Participants Book
FEBRUARY 3RD to 5TH
United Nations Population Fund
Mahboob Alam Mahboob-E-Alam has more than 20 years of hands-on relevant experiences in project management, evaluation and research roles in multi-disciplinary development programs with international organizations (EngenderHealth, CARE, ActionAid, and UNFPA). Mr. Alam completed Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Statistics from the University of Dhaka; and Masters in Business Administration from University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. Mr. Alam Joined UNFPA in 2012 as National Programme Officer, Population Planning and Research. In this position, he plays a significant role in knowledge management in the area of population and development. Mr. Alam has extensive experience in the application of research methodologies – quantitative and qualitative, data analysis and report writing.
Igor Canales Igor Canales Antonio is a Principal Consultant at Wolfram Research, where he leads development of custom software solutions for data analysis and visualization in consulting engagements. He joined Wolfram in 2003 as a software engineer and developed many of the data import and export capabilities of Mathematica, a technical computing software platform, and the Wolfram Language. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science (2002) and an M.B.A (2011) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Linus Bengtsson Linus Bengtsson is a medical doctor and the director and co-founder of the Flowminder Foundation. He is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He pioneered the use of mobile operator data to monitor population displacement during the 2010 Haiti earthquake and cholera outbreak. His academic research centers on the development of public health applications of big data and information technology in low- and middle-income countries. He has a PhD in Global Public Health from Karolinska Institute and an MD from Gothenburg University. Dr. Bengtsson has performed studies or worked clinically in Vietnam, Haiti, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Cote d'Ivoire, Pakistan, Brazil, and Ethiopia.
Leslie Berman Leslie Berman is an Innovation Specialist at UNFPA, where she helps coordinate UNFPA’s Innovation Fund, promoting a culture of innovation and testing innovative ideas and approaches. At UNFPA, Leslie worked previously in the Technical Division, and with the ICPD Beyond 2014 Secretariat. Leslie has also worked with Partners In Health Rwanda coordinating community health research; on Ford Foundation funded projects, promoting the health and human rights of young women; and as a consultant with the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Leslie holds a Bachelors from Columbia University and Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan; she danced professionally for a number of years and strives to bring that creative spirit to her work on innovation.
Nayanesh Bhandutia Nayanesh Bhandutia, Innovations/Development Manager, has been working for the MIS Branch, UNFPA since 1996. My main areas of responsibilities include IT Innovation, Applications Development, Messaging and Collaboration Systems, Intranet Systems as well as management of Internet Infrastructure. I am also working with various units of UNFPA to use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in delivery of programme. I am generally familiar with the Big Data concept and currently working on a project to analyse big data generated by Twitter based social media on Gender Based Violence.
Bruce Campbell Bruce Campbell, a national of the Netherlands, joined UNFPA in 2000. Before joining UNFPA, Mr. Campbell worked for humanitarian public health organizations with Salvadoran, Palestinian and Afghan refugees, the Royal Tropical Institute in the Netherlands, and as Chief Technical Advisor in the Ministry of Health in Ghana and Nepal. Over the last decade as UNFPA’s Representative in Eritrea, Zimbabwe and Vietnam, Mr. Campbell has worked with UN Country Team members and the UNFPA country offices to support national policy dialogue in relation to universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services, addressing Gender Based Violence and ensuring population dynamics are incorporated in overall development planning. In his last posting as UNFPA’s Representative in Vietnam, Mr. Campbell worked with the Gov-
ernment and partners to examine a structured series of “costed policy options” as a basis to support the formulation of national strategies and programmes for sustainable development. Currently, as Director of the Technical Division of UNFPA in New York, Mr. Campbell provides overall leadership for a team of 50+ professionals who provide intellectual guidance and technical support for 6 Regional and 129 Country offices, while also supporting global intergovernmental processes in relation to the ICPD mandate of UNFPA. Mr. Campbell has a Ph.D. from the Medical School at the University of Amsterdam, an MPA from the business school at Kent State University, and an MPH from Harvard University.
