Challenge Judges

With over 20 years of public policy and regulatory affairs experience in the technology sector, Ankhi’s primary responsibilities are to lead Facebook’s efforts on connectivity, Internet governance, promoting access and Open Internet, privacy, data security, safety issues and political risk management for the company. In this role, Ankhi oversees the company’s relationships with policymakers, elected officials, government agencies and NGOs in India, South & Central Asian countries and directs the company’s programs in these areas in this region. Her key goals are to promote the use of Facebook for civic engagement, community organizing for elections, social causes, use of Facebook family of apps for fueling economic growth and opportunities for start ups, small and medium businesses and promoting entrepreneurship development in the region. Ankhi was a member of the Multi-stakeholder Advisory (MAG) of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a private sector representative and an active participant in the global multi-stakeholder dialog.

Ashley Pettus is an investor, philanthropist and freelance writer. She is the founder and director of the Global HearthWorks Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to expandingaccess to safe and affordable household energy, as well as education and economic opportunity, in the world’s poorest communities. GHWF has made equity and debt investments in a range of early-stage businesses in East and Southern Africa—from cookstoves and sustainable fuels to digital learning and landscape restoration. Prior to her work in Africa, Ashley ran Frontier Academy, a pilot program for learning disabilities outside of Boston. She also worked as a science writer for the Clean Air Task Force and was a regular contributor to Harvard Magazine. She recently relocated to Houston, where she has become involved in efforts to promote juvenile justice reform and educational equity. Ashley earned a BA magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Ashwani K. Muthoo, a national of India, has extensive experience in international cooperation, agriculture and rural development, management and development evaluation. He currently holds the position of Director of the Global Engagement and Multilateral Relations Division in IFAD.  Prior to his current position, he was Deputy Director of the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD (IOE). Mr Muthoo has experience of working in more than 50 developing countries in all regions, and is fluent in English, Hindi, Italian and Portuguese, and understands French and Spanish.

Director, MIT Senseable City LabFounding Partner, Carlo Ratti AssociatiAn architect and engineer by training, Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at MIT, where he directs the Senseable City Laboratory, and is a founding partner of the international design and innovation practice Carlo Ratti Associati. A leading voice in the debate on new technologies’ impact on urban life, his work has been exhibited in several venues worldwide, including the Venice Biennale, New York’s MoMA, London’s Science Museum, and Barcelona’s Design Museum. Two of his projects – the Digital Water Pavilion and the Copenhagen Wheel – were hailed by Time Magazine as ‘Best Inventions of the Year’. He has been included in Wired Magazine’s ‘Smart List: 50 people who will change the world’. He is currently serving as co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cities and Urbanization, and as special advisor on Urban Innovation to the European Commission.

Carmine Paolo De Salvo is a Rural Development Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, where at the moment he works on policy and investment loans in the agricultural sector in Haiti, Jamaica, Colombia, and other Latin America and Caribbean countries. In addition, Paolo leads the AGRIMONITOR initiative, which aims to monitor agricultural public policies in Latin America and the Caribbean, using the Producer Support Estimate methodology. Before joining the IDB, Paolo worked in the Agriculture and Rural Development Division of the World Bank and as an ODI Fellow Economist at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Paolo, Italian, studied at the University of Bologna and holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from the London School of Economics. At the moment, Paolo lives in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Dr. Chandra Madramootoo holds the James McGill Professorship in Water and Food Security at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is also a Visiting Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a Visiting Scholar at MIT’s World Water and Food Systems Lab. His work is focused on the development of innovation and entrepreneurship platforms, which scale up technologies in water, agriculture and food security, thereby generating wealth and new economic opportunities in various geographical and financial settings.  

