco Weiss Fellow at ETH Zurich, and Asia Research Coordinator at CIPEC, Indiana University. She is the author of a forthcoming book, 'Nature in the City: Bengaluru in the Past, Present, and Future',  to be published by Oxford University Press, India in April 2016.

Dr. Dilip da Cunha

Adjunct Professor, School of Design (PennDesign), University of Pennsylvania, USA

Dilip da Cunha is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Design (PennDesign) at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. He is also visiting faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology in Bangalore and Graduate School of Design, Harvard University in Cambridge. He is author with Anuradha Mathur of Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape (Yale University Press, 2001); Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore's Terrain (Rupa, 2006); Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (National Gallery of Modern Art / Rupa, 2009); and Design in the Terrain of Water (Applied Research & Design Publishing, 2014). He is currently in the process of completing a book titled The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent. Dilip holds a B. Arch from Bangalore University, Masters from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr.Fabio Masi

Technical Director, R&D Manager, IRIDRA Srl, Florence, Italy

Fabio is Technical Director, R&D Manager of the Italian engineering company IRIDRA Srl, since 1998 and Vice-President of Global Wetland Technology (companies association) since 2012. His background is a PhD in Environmental Sciences and a MSc in Environmental Chemistry. He is currently the Chair of the IWA SG on Wetland Systems for Water Pollution Control. He is the project co-author for over 350 Designs of Constructed Wetlands worldwide. He has been consulting for Sustainable Water Management projects in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. He is currently involved in EC funded projects in the FP7, ENPI-CBCMED, Interreg and Life+ programs.

Tency Baetens

Co-founder of the Auroville Centre for Scientific Research (CSR), Pondicherry, India

Tency Baetens came to India from Belgium and has been residing and working in Auroville for the past 38 years. Since 1995 he is part of CSR team which is developing and implementing natural waste water treatment systems. CSR Dewats has designed and implemented over 150 natural waste water treatment systems in India and abroad. He is involved in several projects related to appropriate building technologies, renewable energy, water and sanitation. Conducts workshops and training courses for professionals and voluntary organizations to promote integral choices for a sustainable future. Co-founder of the Auroville Centre for Scientific Research (CSR) in 1984 and the Auroville Building Centre (AVBC) in 1989.