George Steinmetz is an American photographer who has been covering environmental stories for the past two decades.  His speciality is aerial photography, and he pilots his own motorized paraglider as well as drones. He has over thirty years of experience working for National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, GEO, Stern, and Le Figaro on issues of desertification, rising sea levels, deforestation, and the global food supply. He has produced four books and won numerous awards from World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year, and the Art Directors Club of New York.  He is currently working on his multi-year Feed the Planet project to document the global food supply.  He lives in New Jersey, with his wife Lisa Bannon, an editor at the Wall St. Journal, and their three children.

Mario Calabresi, writer and journalist, was born in Milan in 1970. He was Editor of the La Stampa newspaper from 2009 to 2015 and as of January 15th 2016 has edited the Italian daily La Repubblica.
Prior to this, he worked as a parliamentary reporter for the Ansa press association and the Rome editorial office of La Stampa. 
He also held the position of Editor-in-Chief of La Repubblica and, from 2007 to 2008, was the New York correspondent for the same paper, following the electoral campaign culminating in the election of Barack Obama. His published books include Spingendo la notte più in là. Storia della mia famiglia e di altre vittime del terrorismo (Pushing back the night. Stories of my family and other victims of terrorism) (2007); La fortuna non esiste. Storie di uomini e donne che hanno avuto il coraggio di rialzarsi (Fortune doesn’t exist. Stories of men and women who were brave enough to rise up) (2009); Cosa tiene accese le stelle. Storie di italiani che non hanno mai smesso di credere nel futuro (What keeps the stars burning. Stories of Italians who have never stopped believing in the future) (2011), all published by Mondadori.
By contrast, he went on to write A Occhi Aperti (With eyes wide open) (2013) which collects his interviews with ten leading photographers, who recount the moments in which history was frozen by a photograph. His most recent book is called Non temete per noi, la nostra vita sarà meravigliosa (Don’t fear for us, our lives will be wonderful): an antidote to the discouragement evident in those young people who today ask whether their dreams are worth dreaming. In 2011 he presented the RAI 3 television production entitled Hotel Patria.

At the age of 9, Felix Finkbeiner, inspired by the story of Wangari Maathai, developed the idea that children could promote climate justice by planting a million trees in every country. With the support of children from over a hundred countries, Felix launched the children and youth initiative Plant-for-the-Planet in 2007. So far, more than 70,000 children and youth in 67 countries have been trained in Plant-for-the-Planet Academies. As Climate Justice Ambassadors, these children and youth give speeches to adults, make them act and fight for their future. In May, 2018, the German President awards Felix the Federal Cross of Merit to honor his commitment for climate justice. Today, Felix does his PhD at the ETH Zurich. He researches on the forest restoration potential at a global scale as well as on the question which areas should be prioritised to maximise the impact of biosequestration in addressing the anthropogenic climate crisis. Plant-for-the-planet.org 

Rita Kimani, co-founder of FarmDrive is a young ambitious changemaker. Her life’s work focuses on leveraging technology to enable smallholder farmers in Africa achieve self-sustenance. She holds a First Class Honours in BSc. Computer Science from the University of Nairobi and has proven expertise in conceptualising and designing solutions for emerging economies and fostering scalable innovations.

Growing up in a rural farming community in Kenya, Rita experienced first hand the frustration farming communities faced as they struggled to support their families through agriculture. Despite these challenges, sustainable agriculture is the best tool to significantly reduce global poverty and promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth while reducing inequalities. 

Rita resolved to use both her personal and academic experiences to build solutions that would equip farming communities with the resources they needed to thrive in their farming enterprises. She co-founded FarmDrive, an ag-fintech company providing tailored mobile loans to smallholder farmers by using innovative credit assessment models, data analytics and operational efficiencies. FarmDrive’s goal is to efficiently drive capital to smallholder farmers. 

Rita is also a UN Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals and believes that the youth are key to achieving the SDGs.

Raj Patel is a Research Professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin and a Senior Research Associate at the Unit for the Humanities at the university currently known as Rhodes University (UHURU), South Africa.

He has worked for the World Bank and WTO, and protested against them around the world. He is a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award winner and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. 

In addition to scholarly publications in economics, philosophy, politics and public health journals, he regularly writes for the press. His first book was Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. His second, The Value of Nothing, was a New York Times and international best-seller. His latest, co-written with Jason W. Moore, is A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. He is currently working on a documentary project about the global food system with award-winning director Steve James.