Ivan Castellanos Ivan Castellanos holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and Political Science from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico, as well as a Master’s Degree in Demography from the Complutense University of Madrid. He has been a UNFPA officer since 2005. He has worked with various NGOs on a range of issues such as population and development, human rights, and youth. He worked in the Latin American Youth Community, serving as the Foreign Affairs Coordinator and as a consultant on public policies regarding population and development. Since 2010, Mr. Castellanos has served as the National Programme Associate on Population, Development and Youth in UNFPA Mexico.
Clement Chauvet Based in Istanbul, Clement is currently working as the Regional Resource Mobilization and Partnership Adviser for UNFPA Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Prior to joining UNFPA in 2013, Clement was working for UNICEF as a Resource Mobilization Chief in India, the Philippines and in France. He loves working with private sector entities to create strategic partnerships beneficial for all. He participated in the creation of an online campaign that gathered more than 250,000 subscribers using a wide range of social media tools. He is married and the proud father of two sons (2 years old and one month old).
René Clausen Nielsen René is Big Data Specialist at UN Global Pulse in New York, and has previously worked with innovation, communications and knowledge management in Denmark and Mozambique. Before joining Global Pulse he worked for a short time with Knowledge Management and Internal Communication at UNFPA HQ. At Global Pulse he works with all aspects of big data research, including data and technology partnerships, concept ideation, research design, project management, analysis, and data visualisation. He has lead big data projects focusing on Public Health, Post-2015 and Climate Change. He is Master of Arts in Historical Social Development and Master of Science in Sociology.
Victoria D’Alva Victoria D’Alva, Assistant Representative, UNFPA Country Office in Sao Tome and Principe. Victoria joins UNFPA in 1990 with experience in data analysis at the national level. She has 25 years of experience within UNFPA 1st as Programme Officer dealing with Data, Monitoring and Evaluation projects and then as Assistant Representative in the Country Office in Sao Tome. She started her career at National Institute of Statistics of Sao Tome in 1984 as Census Data Analyst. Victoria holds a Master Degree in Demography with the University Catholic of Louvain, Belgium and a Bachelor in Mathematic with the University of Havana, Cuba.
Andat Dasogot Andat Dasogot has experience in P&D in the University and UNFPA. Currently NPA Demography responsible for strengthening national capacity for data, buthas worked in various positions between 2006-2011 including NPO Post-2006 Census Support and NPA P&D. I was on detail assignment as P&D Specialist in ESARO in 2014 during which I compiled ESARO ICPD review report and draft ESARO Consultation on Research Agenda report. I am ICPD Focal Point and also supported WCARO at ECOWAS Meeting on P&D and AfricanConference on P&D, Ethiopia 2013. I also provided assistance to WCARO supporting Nigeria at 47th CPD, New York, 2014.
Nicolas de Cordes Nicolas de Cordes has been in the telecom industry for 18 years, and is today Vice President Marketing Anticipation for the Orange Group, in charge of identifying trends and exploring new business opportunities. As part of this role he manages the projects “Data 4 Development” launched in Ivory Coast and Senegal. He worked in the past in various strategy and operational marketing positions for affiliates and for the Group in Belgium, in the UK and in France. Before joining Orange, he worked as a consultant for Accenture and The Boston Consulting Group, and is a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique of Brussels Nicolas is also member of the WEF’s Global agenda Council on Data-Driven Development, and served on the UN Secretary-General Independent Expert Advisory Group on the “Data Revolution for Development”.
Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye is a senior Ph.D. student in computational privacy at the MIT Media Lab. His research aims at understanding how the unicity of human behavior impacts the privacy of individuals--through re-identification or inference--in large-scale metadata datasets such as mobile phone, credit cards, or browsing data. His research has been covered BBC News, CNN, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Le Monde, Die Spiegel, in reports of the World Economic Forum, United Nations, and the European Commission, as well as in his talks at TEDxLLN and TEDxULg. Before coming to MIT, he was a researcher at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. Yves-Alexandre worked for the Boston Consulting Group and acted as an expert for both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Nations. Over a period of 6 years, he obtained an M.Sc. from Louvain in Applied Mathematics, an M.Sc. (Centralien) from Ecole Centrale Paris, an M.Sc. from KULeuven in Mathematical Engineering as well as his B.Sc. in engineering at Louvai.
