Douglas A. Augusto is a computer scientist research fellow at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in Brazil. He has a background in data-driven modeling through machine learning algorithms and also in parallel high-performance computing. For the past years he has been working on modeling the occurrence of zoonotic diseases, with emphasis on sylvatic yellow fever.

Hyun Kim is an environmental epidemiologist and an associate professor at the University of Minnesota in the United States of America. Kim’s main research areas are climate change adaptation strategies and the minimization of climate change impact from the public health perspective. Kim works closely with the World Health Organization to develop international and national-level projects to build climate resilience in the health sector.

Lynn Ang is Professor of Early Childhood, Pro-Director and Vice-Dean Research at UCL Institute of Education. She is also currently Head of the Department of Learning and Leadership. Her research interests include the interdisciplinary fields of early childhood and international development, and early childhood across cultures particularly in South East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.

Lynn is interested in the social, cultural and policy influences on children’s development and early learning in a range of formal and informal contexts such as preschool and home-based settings. Prof. Ang is particularly interested in constructions of early childhood care and education from an international perspective, the impact of research, and the ways in which socially relevant research and advocacy for children and families are translated into policy and practice.

Manos Antoninis is the Director of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report since 2017. He was previously responsible for the monitoring section of the report. He coordinated the financing gap estimates for the 2030 education targets, the projections on the achievement of universal primary and secondary education completion, and the World Inequality Database on Education. He has been representing the report team in the Technical Cooperation Group on SDG 4 indicators, which he is currently co-chairing.

Myra Garces-Bacsal is the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the College of Education at the United Arab Emirates University. She also serves as Associate Professor with the Department of Special Education. Prior to moving to the Middle East, she served as a teacher educator in Singapore where she taught for eleven years.

She was nominated for an Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award in 2019, recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Commendation Award in 2012 and a Service Commendation Award in 2013. She was selected by the International Youth Library in Munich as an International Fellow in 2016 and 2017. She served as Chair of the Programme Committee for the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) held annually in Singapore from 2011-2019 and currently serves as the International Advisor-at-Large for the AFCC.

She has edited five books on Asian children’s literature featuring the Philippines, Malaysia, China, India, and Japan.

Eduardo Cascallar received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently Invited Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium, as well as Managing Director for Assessment Group International (Belgium/USA). He is also an international consultant for the World Bank, OECD and UNESCO. He was Principal Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research, working in international assessment projects, assessment of higher education examinations, and in automated predictive methodologies in national security applications.

In 1991 Cascallar received a recognition from the American Psychological Society for his contributions to scientific psychology, and in 1994 he received the Hammer Award from the Office of the Presidency of the USA for his contributions to the USA government. He also held research and/or faculty positions at UCLA, ETS Georgetown University and with the US Federal government intelligence community.

Cascallar was Director of Assessment at CUNY, and Dean of Assessment at Excelsior College. His research includes work on the assessment of cognitive abilities, the role of working memory and executive attention in academic outcomes and in complex problem solving, the role of heritability in cognitive processing levels, educational assessments, performance assessment, large-scale testing, IRT applications, and computer- based assessment. More recently he has worked in various predictive methodologies in educational, medical, and national security applications.

Cascallar has a long list of publications and presentations at international conferences and is active in various international professional organizations, providing consulting services to academic and corporate institutions, and to international governmental and private organizations in many countries.

Najelaa Shihab is an educator who initiated many organizations in the education field. Some of them are directly dealing with children. She has found schools from preprimary up til senior secondary, like Sekolah Cikal, and a Blended Learning School called Sekolah Murid Merdeka. She is also the Head and Founder of Sekolah.mu, a blended learning platform that provides a range of elective classes to complement school programs and Karier.mu is an education platform for jobseekers and talent development.

She works extensively with different stakeholders in the education ecosystem in many initiatives. Supporting teachers’ development and collaboration through Yayasan Guru Belajar, research and policy advocation with the government, in Pusat Studi Pendidikan dan Kebijakan. She also initiated an organization that focuses on family education – Keluarga Kita, working with thousands of volunteers in more than 150 cities named Relawan Keluarga Kita, and founded Semua Murid Semua Guru Network which is a hub of collaboration for more than 800 NGOs and education communities working on the field for education reform in Indonesia.

Kehkashan Basu is a Winner of the 2016 International Children’s Peace Prize for her work on children’s rights and the environment, and the first-ever Voices Youth Gorbachev-Shultz Legacy Award for her work on nuclear disarmament.