Leo Abruzzese is Global Director of Public Policy for The Economist Intelligence Unit's Consulting team, overseeing analysis, research and modelling for governments, corporations, NGOs and foundations. 

He has directed strategic research initiatives for organisations such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Gates Foundation, the Clinton Foundation, the International Organisation for  Migration, the Office of Mexico’s President, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Nike Foundation, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. 

He has developed more than 20 performance-benchmarking models, ranging from the Women’s Economic Opportunity Index to the Global Food Security Index. He has written about every major economic event of the past generation, from the oil shocks of the late 1970s to the rise of China, the Great Recession of 2008-09 and the European debt crisis.

Before joining the EIU in 1998, Leo Abruzzese was Washington bureau chief and editorial director of The Journal of Commerce.

Marc is a former Manager at McKinsey & Company where he was a leader in the Sustainability and Consumer practices. While at McKinsey, Marc co-authored the McKinsey Global Institute report, Resource Revolution: Meeting the World's Energy, Materials, Food and Water Needs. In developing this report, his team highlighted food waste as one of the biggest issues globally and yet very little was being done about it. Marc then left McKinsey to found Winnow. Winnow builds technology to help chefs run their kitchens more efficiently focusing on helping chefs understand and prevent food waste. Since launch five years ago Winnow has been deployed in thousand of kitchens in 39 countries and has saved its customers over $25m by reducing food waste.

Mitchell Davis is Chief Strategy Officer of the James Beard Foundation, a cookbook author, a food journalist, a restaurant critic, and a scholar with a Ph.D. in Food Studies from NYU. With the Beard Foundation for 25 years, Davis has led many of the strategic initiatives that have made the organization an accessible authority and respected leader in many facets of American gastronomy, from the James Beard Awards to food system change. During his tenure Davis served as Chief Creative Officer of the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015. 

Roberto Ridolfi joined the European Commission in 1994, initially working in several EU delegations as development and economic advisor. He began as infrastructure and development advisor at the EU Delegation to Malawi, dealing with infrastructure, transport, health, rural infrastructures. From 2005 to 2007, he was EU Ambassador, Head of delegation for the Pacific in Suva, and then held a similar post as EU Ambassador to Uganda from 2011 to 2013. 

In between, as part of his duties as the Head of the “Europe Aid” Unit, he managed programmes dealing with Environment and Climate Change, Rural development and Food security, Human development, migration and asylum, as well as the One-Billion-Euro Food Facility in 50 countries. 

From 2013 to 2017 Mr Ridolfi was “Planet and Prosperity” Director at DG DEVCO, before becoming both principal advisor to the DG DEVCO, detached as special advisor on strategy and financing development at the Food and Agriculture Organization in the United Nations. 

Mr Ridolfi holds a MSc in Engineering, an MBA and a PhD in A. Technology.

Anna Scavuzzo is the Vice Mayor of the City of Milan and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety. From 2017 she is in charge of the Milan Food Policy. Within an innovative framework of the food system governance, she has promoted actions in several fields: reducing food waste, circular economy for food, local public procurement, food startups incubator.

As political referent for the food policy, she participated to many high level events in Dakar, Stockholm, Tegucigalpa, Vilnius, Washington, Vienna and Tel Aviv, and to events organized by the C40 Food System Network, the Eurocities Working Group Food and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact.

As the former Deputy Mayor for Education, she worked closely with the municipal agency for school canteens (85.000 meals per day) and she promoted policies for a more organic local procurement and healthier diets.

As City Councillor, in the mandate 2011-2016, Ms Scavuzzo focused her attention on the rural-urban linkages, becoming also Metropolitan Councillor and member of the board of the Agricultural Southern Milan Park (43.600 hectares with 1.400 farms).

Master degree in Physical, she worked on the applied info technologies, data analytics and public administration learning tools for a leading editorial group.

Dr. Hagit Ulanovsky is an experienced and accomplished professional in the fields of sustainable nutrition, environmental health, risk management, environmental technologies, Israeli and international regulation, and sustainability. Dr. Ulanovsky is the founder & director of the Israeli Forum for Sustainable Nutrition, NGO of professionals working together to promote research, consultation and policy changes towards sustainable food systems in Israel. Dr. Ulanovsky is also a founding partner of SP (Science to Policy)–Interface, experts’ partnership, which is working for the national and local government entities, in order to promote cross-sectional sustainability. In the past, Dr. Ulanovsky served as the general director of the Israeli Green Party, as the manager of the Israeli “Green New Deal” economic program, and as advisor to the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the State of Israel.