Sara Duerto Valero Sara Duerto Valero works as a Statistics and Monitoring Specialist in United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). Her work covers statistics to monitor the implementation of UNSC resolution 1325, gender statistics in the areas of governance, peace and security, and related discussions around the Post-2015 development agenda. Prior to that, she worked as a Statistician in the Statistics Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, where she worked on the monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals. She also served as a Statistician in the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, as well as the UNESCO regional office for Asia and the Pacific. Besides the collation and analysis of statistics, Sara has worked extensively on improving statistical coordination between countries, as well as providing statistical capacity building to promote data quality and availability in countries. She has a Master's degree on Development Studies from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
Maggie Dugan Maggie Dugan is a facilitator, trainer and speaker specializing in the field of innovation. She designs and facilitates workshops and events that provoke innovation: whether it’s creating new brand platforms or new technologies, running creativity and leadership training, or helping academics and scientists develop more innovative research proposals. She’s a member of two facilitation teams: Knowinnovation, with an emphasis on accelerating scientific innovation and Innovation Bound, focused on tackling business challenges and facilitating training for international and multi-national businesses and corporations. Maggie lives between Barcelona and Paris, and she’s been a member of the Betahaus co-working community for just over a year. http://about.me/maggiedugan and http://knowinnovation.com.
Trevor Fletcher Trevor Fletcher is currently Senior Project Co-ordinator in the “Informing a Data Revolution” Project in the Partnership in Data for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21). He was formerly Head of Statistical Information Management and Support Division in the OECD Statistics Directorate. Prior to that he was Head of the Analytical and Statistical Systems Unit within the OECD IT division, managed the team responsible for development and support of software systems that underpin the Organisation’s analytical and statistical activities. He has also worked for the UK Government, New York and Sydney-based IT consultancies, Reuters in London and the Food and Agriculture agency of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.
Manuel Garcia Herranz Manuel Garcia Herranz is currently a research scientist at UNICEF Innovation Unit (NY). Previously I’ve worked as assistant professor with the Department of Computer Science of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid from which I received a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2009, as visiting scholar in Carnegie Mellon University and briefly in the University of California San Diego. I am deeply interested in human dynamics and in how new types of data and analysis can be used for humanitarian development. An specially involved in the study of epidemics in information networks, digital fingerprints of socio-economic factors and stressful events and in advocating the use of digital exhausts in the humanitarian response and preparedness.
Patrick Gerland Patrick Gerland is Chief of the Mortality Section of the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations, New York. He has been working for more than 20 years in the UN system, first in the UN Statistics Division focusing on international demographic statistics, data collection/management/analysis and IT/GIS capacity-building in developing countries, and for the past decade in the UN Population Division as analyst with increasing responsibilities and contributions to population estimates and projections, database and IT development, and methodological research. During this time, he provided technical training and assistance to population data-related projects in over 30 countries in Africa and Asia; collaborated in numerous inter-agency substantive and methodological expert
groups; and has been collaborating with several academic research groups to develop new state-of-the-art statistical methods to incorporate uncertainty in demographic modeling, population reconstruction and probabilistic projections relevant to the UN work, and to improve existing methods and empirical datasets to measure child, adult and old-age mortality. Patrick holds a DESS d’expert démographe from the University of Paris (IDUP, Paris-I Pantheon-Sorbonne) and a PhD in Population Studies from Princeton University (Office of Population Research). Over the years, he (co)authored over 50 publications/papers, and currently serves as referee for over twenty demographic and public health journals, and is member of the editorial board for the journals Demography and Demographic Research. For further info, see: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick_Gerland/
Michael Herrmann Michael Herrmann is Adviser on Population and Economics, and Manager of the Innovation Fund at UNFPA. He is also member of the UN Lead Economist Network and the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum. He is responsible for assessing the linkages between demographic and economic change, and for informing policy dialogues on development challenges. His focus is on sustainable development, poverty, employment, social security and pension, as well as macroeconomics. Previously, Mr. Herrmann worked with UNCTAD, where he coauthored flagship reports on the world economy and reports on the world’s poorest countries. He lectured economics and development, and published on a range of issues.