Kehkashan is the Founder President of the social innovation enterprise Green Hope Foundation, which provides over 225,000 young people in 25 countries a networking platform to engage in the sustainable development process and take actions to mitigate climate change. Her internationally acclaimed work on sustainability has resulted in her being named one of the Top 100 SDG Leaders in the world and one of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada.

She is the youngest member of Canada’s Women in Renewable Energy forum and the youngest Councillor of World Future Council. She has just been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions, making her, at 20 years old, its youngest trustee in its 127-year history.

Alexandre Lyambabaje is the University of Rwanda Vice Chancellor. Prior to his appointment, he served as the Executive Secretary of the Inter-University Council for East Africa. He has served in different capacities in the Government of Rwanda. In 1999, he was appointed Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education. In 2000, he was appointed Minister of Commerce, Tourism, Industry, Investments Promotion and Cooperatives, a position he held until 2003. He also contributed to the regional integration process through active participation in the ministerial meetings of East African Community and COMESA. Prof Lyambabaje holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics and a Doctorate in Mathematics from University de Rennes in France.

Angelo Paletta is Delegate of the Rector of the University of Bologna for “Budget, strategic planning and process innovation”; President of the University Scientific Technical Committee for Social and Sustainability Report; Co-director of the Master in “Public Management and Innovation” at Bologna Business School (BBS); He has been a member of numerous scientific committees including MIUR, INVALSI, INDIRE, IPRASE.

He has written numerous books and articles on: Corporate Internal Controls, Cost Management; Corporate Performance Measurement, Corporate Crisis Management, Public Management, Educational Leadership, Governance and Accountability of Universities; Circular economy and business models. He is currently coordinator of the European project Horizon 2020 “Developing and Implementing Sustainability- Based Solutions for Bio-Based Plastic Production and Use to Preserve Land and Sea Environmental Quality in Europe.

Al-Shboul currently is a Vice Dean for Quality Affairs and Development at the School of Educational Sciences in The University of Jordan. He is a Professor of Educational Technology (e-Learning) at The University of Jordan in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction/Educational Technology Program.

He earned his bachelor degree in the area of Business Administration, major in Accounting, from Yarmouk University in Jordan (January, 1996). He earned his M.S. in the area of Computer Science, major in Web Design, from Northeastern Illinois University in the United States (May, 2002). Al-Shboul finished his Ph.D. in the area of Educational Technology, major in Web-Based Learning (e-Learning), from Northern Illinois University in the USA (May, 2007).

Nibal Idlebi is the Chief of Innovation Section at UN-ESCWA. She is a senior policy expert in digital transformation, innovation and technology for sustainable development and digital and open innovative government. She has long experience on policies and strategies advancing knowledge society, digital government transformation, innovation policies and innovation and technology for promoting entrepreneurship in the Arab countries.

She also supervised several regional initiatives on Digital Arabic Content, building trust in cyber space; regional profile of information society and she is currently leading the ESCWA initiative on fostering open government in the Arab region and the ESCWA Award for Digital Arabic Content.

Idlebi is active member in several international and regional working groups and is a jury member of regional and international awards on innovation, entrepreneurship and digital content, and she was a jury member in many e-Government Awards in the Arab Region.

Before joining ESCWA, Idlebi was deputy Minister in the Ministry of Communication and Technology and professor of IT in the Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology in Syria. Idlebi has a computer engineering degree and a Ph.D in Computer Science from France.

Isabel Rimanoczy Ed.D is the Convener of the PRME Working Group of the Sustainability Mindset, an international network of scholars promoting a mindset for shaping a better planet. She has authored fifteen books, most recently a guide for educators: The Sustainability Mindset Principles. Her latest project is the Sustainability Mindset Indicator, a personal development tool for individuals and a teaching support for instructors, due to be launched in autumn 2021.

Raja Maznah Raja Hussain obtained her PhD in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University in 1988. She is currently working as Professor at Sultan Qaboos University since 2017. She is an Instructional Designer and Coach with a passion to make things easy for people to learn. She has vast experience in designing and developing training programmes for schools, higher education institutions and others.

Recently she has been an advocate of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) encouraging teachers (especially in higher education) to examine their practice and to share the teaching that makes learning happens with others. She is interested in helping individuals and institutions develop learning environments that help learners learn. Her main research interests are in Instructional design; Technology Enhanced Learning Environment; Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Shannon Kobran leads the SDG Academy’s Kuala Lumpur team as part of the new SDSN-Asia office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, having spent three years as an Education Manager in the New York office. Prior to joining SDSN, she coordinated outreach and development for a small nonprofit that promotes global citizenship through cultural exchange between international students and local communities in New York City.