Dr. Barbara Buchner is Executive Director of Climate Finance at Climate Policy Initiative. Named one of the 20 most influential women in climate change, Barbara advises leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world.

Barbara is lead author on CPI’s Global Landscape of Climate Finance, a paper that has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking. She directs CPI’s work as Secretariat of the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab). The Lab identifies, develops, and launches innovative climate finance instruments that resolve financing barriers for clean energy, sustainable land use, adaptation, and other green growth projects. Instruments from the Lab have mobilized over one billion US dollars for sustainable development in in just four years.

She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Graz and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Barbara is based out of San Francisco.

Doaa Abdel-Motaal is Advisor at the Guarini Institute of Public Affairs in Rome, Italy.  She is the former Executive Director of the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health, the former Chief of Staff of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and former Deputy Chief of Staff of the World Trade Organization (WTO). 

She is also a writer. Her latest book Antarctica, the Battle for the Seventh Continent, was released in September 2016 and has been nominated for the 2018 Mountbatten Best Book Award.  

She holds a Masters and Doctoral degree in environment and development studies from the University of Cambridge and the University of Geneva. 

Martina Fleckenstein is the Policy Manager of the Food Practice for WWF International. She is responsible for coordination of policy processes for WWF food practice at global level, initiate policy interventions, establish contacts with policy decision-makers, and support coordination of cross-practice policies.  The food practice focuses on three key action areas, namely sustainable production, reducing food loss and waste, and sustainable diets.

Martina has been with WWF for 25 years, dealing with conservation, agriculture and sustainable production at national and international level. Prior to taking on the newly created policy role within the Food Practice, Martina was Director Agriculture & Land Use Change in WWF-Germany. In this role, she worked on sustainability standards, transparency in supply chains and international commodity markets. She has been responsible for projects on sustainable land use management and planning, including sustainable forest and agriculture production and initiate projects on sustainable consumption in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Expert on sustainable agriculture and food issues and has written extensively on gender and population, the spread of factory farming in the developing world, and innovations in sustainable agriculture. She is currently the co-founder of FoodTank: The Food Think Tank. Food Tank researches and highlights environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity and poverty and create networks of people, organizations, and content to push for food system change.

Danielle spent two years traveling to more than 35 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America meeting with farmers and farmers’ groups, scientists and researchers, policymakers and government leaders, students and academics, and journalists collecting their thoughts on what’s working to help alleviate hunger and poverty, while also protecting the environment. Danielle was also the Director of the Nourishing the Planet project, housed at the Worldwatch Institute.

Her knowledge of global agriculture issues has been cited widely in more than 3,000 major publications includingThe New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, BBC, and many others.

Danielle has authored or contributed to several major reports and books, including Happier Meals: Rethinking the Global Meat Industry (2005), State of the World 2011: Innovations that Nourish the Planet (Editor and Project Director, 2011), Eating Planet 2012 (2012), and Food and Agriculture: The Future of Sustainability (2012).

Dr. Barbara Buchner is Executive Director of Climate Finance at Climate Policy Initiative. Named one of the 20 most influential women in climate change, Barbara advises leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world.

Barbara is lead author on CPI’s Global Landscape of Climate Finance, a paper that has set the benchmark for climate finance tracking. She directs CPI’s work as Secretariat of the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (the Lab). The Lab identifies, develops, and launches innovative climate finance instruments that resolve financing barriers for clean energy, sustainable land use, adaptation, and other green growth projects. Instruments from the Lab have mobilized over one billion US dollars for sustainable development in in just four years.

She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Graz and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Barbara is based out of San Francisco.

Dr Gerard Salole is Chief Executive of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) in Brussels. Dr. Salole has experience and knowledge of foundations and NGOs, having held senior positions in the Ford Foundation’s Southern Africa office (Johannesburg) and the Bernard van Leer Foundation (The Hague). He has also worked for Save the Children Federation (Ethiopia, USA and Zimbabwe) and Redd Barna  - Norwegian Save the Children, OXFAM UK and UNHCR (Ethiopia).

He is the founding chair of TrustAfrica, and sits on the General Education Advisory Board of the Open Society Foundation and on the jury of the King Baudouin African Development Prize.

He holds an M.A. (Econ.) and Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, and he studied Social Anthropology and African History at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. 

Michele was born in Mondovì in 1989. He studied Economics and Management at Bocconi University and got a double degree at Rotterdam School of Management.