Eduard Jongstra Eduard Jongstra is a demographer by profession. Prior to joining UNFPA, Eduard worked for nearly fifteen years in Yemen, where he has been involved in numerous population-based data collection operations. He joined UNFPA in 2004 as Population and Development adviser with UNFPA CST in Kathmandu. One of his signature activities there was promoting gender focus in population census operations. In 2008 Eduard joined the UNFPA Sub-regional Office for the Pacific where one of his main contributions was in supporting Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. In 2013 he moved to the Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, taking on the challenge of managing the Regional Initiative on Population and Development.
Sabrina Juran Sabrina Juran has been working with UNFPA since 2008 and assumed her position as Technical Specialist, Data and Research in 2010. During her career at the Fund, Ms. Juran has worked in all major areas of sociology and demography. Within her capacity as Technical Specialist she works on supporting countries in conducting traditional statistical exercises, in particular population and housing censuses and new innovations in the application of technology and big data, digitization and communication. Since 2014, Sabrina Juran is also contributing part of her time to the Paris21 project Informing a Data Revolution. She is currently involved in a number of data exploration projects with partners such as UN Global Pulse, Google, Orange, New York University, Yale School of Medicine, etc. In addition to her work, Ms. Juran is currently pursuing her Ph.D. studies in Sociology at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Sanjay Kumar Sanjay Kumar is a National Programme Officer on Monitoring and Evaluation at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in India. He has over two decades of experience in research on population, health and nutrition. He holds a PhD in Demography and did doctoral research on Ageing in India. He is leading UNFPA’s initiative on building knowledge base on Aging in India and has been advocating for mainstreaming ageing within the development programmes. He has experiences in handling large date sets and has analyzed census and DHS data extensively for preparing scientific papers and monographs. Besides research activities, he has specialized in monitoring and evaluation of development projects. He has written and published many articles in reputed journals and has been a co-editor of a book on Population Ageing in India.
Benjamin Kumfp Benjamin Kumpf works as Innovation Specialist in UNDP HQ in New York. Together with a team of innovation specialists based in regional hubs, Ben develops the strategic roadmap for innovation in UNDP and supports initiatives in Country Offices. Prior to taking up the post in NY, Benjamin worked in UNDP’s Sub-Regional Facility for the Syria response in Amman and three years for the Gender Team as Knowledge Management Specialist. He spent three years working for GTZ in Rwanda, India and Nepal and holds a master’s degree in Political Science and Psychology from the University of Heidelberg.
Christophe Lefranc Christophe Lefranc is a statistician and demographer with diverse international experience. He has been working with the Asia and the Pacific Regional Office of UNFPA since July 2010, as Technical Adviser on Population and Development (Census and Data). Prior to that, part of his career was spent in sub-Saharan Africa supporting the development of statistical systems. He also worked in different capacities at the French national statistical office, in particular on the design of the dissemination plan for the new rolling French population census and on technical assistance projects related to various aspects of official statistics in transition and developing countries.
Emmanuel Letouzé Emmanuel Letouzé is the Director and co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance, the first think-tank dedicated to Big Data and development co-created by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), MIT Media Lab and Overseas Development Institute (ODI). He is a Visiting Scholar at MIT Media Lab, a Fellow at HHI, a Senior Research Associate at ODI, a Non-Resident Adviser at the International Peace Institute, and a PhD candidate (ABD) in Demography at UC Berkeley. His interests are in Big Data and development, economic demography, conflict and fragile states, poverty, migration, official statistics and fiscal policy. Emmanuel is the author of the UN Global Pulse's White Paper, “Big Data for Development: Challenges and Opportunities", where he worked as Senior Development Economist in 2011-12, and the lead author of the report
"Big Data for Conflict Prevention" and of the 2013 and 2014 OECD Fragile States reports. He is also a regular speaker on Big Data and development issues. In 2006-09 he worked for UNDP in New York, including on the Human Development Report research team. In 2000-04 he worked in Hanoi, Vietnam, for the French Ministry of Finance as a technical assistant on public finance and official statistics. He is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris (BA, Political Science, 1999, MA, Economic Demography, 2000) and Columbia University (MA, 2006), where he was a Fulbright fellow. Emmanuel is also a political cartoonist as ‘manu’; he held his first solo exhibition at the Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn in 2011 and a 2nd exhibition at MIT Media Lab in 2014. He is an invited member of The Cartoon Movement and contributes cartoons to different media.