VP Sustainable Agriculture & Responsible Sourcing. Christine drives PepsiCo’s strategic vision to deliver transformation andinnovation through sustainable and responsible sourcing solutions. She leads the sustainable sourcing and agricultural teams to deliver against relevant PepsiCo Performance with Purpose 2025 goals. Prior to PepsiCo, Christine worked at Tyson Foods,where she held various roles, most recently Vice President of Sustainable Food Production.  Her responsibilities included natural resource conservation programs, responsible sourcing and farm animal well-being, as well as leading the company’s sustainability programs across multiple platforms.

As the Managing Director of Asia Regional Office, Deepali Khanna manages the Foundation's policy, advocacy, grant-making, and partnerships in Asia. She leads The Rockefeller Foundation's initiatives to convene and catalyze strategic collaborations that advance development in Asia, as well as harness Asia's role in enhancing the wellbeing of humanity in the region and around the world.Ms. Khanna joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2015. She most recently served as Director and managed one of the Foundation’s flagship initiatives in India, Smart Power for Rural Development (SPRD). In this role, she provided leadership and direction across the full range of activities, partners, and resources of the initiative to provide affordable and clean energy access to over a million people in India.

Doulaye supports the foundation’s effort to provide access to safe sanitation to the 2.5 billion people currently without it. He is disrupting the decades long status quo in the developing world sanitation sector by reinventing the toilet and reimagining fecal sludge management business as a sustainable utility service. He is responsible for the Transformative Technologies and product development portfolio, and for shaping the Foundation efforts in birthing a new sanitation industry to equitably serve the majority of poor communities in developing countries. Doulaye has more than 20 years’ experience as a Sanitation and water specialist; a development professional and lead scientist. He holds a Ph.D., and MAS in sanitary and environmental engineering; MSc. and BSc in Physics and Chemistry.

Dr. Eun-Ju Kim is currently Chief a.i. of Digital Knowledge Hub Department, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) at ITU in July 2019, where she serves the ITU membership for capacity and digital skills development to strengthen capacities and bridge digital skills gaps, ICT data and analytics to ensure ITU’s global leadership as the main source of ICT data, creating enabling legal, policy, regulatory and market environments conducive to the development of telecommunications/ICTs, and the neutral contribution-driven ITU-D Study Groups through various platforms, services and products in close coordination and partnership with various stakeholders, which can contribute to achieving ITU Goals and the UN SDGs for a sustainable digital economy and society.

Dr. Amir Aman Hagos is Minister of Health (MOH) of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.   Dr. Hagos is a dedicated public health professional and a physician with a master’s degree in public health.  As a medical practitioner, he has worked in rural settings as a clinician and medical director.   He has also served as a Director of Human Resources and Development, Director-General for Policy and Plan, State Minister of Health of Operations, and now Minister at the Ministry of Health.  

Heather Johnson is Vice President for Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility for the Ericsson Group worldwide, and has worked for the Ericsson Group in Sweden for over 20 years. During this time she has held various Marketing, Communications and Engagement positions across different parts of the company, and for the last 15 years at the Group level. Since 2007 her work has focused exclusively in support ofEricsson’s sustainability and corporate responsibility efforts.

Jeffrey L. Sturchio is CEO at Rabin Martin, a global health strategy consulting firm, and former President and CEO of the Global Health Council. Before joining the Council in 2009, Dr. Sturchio was vice president of Corporate Responsibility at Merck &Co. Inc., and president of The Merck Company Foundation. He is currently also chairman of the U.S. Corporate Council on Africa, chairman of the BroadReach Institute for Training and Education and a member of the boards of ACHAP, Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria, and the Science History Institute.  Dr. Sturchio is also a visiting scholar at the Institute for Appliedb Economics, Global Health and the Study of Business Enterprise at The Johns Hopkins University; Senior Associate at CSIS; a principal of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Arthur W. Page Society; and an advisor to amfAR, Intrahealth International, Partnership for Quality Medical Donations, the Global Health Group at the University of California San Francisco and Rutgers Global Health Institute. He received an AB in history from Princeton University and a PhD in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. His publications include The Road to Universal Health Coverage: Innovation, Equity and the New Health Economy (edited with I. Kickbusch and L. Galambos‎, Johns HopkinsbUniversity Press, 2019).

