Speakers

Eng. Tariq Ali Al-Amri brings in more than 26 years of experience spanning over many industries. He started his career as a project engineer working for Petroleum Development of Oman (PDO). In 1996, he joined one of the government’s pension funds as head of investment. Then he moved to Oman LNG as head of strategic finance, where he was responsible for the economics of Qalhat LNG project. In 2004, he joined Omantel as head of finance before he was assigned the role of VP responsible for the commercial, finance, hr, and corporate affairs. He holds an MBA and a BS in electrical engineering, both from the US.

Antonis Mavropoulos is the founder and CEO of D-Waste and President of International Solid Waste Association. He has been involved in solid waste management projects for 20 years, in 20 countries and he has completed more than 150 projects, most recently working in Lebanon’s waste crisis with the European Union. Antonis is a leading voice on the international stage calling for the closure of the World’s 50 largest dumpsites in the ISWA #closingdumpsites campaign and broader perspectives and responses to the so-called China Green Wall on plastics for recycling. His recent research work deals with globalization, mega-cities, mobile apps and the challenge of Internet of Things. He is a fanatic futurist, with a keen eye on digitization and disruption technologies: his latest ISWA publication looks at How the Fourth Industrial Revolution Shapes the Waste Sector. He has invented the Waste Atlas, (www.atlas.d-waste.com) a global interactive waste management map that is developed in cooperation with GIZ SWEEPNET, ISWA, WTERT, SWAPI and Leeds University. He has also designed several mobile apps for recycling and waste management purposes. Antonis Mavropoulos is a sought-after international speaker, and has published and participated in the writing of several books and scientific publications, while his articles have been translated in Portuguese, Rumanian, Hindu and Spanish.

Dr. Veerle Vandeweerd has more than 25 years of experience in developing and implementing global, national and local environmental policies and programs, including 20 years in the United Nations system. Her work spans diverse fields from integrated sustainability assessments, green economic transformations and global environmental norm-setting to financial, regulatory and institutional capacity building in over 160 countries. She currently is leading an entrepreneurial initiative she co-founded that involves new financial mechanisms to redirect major private flows to sustainable investments worldwide. She also is the policy director of the Global Science Technology and Innovation Conference Series (www.gstic.org), geared to support with the best technological innovations, national and international policy development in the field of sustainable development. During her career at the United Nations, Dr. Vandeweerd held various positions, beginning with the UN Environment Programme where she launched and directed the Global Environment Outlook and culminating in the UN Development Program as director of the Environment and Energy Division with an annual turnover of 1 billion dollars and 300 staff members. During these years, Dr. Vandeweerd produced more than 300 publications, chaired over 100 international meetings and contributed to major environmental conferences of the past two decades. She was the Special Advisor to the UN Global Compact, the leadership platform for responsible corporate policies and practices, and currently serves as a board and/or advisory member of several international and national organizations, including CCICED (China). Previous to the UN, she taught at the University of Zambia, conducted research on African Sleeping sickness, and headed the environmental reporting department in the Flemish Government, Belgium. A Belgian national, Dr. Vandeweerd speaks Flemish, English, and French. When not traveling for her work, she lives in New York and Belgium. She received her doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a master in Chemistry from the University of Gent, Belgium.

Dirk is Managing Director of VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, the largest research institute in Belgium in the field of sustainability and cleantech. He is author and co-author of more than 30 scientific papers published in national and international journals. Prior to joining VITO he worked as an assistant professor at the university of Ghent in the field of hydraulics research and at Baxter, a large US pharmaceutical company in the field of aerial and satellite remote sensing. Dirk is president of the board of directors of LIBOVITO (a 100 % daughter company in China, Beijing), of VITO Middle East (Qatar) and VITO Arabia (Dubai), member of the board of directors of VITO Asia (Hong Kong), also member of the board of Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, president of the Audit Committee and the Board of Programme Evaluation of the University of Antwerp, member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Arts, and Honorary professor Engineering at KU Leuven.

Dr. Alcorta was formerly Director of the Industrial Policy, Statistics and Strategic Research Branch at UNIDO in Vienna, and one of the lead authors of the background papers prepared for the SDGs 8 and 9. He was a member of the Global Agenda Council for the Future of Manufacturing at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and an economist for Latin America at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Midland Bank (part of the HSBC group) in London.

He lead major strategic researchers and consultancy services during the last 10 years, along with co-investigator in other international and regional projects, with a total value of 3 million USD from both national and international funding agencies.

Mr. Nazar has initiated several networks to build up the region’s techno-preneurship and innovation culture. Previously, he worked as Senior Economist in the Sustainable Development Division of UN ESCWA (Lebanon). Mr. Hassan has a number of published papers and reports in the areas of sustainable development, science policy development, and strategic energy management, together with a number of patents in renewable energy.