Miguel Luengo-Oroz Miguel Luego-Oroz is Chief Scientist at UN Global Pulse, an innovation initiative of the United Nations Secretary-General, harnessing Big Data safely and responsibly as a public good. Miguel leads Global Pulse's data science team across the network of Pulse Labs in New York, Jakarta and Kampala developing Big Data projects together with UN system partners. He holds a PhD in biomedical engineering, MSc in cognitive sciences, MSc in telecommunications engineering and is graduate from Singularity University at NASA. Miguel is Ashoka fellow and the founding director of MalariaSpot.org - a platform that leverages videogames and crowdsourcing for diagnosis of global health diseases.
Richard Makalew Richard J. Makalew is a Population and Development specialist with more than 15 years of extensive experience, management skills and works for Indonesia Country Office in the area of Population Data, Researches, and Policy Dialogues. The UNFPA Indonesia supports the Government and the civil society community to formulate evidence based policies and programmes in line with the International commitments in which the Government is the signatory. In doing so, UNFPA Indonesia has been working with the international professionals and networking in providing technical support and in finding innovative solution for the chronic population related challenges faced by the country. One of the areas of focus for UNFPA Indonesia in the next 5 years it to improve and find the innovative solution for data gatherings and analysis based on big
data landscape. This would include innovative data gathering for 2015 Indonesia Inter-Censal Survey, 2017 Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey, the 2020 Population and Housing Census, and the Annual National Socio-economic Survey. As a Population and Development Specialist, he is responsible for the overall management of the programme and the development concept note, Terms of Reference, 9th Cycle of the Country Programme Document, the Country Programme Action Plan, and the Annual Workplans in his respective area, including data for development.
Julia Manske Julia Manske is a Researcher at the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung, a Berlin based think tank. Being part of their programme on “Digital Agenda” she specialises in the field of digital innovation analysis for global development. Prior to this position, she was a Fellow at the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications, where she was in charge of the area of “Knowledge Participation”. This included the coordination of a Young Leaders’ Programme on "Big Data" for the EIT Foundation, a body within the European Commission. She has also worked with Vodafone’s SCR department. Julia studied social anthropology and social science at LMU, Munich and UNAM, Mexico City. She is a member of Think Tank 30, an offshoot of the Club of Rome.
Eduard Mihalas Eduard Mihalas joint UNFPA Moldova Country Office in March 2014 as a Project Officer on Census. He has an extensive experience in youth policy at national and regional level, being the President of National Youth Council of Moldova (2011 - 2013) and Coordinator of the Working Group on “Contacts between people” of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (2011 - 2012). His connection with open data started in 2011 when he has launched monitoring of local public budgets for youth and then he joined the Open Data Working Group of the National Participatory Council from Moldova. Later on, he worked with Open Government Partnership in the first evaluation of the Moldova’s progress in implementation of the Open Government Action Plan.
Trevor Monroe Trevor Monroe is a Program Officer with the Innovation Labs in the Leadership, Learning and Innovation unit at the World Bank. Trevor has led several initiatives to develop strategies and capabilities to drive organizational performance in talent management, geo-spatial, and knowledge management. Currently, he leads the “Innovations in Big Data Analytics” program, which works to accelerate the WBG’s capabilities to effectively use big data in its operational work. Prior to the World Bank, Trevor held positions at the Progressive Policy Institute, Vital Wave Consulting, Development Gateway and Lucent Technologies. He currently lives with his family in Takoma Park, Maryland.
Ezekiel Ngure Ezekiel Ngure Programme Analyst –Population and Development, UNFPA Kenya Country Office Ezekiel Ngure has over 14 years of experience in development work. He is currently a Programme Analyst –Population and Development, working with UNFPA Kenya Country since 2009. Before joining UNFPA, he worked as Country Monitoring and Evaluation Manager with Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) in Kenya. Prior to CMMB, he worked as a Data Analyst at UNHABITAT Headquarters in Nairobi. He also worked as an Evaluation Specialist of reproductive health programmes at FHI Kenya. He has Master of Science in Population Studies, Master of Public Health (Epidemiology) and a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and is currently pursuing PhD in Population Studies at University of Nairobi.