Kate believes that digital technology products, new technology policies and updated business model practices are required to make transformative change in the lives of the under-served and to decrease the growing digital divide. She has committed the past 26 years to bringing diverse stakeholders together to find common ground in business, technology, and policy, holding leadership roles in both the corporate and non-profit sector. She co-founded and led the Digital Health Solutions Group at PATH, the Seattle-based international health organization driving transformative innovation to save lives, and prior to that held roles in ICT product development and launch, strategic planning and business development at Microsoft, Intel and General Electric.

Ken Hayes joined Cleantech Open in 2017 as Executive Director responsible for US National and Global operations. CTO is the largest and oldest American business accelerator for cleantech startups, working with over 100 US companies per year since 2006, and with hundreds of global companies in partnership with UNIDO since 2014.  He is also Venture Partner and Co-Founder of Canyon Creek Capital's Fund II, a VC fund focused on California tech companies from Seed to Series A, with 40+ investments since August 2014.  He is a Director Emeritus of the Pasadena Angels, where he was responsible for operations of this 100-member group which has invested in over 180 companies, and he continues to focus on deal sourcing, mentoring entrepreneurs, and performing due diligence. Finally, Ken is a "recovering entrepreneur" who has built and sold several tech companies in Europe and the USA, as well as having held management positions in large corporations such as Nordea (banking) and Dell (computers).  He earned an MBA at INSEAD, France, and a BA Economics at Pomona College, California.

Konrad Brits is the founder and CEO of Falcon Coffees, a UK based green coffee trading company with offices in the US, Peru, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Konrad has spent 25 years in the green coffee industry, starting his career in Africa where he built export operations in Zimbabwe, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Konrad has been instrumental in deploying Falcon’s Collaborative Supply Chain business model across coffee origins in Latin America and Africa, facilitating transparent trade relationships between roasters and farmers. Falcon has also partnered with the Gates Foundation in Ethiopia and Ben Affleck’s East Congo Initiative, using coffee as the vehicle to drive socio-economic change in the lives of smallholder farmers in those origins.

Malavika leads Engie Impact’s work out of APAC. Malavika is a well regarded sustainability professional with over 20 years of experience. Her experience includes projects in clean energy, smart cities, climate change, and sustainable agriculture. She has worked with the private sector, governments, and the development sector, lived and worked both in the West (UK, Europe, and US) and in Asia (Southeast Asia, India).Malavika developed her keen interest in climate change in the early part of her career with McKinsey and Company as a part of their Climate Change Special Initiative in London, working on carbon abatement strategy for European utilities and governments. She was involved in McKinsey’s first global greenhouse gas abatement cost curves study which was widely published and quoted. 

Manuel Ossa is the Operations Lead of the WFP Innovation Accelerator, which aims to tackle hunger through innovation and an entrepreneurial and exponential approach. Manuel began his career as a management consultant at BCG to then become an entrepreneur. He is the founder of Trinus, one of the leading telecommunication companies in Latin America. At WFP he has worked with smallholder farmers, supply chain and emergency response, and leveraged cutting edge technologies such as AI and blockchain

Marco Kamiya leads global operational and normative work on urban economy and municipal finance, working with cities he supports financing methodologies related with planning, participatory approaches and infrastructure finance.   Previously, he occupied senior positions at CAF Development Bank of Latin America, the Inter-American Development Bank, and PADECO Co., Ltd in Tokyo. He studied Economics in Lima and Tokyo, and International Development at Harvard University.

Dr. Marguerite Nyhan is a tenured faculty member (US equivalent -Assistant Professor) at the National University of Ireland - University College Cork and a Visiting Scientist at Harvard University in Boston. Prior to joining University College Cork, she was a Research Scientist at United Nations Global Pulse at the United Nations in New York City. She has a background in environmental engineering, urban analytics and public health and is interested in informing the design of healthy and sustainable cities of the future. Nyhan has published research on using large ICT datasets for evaluating urban dynamics at a city-wide scale, evaluating emissions and exposures to pollution, and determining their human health impact. Her current work focuses on harnessing emerging technologies for sustainable development and humanitarian efforts.