In Rotterdam he started working for Unilever in the finance department, but after few years he decided to leave his job and come back to Italy to found WAMI - Water with a Mission together with Giacomo.

Stella Paul is an India-based, multiple award-winning international journalist, covering environment and development issues such as climate change, gender equity, technology  and sustainable development. She is the first and only Indian journalist to be honored with the prestigious "Courage in Journalism Award" and  "Bravery in Journalism Award" bestowed  respectively by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and the East West Center, (Hawaii). Stella has so far reported from over 20 countries across the world and her works are published in World's leading media outlets such as the TIME, Reuters, the New York Times, and Inter Press Services.  She is 3 time winner of the Asian Environmental Journalism Award, Indian Environmental Journalism Award, National Media Award (India) and over a dozen other prestigious international awards. In 2015, Women Deliver – the global advocacy form described her as one of the "14 Most Powerful Writers on Women and Girls Health and Rights"

Stella is also a trainer in Gender Sensitive Reporting who trains journalists and media practitioners in reporting climate change and SDGs in a gender sensitive manner, using investigative journalism tools. She has so far trained over 400 journalists and bloggers in 18 countries across Asia, Africa, North America and Latin America.

Tom has more than 30 years of global brand sales and marketing experience around innovative brand strategy, elevating organizations and building strong teams. His experience spans a range of U.S.-based multinational companies specific to consumer goods, food and beverage brands. His background includes positions with Miller Brewing Company, Thomas J. Lipton (Unilever), Nabisco, the Oberto Company and Carolina Beverage Corporation. Tom has also served as a consultant to several Southeast Asian firms. Tom received a nomination to the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned a B.A. in Economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Tom’s family founded a non-profit organization called Cake for Kids Cambodia. He travels there bi-annually to work in local hardship areas, teaching children English and life skills and applying resources toward the most critical needs.

Joana Abou-Rizk is a Ph.D. candidate in nutritional sciences at the University of Hohenheim in Germany and recipient of the Excellence Ph.D. Scholarship by the Food Security Center. As a young researcher from Lebanon, her doctoral studies focus on maternal and child nutrition amongst Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities in the urban setting of a humanitarian crisis. She and her Ph.D. colleague won the BCFN YES! 2017 Research Grant for their project.

Prior to joining Hohenheim, she worked for many years in research at the Nutrition and Food Sciences Department at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, primarily on the nutritional situation in the Middle East, infant food security, child nutrition, non-communicable diseases, and dietary assessment methods. In parallel, she has worked as a dietitian in private clinics, specializing in weight loss and chronic disease management. 

She earned her B.Sc. in Human Nutrition and Dietetics in 2009 from the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), her M.Sc. degree in Nutrition in 2013 and her second graduate-level Diploma in Food Security in 2015 from the American University of Beirut (AUB). During her studies, she was granted several scholarships and the AUB Graduate Travel Award. 

Laura Garzoli is an Italian biologist working for the Stazione Teriologica Piemontese. She obtained her PhD in Experimental Ecology and Geobotany at the University of Pavia. She is currently cooperating with the National Research Council – Water Research Institute (CNR-IRSA) of Verbania, the University of Pavia and the University of Turin. 

Over the last seven years, she aimed her studies to the conservation of bats in NW-Italy, being involved in several projects to foster conservation actions. At the same time, she also has 10 years’ experience as a fungal taxonomist, focusing her activity on marine and plant pathogenic fungi (mainly Pyricularia oryzae), and gaining experience in biothecnological applications and diagnostic for industries.

She is member the Executive Commetee of INVASIVESNET, the International Association for Open Knowledge on Invasive Species. She is the author of several national and international scientific publications on different topics related to biodiversity and conservation management.

Theresa Jeremias is a PhD candidate from the University of Hohenheim and won the BCFN YES! 2017 Award for young PhD researchers together with her colleague, Ms. Joana Abou-Rizk. The joint research project focuses on Maternal and Child Nutrition among Syrian women and Lebanese host communities living in vulnerable areas of Greater Beirut with a special emphasis on anemia. It is conducted in collaboration with the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.   

Ms. Jeremias is dedicated to sustainably raising levels of food and nutrition security amongst the most vulnerable people worldwide. Her main interest is in improving nutrition throughout the first 1000 days of life using evidence-based approaches. She has worked as Nutrition Officer in the Nutrition Education Group of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome and Cambodia.  Currently, Ms. Jeremias is working for CARE Germany as Coordinator for Food and Nutrition Security and Global Nutrition Policy Lead for CARE International, in parallel to her PhD research in Lebanon. She is increasingly focusing on nutrition of refugees and IDPs in protracted crises situations in the Middle East.  