Nuria Oliver Nuria Oliver is currently the Scientific Director and founder of the User, Data and Media Intelligence team and co-founder of the research area within Telefonica R&D (Barcelona, Spain). She is responsible for the HCI, Mobile Computing, Big and Personal Data Mining, User Modeling and Multimedia Research Areas. Nuria received the BSc (honors) and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the ETSIT at the Universidad Politecnica of Madrid (UPM), Spain, in 1992 and 1994 respectively. She received her PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, in June 2000. From July 2000 until November 2007, she was a researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA. At the end of 2007, she returned to Spain to create and lead the Multimedia Scientific Team at Telefonica Research in Barcelona. Since March 2009, she is also Scientific Director for the Data Mining & User Modeling research
areas in Telefonica Research. It is an exciting opportunity to do research in her own country. Her research interests include mobile computing, personal and big data analysis, smart environments, context awareness, multimedia data analysis, recommender systems, statistical machine learning and data mining, artificial intelligence, health monitoring, social network analysis, computational social sciences, and human computer interaction. She is currently working on the previous disciplines to build human-centric intelligent systems and improve the work with technology. Nuria has written over 90 scientific papers in international conferences, journals and book chapters. Her work has been widely recognized by the scientific community with over 7700 citations. According to Google Scholar Nuria is the most cited female computer scientist in Spain. Nuria has over 40 patent applications and granted patents. She is also in the program committee and a reviewer of the top conferences in her research areas. She was program co-chair of IUI 2009 and of MIR 2010, general conference co-chair of UMAP 2011, industry-day co-chair of IJCAI 2011, track co-chair of ACM WWW 2013 and track founder
and co-chair in ACM MM 2014, among others. She believes in the power of technology to empower and increase the quality of life of people. She has received a number of awards, including a Rising Star Award by the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society (2009), MIT’s ‘TR100 Young Innovators Award’ (2004) and the First Spanish Award of EECS graduates (1994). Besides her scientific publications, she is very interested in making science available to the general public. She has been a technology writer for Tecno2000 magazine and ‘El Pais’ newspapers, among others. Her work has been featured on multiple newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations both in Spain and the US. She has been featured in EL PAIS Sunday magazine as one of a few 'female directors in technology' (2012), named Rising Talent by the Women's Forum for Economy & Society (October 2009), one of the 'most influential young women in Spain' (MujerHoy Magazine, 2012), one of '100 leaders of the future ' by Capital Magazine (May 2009) and one of the 'Generation XXI: 40 Spanish youngsters that will make news in the Third Millenium ' by EL PAIS (2000).
Charles Otine Charles Otine is the Knowledge Management Analyst for UNFPA Uganda. Charles has a passion for informatics and innovations, building knowledge engineering systems and data warehousing. Prior to joining UNFPA, Charles worked with Makerere University as a researcher. He has worked with innovation clusters and founded the software innovation cluster in Uganda. As a member of the KM4DEV, ICT4D and ICT4Health networks he has been involved in programs that use social media and big data for development. He supports open source, open data and he sits on the innovations for development think tank. Charles has a PHD (BTH) and MSC (Mak).
Sandra Paredez Sandra Paredez has always had a strong interest in the area of data for development. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems and a Master's Degree in Population and Development and over twenty years of experience working directly with data collection, processing, analyses and dissemination at both the technical and managerial levels and in both the public and private sector. My experience includes working with censuses, surveys and administrative data as well as with telecommunications data. I also have extensive experience in networking with and coordinating a broad cross section of data producers and analysts at both the international and national levels.
Pedro Pineda Pedro Pineda is an experiences designer and a network starter. He consults for the practical experience of theory and concepts. He doesn't focus in creating a new chair, but the seating experience; neither connecting people but designing the process for people to strive together. His work is released open source and thus contributing to the creation of common knowledge. His design work ranges from facilitating MakerLabs to the creation of parties and environments. Giving special attention to the process that the user is going through. Born in the Canary Islands (1985) , Studied Design & Technology (BA) in London and now is living in Barcelona where he develops Betahaus Barcelona. *This biography is constantly changing and evolving as i live new experiences.