Her first career, before transitioning to international education, was as an editor and project manager for a leading educational publisher. Shannon holds an MA in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University, where her research thesis focused on the intersection of technology and intercultural education; and a BA from Dickinson College, USA, where she studied English literature.

Alexander D’Hooghe is Associate Professor at MIT and Chief Strategic Officer and Founding Partner of the design agency and think tank, ORG Permanent Modernity based in Brussels and New York, which is active internationally in systems, urbanism and architecture. He has published internationally, notably with ‘the Liberal Monument’ (Princeton, Fall 2010) and with recent papers in relevant journals in Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USA, etc. His urban designs and analyses have included sites in New York City, Shenzhen, Belgium, The Netherlands, Iceland, South-Korea, Malawi, Ghana, parts of Russia, etc.

His expertise is regularly engaged in large multi-functional infrastructure projects and masterplans such as the current resiliency plan developments with coastal design and multifunctional offshore infrastructures in the North Sea as well as new architectural typologies in the canal district of Brussels that mixes education and the arts, with manufacturing, commercial, residential and public spaces. He serves as the director of the advisory committee in Amsterdam to develop meaningful infrastructure to connect the banks of the IJ river. Additionally, he is commissioned to support long-term development plans for Malawi’s urban and rural agricultural and industrial development, focusing on land use efficiency, infrastructural connectivity, environmental sensitivity and diverse economic productivity.

Alexander was formerly the director of MIT Centre For Advanced Urbanism (CAU), which focuses on the large-scale, complex urban issues of our time. D’Hooghe obtained a PhD from the Berlage Institute in 2007with T.U. Delft, published as the book ‘The Liberal Monument’ (Princeton Press, 2010). He previously obtained a Master’s degree in Urban Design from Harvard in 2001, and a Master’s degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Leuven in 1996. He worked with among others Rem Koolhaas and Marcel Smets.

Wei Liu is the Coordinator of the UN Inter-agency Task Team on Science, Technology and Innovation for the SDGs, Sustainable Development Officer in the Integrated Policy and Analysis Branch of the Division for Sustainable Development Goals, UN DESA. He provides both substantive and organizational support to the implementation of the science, technology and innovation (STI)-related decisions contained in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and other related global processes. Wei Liu joined the United Nations in 2005. He has mainly worked in development policy and contributed to various United Nations publications including the Global Sustainable Development Report and policy briefs of the Technology Facilitation Mechanisms.

His research areas cover from STI policy and roadmaps, AI strategies, green economy and trade, technology solutions for the SDGs, financing for a green economy transition, inequality, and post 2015 development agenda, trade finance and aid in the context of global financial crisis, to food security and sustainable agriculture. Working in the Rio+20 Secretariat, he was extensively involved in the United Nations Rio + 20 process and provided technical support on green economy, trade, and finance related issues for the Rio+20 negotiations. Before that, Wei Liu worked as an Associated Economic Affairs Officer in the Trade and Investment Division, UN-ESCAP, Bangkok, Thailand, and as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, the UK. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Birmingham.

Alexander D’Hooghe is Associate Professor at MIT and Chief Strategic Officer and Founding Partner of the design agency and think tank, ORG Permanent Modernity based in Brussels and New York, which is active internationally in systems, urbanism and architecture. He has published internationally, notably with ‘the Liberal Monument’ (Princeton, Fall 2010) and with recent papers in relevant journals in Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USA, etc. His urban designs and analyses have included sites in New York City, Shenzhen, Belgium, The Netherlands, Iceland, South-Korea, Malawi, Ghana, parts of Russia, etc.

His expertise is regularly engaged in large multi-functional infrastructure projects and masterplans such as the current resiliency plan developments with coastal design and multifunctional offshore infrastructures in the North Sea as well as new architectural typologies in the canal district of Brussels that mixes education and the arts, with manufacturing, commercial, residential and public spaces. He serves as the director of the advisory committee in Amsterdam to develop meaningful infrastructure to connect the banks of the IJ river. Additionally, he is commissioned to support long-term development plans for Malawi’s urban and rural agricultural and industrial development, focusing on land use efficiency, infrastructural connectivity, environmental sensitivity and diverse economic productivity.

Alexander was formerly the director of MIT Centre For Advanced Urbanism (CAU), which focuses on the large-scale, complex urban issues of our time. D’Hooghe obtained a PhD from the Berlage Institute in 2007with T.U. Delft, published as the book ‘The Liberal Monument’ (Princeton Press, 2010). He previously obtained a Master’s degree in Urban Design from Harvard in 2001, and a Master’s degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Leuven in 1996. He worked with among others Rem Koolhaas and Marcel Smets.