Ms. Jeremias holds a Masters in Nutrition Sciences from the University of Hohenheim as well as a Masters in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London.  

Anna Ruggerini is Operations Director and Member of the Board at the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition (BCFN). She directs and coordinates a dynamic Foundation based in Parma, Italy.

She is committed in translating evidence based scientific data into effective policy recommendations, communication, tools and events to enable stakeholders to make informed choices on food and the related systems for our health and for the one of the Planet.

Anna previously served as Marketing Manager for European countries and as Group Communication and External Relations Manager being in charge for Corporation equity and events at the Barilla Group. Among others, she gave birth to an Italian private-public alliance promoting healthy food and life-styles for the future generations and in 2014 she established the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation.

Francesca Scazzina is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Food and Drug, University of Parma. Her research work starts in 2005 with a main focus on complex carbohydrate, dietary fibre, prebiotics and antioxidants in foods, and their effects on metabolism and intestinal functions.

During her Ph.D. studies, she was a visiting scientist at the School of Food Biosciences, Food Microbial Sciences Unit, University of Reading (UK). She also was involved in population surveys in the Italian section of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

In these research fields, she is co-author of several publications on international peer reviewed Journals. Since 2009, being involved in food educational projects implemented in primary schools of the Parma area, Francesca acquired a deep experience in educational health learning programs and children population surveys.

She is Senior Collaborator at The Need for Nutrition Education/Innovation Programme (NNEdPro), Cambridge Foundation, Cambridge (UK) and Scientific Coordinator of Madegus srl, University of Parma spin off dedicated to nutritional educational projects.

Franco Sassi is Professor of International Health Policy and Economics and Director of the Centre for Health Economics & Policy Innovation at Imperial College Business School, formerly Head of the OECD’s Public Health Programme. His work aims at assessing the impacts of public policies to tackle major chronic diseases and their predisposing risk factors, including poor nutrition, physical inactivity, alcohol and tobacco use, environmental, and social risks. He is the author and editor of a large number of economic publications, including the books “Obesity and the economics of prevention: Fit not fat” and "Tackling harmful alcohol use: Economics and public health policy".

Suzanne Kapelari is Professor in Biology and Environmental Education and Head of the Science, Geography, Computer Science and Mathematics Education Group at the Department of Subject-Specific Education at the University of Innsbruck, Austria (https://www.uibk.ac.at/dingim/index.html.en). She was and is a coordinator and/or partner in EU-projects funded by the 6th (www.plantscafe.net) and 7th Framework (www.inquirebotany.org), H2020 (www.bigpicnic.net) as well as the EU Erasmus+. She holds a PhD in Biology, a MA in Education, a Master Degree in Biology and Environmental Education and a qualification for a teaching career in higher education (Habilitation). In 2013, she worked as a visiting researcher at Kings College London, UK for four month. 2014-17 she was Assistant Professor for Biology Education at the University of Vienna. She is active in the international conference circuit and talks about Inquiry-based Science Education, Learning outside the Classroom (e.g. Botanic Gardens) and Science Education for a Sustainable Development.

As an Official UN SDG Advocate, Social Innovation, Climate Change Agriculture, Food and Beverage Expert Network member of the World Economic Forum, Global Food Reformist, and Sustainable Futurist, Marc is on a mission to empower billions of global citizens to live an adaptive lifestyle of health and sustainability within planetary boundaries.

His aim is to reform the agriculture, food and beverage industry with impactful projects and moonshot companies. For example, he teaches and speaks worldwide on climate change and food reform. Marc has also taught entrepreneurs how to build and grow resilient, sustainable, and profitable businesses.

The most prominent examples are ANJA GmbH & Co. KG and the ALOHAS ECO-Center (www.adaptive-nutrition.com), which he co-founded and where he serves as Chief Executive Officer. The ALOHAS ECO-Center is a sustainable food and beverage production company that creates renewable energy and resources without fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, or waste. As an expert on sustainable development, Marc consults for companies in their renewable transition with specialization in innovative systems, recycling, packaging, and organic, raw, and vegan products. 

As a Social Serial Entrepreneur, he has been involved in many companies as well as several international family businesses: indeed he comes from five generations of Germanys largest organic farmers and three generations of European Hydroponic Agronomists.