Hanno Ranck Hanno Ranck has been appointed UNFPA’s Online Communications Manager (Media and Communications Branch) in October 2014. In this capacity he currently focuses on the modernization of UNFPA websites including the integration of interactive data visualization. He previously worked for the Strategic Communications Unit of the European External Action service in Brussels, and he headed the Communications and Press Unit of the EUISS, the EU’s foreign policy agency. Hanno is fluent in English, French and German and holds a law degree from the University of Hamburg, with specialization in media and intellectual property law.
Angus Rennie Angus Rennie is a UN-Business Partnerships Project Manager with the United Nations Global Compact in New York. He coordinates a Community of Practice of UN colleagues focused on strengthening the capacity of the UN system to engage the private sector to advance UN issues and goals while promoting responsible and sustainable business. Before joining the Global Compact, Angus practiced law in Canada, and has experience in corporate and commercial law, civil litigation, and international criminal law. Angus has also served as Special Assistant to Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, a Policy Analyst at the Ontario Legislature, and as an advisor and organizer on numerous political campaigns.
Pablo Salazar
Pablo Salazar Canelos is an Economist [M.Sc. degree in Public Sector Economics (University of York, U.K.)] currently working as Regional Technical Advisor in UNFPA’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Panama. He has worked as Country Representative for Cuso International in Honduras, as Project Coordinator and Consultant for UNDP, the World Bank, IADB, EU, and UNFPA in Ecuador, Honduras, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. A former Public Civil Servant, Pablo has worked in managerial positions in the Ministries of Finance, Social Welfare, Social Development, Transport and Public Works, and Planning. He has served as Professor in Facultad Latinoamericana de Sciencias Sociales in Ecuador and Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Honduras. His technical areas of expertise include population and development, statistics and econometrics, public policy, social and economic policy, monitoring and evaluation, regional economic development and governance.
Hussein Sayed Over thirty-five years of experience in the field Statistics and demography combining academic, practical and field knowledge and currently, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Statistics, Cairo University and Consultant for UNFPA/ASRO. Throughout my career I managed a large number of national surveys and contributed to the planning and evaluation of censuses and other civil registration systems in Egypt and the Arab region, to provide data and evidence-based indicators, while at the same time providing consultations for several national institutions and private research centers, to enhance the utilization of statistics, at all levels, especially for evidence-based decision-making. Besides national activities, my work as a Regional Advisor, for data collection& policies, and Director of Statistics Division in ESCWA, provided me with excellent opportunity to be familiar with the statistical systems of the Arab region.
Rick Scavetta Originally from Canada, Rick Scavetta completed his doctoral studies in evolutionary biology in Köln and co-founded Science Craft three years ago in Berlin. Rick is dedicated to small-group training in the life sciences, with a focus on statistics, data analysis and visualisation as well as oral presentation. As a trainer and facilitator, Rick has developed strategies for communicating abstract and complex topics to specialized groups. His workshops are a well-balanced mix of professional high-level training in an informal, relaxed and interactive atmosphere. Rick has begun applying these strategies outside academia, such as with the German television program Quarks & co.
Daniel Schensul Daniel Schensul is a Technical Specialist in Urbanization and Environment in the Population and Development Branch of UNFPA's Technical Division. He co-edited the books Population Dynamics and Climate Change and The Demography of Adaptation to Climate Change, and has published research on urbanization, governance and environment. Mr. Schensul has worked on climate change adaptation, with a particular focus on the data foundations of vulnerability assessment and the spatial distribution of vulnerability in a wide range of contexts, including in Malawi, Indonesia, Maldives and beyond. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University, with a concentration on urban development and spatial analysis.