Vice President, NewLeaf SymbioticsMaureen leads the communication and engagement strategy for NewLeaf Symbiotics, an agricultural technology company delivering sustainable agriculture solutions to growers through the use of beneficial plant microbes. She joined NewLeaf after 25 years with Monsanto Company in a variety of roles from procurement & supply chain management, manufacturing, corporate communications, and strategy development. Maureen holds a Bachelors degree in Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management, a Masters of Business Administration from Tulane University and certificates from Duke University and University of Cambridge Prince of Wales Business & Sustainability.

Mei Lin Fung is a technology pioneer working to ensure that technology works for humanity as the next 3.9 billion people come online. In 1989 she was part of the 2-person skunkworks team that developed “OASIS,” the first customer relationship management (CRM) system. She later served as socio-technical lead for the US Dept. of Defense’s Federal Health Futures initiative. In 2015, she joined “father of the Internet,” Vint Cerf, to co-found the “People-Centered Internet,” (PCI) which maintains a global network of “positive change agents” committed to ensuring that technology is developed with a “people-centered” focus – increasing access while ensuring equality, protecting the vulnerable, and prioritizing human well-being. She serves as vice-chair for Internet Inclusion within the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Internet Initiative & Smart Village. She is on the World Economic Forum (WEF) Steering Committee for Internet for All and facilitated the working group on Cross Border Data Flows at the WEF ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, Sept. 2018,.

Mr Mohammad Anisur Rahman joined BRAC in October 2016 as Director of Dairy and Food Enterprises. He leads BRAC’s social enterprises in the field of livestock, agriculture and food security. Prior to joining BRAC, he was working as Chief Operating Officer of the largest agro-processor in Bangladesh. He has also worked for reputed local and global organisations like Rahimafrooz, AC Nielsen and United Nations Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). He has more than fifteen years of work experience as business development strategic leader.

Njideka U. Harry is the President and CEO of Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF), a non-profit organization focused on using the power of technology to transform the lives of youth and women. YTF’s programs utilize appropriate technology to inspire youth and women to create innovative solutions to the challenges they encounter in their communities. YTF is empowering the next generation of leaders to enter the workforce with the skills they need to access employment or create their own entrepreneurial opportunities in the fourth industrial revolution. To date, YTFs work has impacted over 1.7 million youth and women in 5 countries.

Judge

Peter Hirshberg is a tech executive and activist who builds organizations and movements and finds value in self-organizing, distributed systems that work from the bottom-up to effect change. For over 30 years, he has served as a leader and advisor to companies and municipalities on the cutting edge of energy, transportation, networking, and economic development.

Rachel Kyte is Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. She is a leading advocate for sustainable development and drives SEforALL’s work to mobilize action towards its 2030 goals on universal energy access, energy efficiency and renewable energy. As SRSG, she is the UN point person for the global goal on sustainable energy. Until December 2015 Rachel Kyte served as World Bank Group Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change, leading integration of climate across the Bank Group’s work as well as support for an ambitious agreement at the 21st Convention of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP21). She was previously World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development and was the International Finance Corporation Vice President for Business Advisory Services.

Ravi Gurumurthy is the founder of the IRC’s innovation center, Airbel. Prior to joining the IRC in 2013 as Vice President for Strategy and Innovation, he held a number of government roles in the United Kingdom, including Director of Strategy for the Energy and Climate Change Department, and Strategy Advisor and Speechwriter to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. Gurumurthy led a number of major social and environmental reforms, including the development of the world’s first legally binding carbon emissions targets, and the integration of education, health care, and social services for children. He has also worked as a researcher for the public policy organization Demos and in local government in London and has chaired two national children’s charities.