Luay Shabaneh Luay Shabaneh, Ph.D. in Applied Social Statistics (1967- his DoB) is Regional Ddvisor at UNFPA’s Regional Office for the Arab States in Kairo and ex-programme manager for Iraq public sector modernization, with UNDP, and also served as chief technical advisor, population census and large scale surveys at UNFPA Iraq. The ex-President of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Member in several international, regional and local associations and research institutes related to official statistics and data research. My research interests are Labor market, and statistical monitoring systems. I have implemented many surveys and headed two population censuses and three economic censuses, and one agriculture census large scale agricultural surveys. Had a successful 20-year track in official statistics, statistical capacity building, censuses and statistical reform and public sector reform.
Chris Smith Clark Chris Smith Clarke is a PhD candidate in Computer Science from University College London and recipient of a Google European Doctoral Fellowship. Mobile phones and the passive data they produce offer a picture of human social and behavioural dynamics a scale and level of detail not previously available. Guided by established theoretical and empirical links between social network structure, human mobility and characteristics of neighbourhoods, my PhD research aims to develop and test methods to extract features of social networks and human dynamics that can be used to help predict factors of deprivation such as poverty and crime rates.
Kanyanta Sunkutu Kanyanta Sunkutu is a graduate of the University of Zambia’s School of Medicine and has a Masters’ Degree in Public Health (MPH) from the University of Leeds. He also holds a Higher National Diploma in Health Management and is a Chevening Scholar. He has pursued socio-development responses to public health challenges at district, national and international levels with special emphasis on planning for impact at community level. He is experienced in resource mobilisation and strategic partnerships, especially with Regional Economic Communities, and is currently participating in shaping the ESARO innovation agenda.
Seiffe Tadesse Seiffe Tadesse is a Statistician working in the Demographic and Social Statistics Branch of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). He is a member of the team implementing the World Programme on Population and Housing Censuses. He is involved in the development of international standards and methods for conducting population and housing censuses and in the collection, analysis and dissemination of demographic statistics.
Ruben Vellenga Ruben Vellenga joined the UNFPA Resource Mobilization Branch in June 2013 as Private Sector Partnership Specialist and is a member of the UNFPA Innovation Technical Working Group. Prior to coming to New York he worked for 4 years with different INGOs in Albania, 1 year with UNCDF in the Solomon Islands and 2.5 years with the UNFPA Country Office in Kenya. Ruben believes in the power of data for development, is an innovation enthusiast, and is passionate about letting UNFPA teams and programmes thrive by matching them with the best partners and delivering them the right expertise and resources.
Antonino Virgillito Antonino Virgillito is an IT engineer with a PhD in computer engineering, specialized in web technologies, Big Data technologies, mobile platforms, business intelligence platforms, large-scale distributed systems. He currently works in Istat (Italian National Statistical Institute) as head of the unit "Web and Business Intelligence Technologies". He leads software development projects in the fields of production and dissemination of official statistics. As a consultant in the field of Big Data and Data Analytics he worked as project manager, technology expert, data architect and analyst, lecturer and trainer in international projects and initiatives for UNECE, OECD and Eurostat.
Eddie Wright Eddie Wright joined the Media and Communications Branch in November 2013, where he is the focal point for youth and population issues (including big data). His role involves a range of press and public relations work. Prior to joining UNFPA he worked for three years as the Communications Manager of the European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (EPF) and for three years as a Press Relations Officer for a PR agency working for the EU in Brussels. He has three years' experience as an English teacher, speaks French and German and is very interested in trends in modern media development.
Emilio Zagheni Emilio Zagheni is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute. He holds an MA in Statistics (2008) and a PhD in Demography (2010) from UC Berkeley. He is broadly interested in population dynamics and computational social science. He has worked on projects about kinship microsimulation, population and environment, the spread of infectious diseases, and the use of Internet data to study patterns of international migration. Some of his recent work focuses on methods to make statistical inference from non-representative samples, like the ones extracted from social media data.
Sainan Zhang Sainan Zhang is a Technical Analyst at Population and Development Branch, UNFPA. Her work focuses on the exploration of linkages among population dynamics, environment and broader sustainable development issues though innovative data integration and analysis. Major data analysis methodologies she applied include geospatial analysis and statistics. She holds a Ph.D. in Sustainability and M.Sc. in Urban Environmental Management. She had worked at the Chinese central government on UN and European Commission-funded projects in environmental management, energy efficiency and urban planning. She also worked for The Nature Conservancy in climate change projects.