Judge

Salwa Smaoui is the Government Industry Leader for Microsoft Middle East and Africa based out of Dubai. Since February 2016.  Salwa spends her time with   leaders, policy makers and governments stakeholders in the Middle East and Africa discussing how to accelerate Digital transformation, bridge the skills gap and develop a vibrant IT Ecosystem. Before that Salwa was the Western Europe Windows & Surface Business Group Leader for 3 years.   In her role Salwa was responsible for managing the Windows and Surface Business Group in the 12 subsidiaries of Western Europe. Before that Salwa was the Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, Microsoft Advertising and Online. Salwa joined Microsoft in January 2006 as the Country Manager for Tunisia.

As the Chief Executive Officer of Edraak, Shireen has the honor of leading the inspiring team behind the Arab world’s leading online learning platform. Edraak provides free high quality online and blended education to Arabic speakers of all ages across the region. Today, Edraak reaches more than two million learners across the Arab world, including disadvantaged youth in Gaza, Syria, and Iraq. Shireen led Edraak’s expansion into the K-12 space and pioneered the adoption of the Creative Commons License at Edraak, in an effort to catalyze for education reform and dissemination of Arabic open educational resources (OERs).

Sonia N. Jorge is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) at the Web Foundation, and an expert in the confluence of development and communications policy. She has over 25 years of diverse international experience across both the private and not-for-profit sectors, working on issues around ICT policy and regulation and strategic industry planning. Sonia is a strong advocate of gender equality in development, and works extensively to promote gender analysis and awareness in the ICT planning process and digital policy space

Tareq Emtairah is the Director of the Department of Energy at UNIDO. His work experience spans over 22 years in developed and emerging economies with a progressive focus on sustainable industrial transformation, energy transition, policy advocacy, applied research and capacity development. Mr. Emtairah holds a PhD in Industrial Environmental Economics from Lund University in Sweden; a Master’s degree in Environmental Management and Policy also from Lund University.

Toby Harward has nearly 20 years diplomatic experience with the United Nations; firstly in the UN Secretariat’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations where he served in a number of missions in Africa and the Middle East, as well as at UNHQ in New York. For the last three years, Toby has headed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in the UAE seeking to create partnerships with the UAE Government, public sector and private sector organizations.

William Asiko joined The Rockefeller Foundation in 2019 as the Managing Director for The Africa Regional Office. In this role, William oversees all Africa regional operations for the Foundation from the Nairobi office. Many of the Foundation’s core programs, from health to food, have been instrumental in bettering the lives of communities across sub-Saharan Africa. William was previously Executive Director of Grow Africa, an innovative agricultural development partnership between the World Economic Forum, the African Union and NEPAD that works to accelerate private sector investment into African agriculture. Under his leadership, Grow Africa ran over 40 programs across 12 countries in Africa with an ambitious growth plan to take the Grow Africa model across all countries in Africa.

Zack Bongiovanni leads Product Partnerships in Latin America, focused on bringing the next billion users online. Previously Zack served as head of Infrastructure Expansion, leading partnerships to develop clean energy and internet infrastructure in the United States and emerging markets, and driving efforts related to renewable energy investments, product innovation, and climate strategy. He participated in COP21 and as Google’s partnerships lead to the United Nations and various multilateral organizations. 

Zena Ali-Ahmad is currently the Director for UN-HABITAT Regional Office for Arab States. Zena has been working with the United Nations for the last twenty years, where she assumed key technical and management positions, including UNDP Deputy Director for the Regional Hub for Arab States in Amman (2016-2017), UNDP Country Director in Jordan (2013-2016) and Syria (2008-2012), UNDP Regional Advisor on Local Governance for Arab States (2005-2008), and Assistant Representative in Lebanon (1997-2004). Before working with the United Nations, Zena worked as a consultant for the UN, World Bank, USAID, and NGOs on issues related to poverty reduction, local development, and local governance.