Speakers

Une Aina Bastholm, Co-Spokesperson for the Miljøpartiet De Grønne, Member of Parliament, Norway

@Uneaba

Une Bastholm is the co-spokesperson of the Norwegian Green Party and the party’s only member of parliament. In parliament, she is part of the Committee on Energy and the Environment and the Standing Committee on Finance. From 2013-2017 she was the party’s deputy member of parliament and political advisor to the party parliament group.

Bastholm holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oslo and Potsdam in Poland and a master’s degree in international relations from Aberystwyth University in Wales. Prior to working for the Green Party, she was employed in different animal rights and environmental organizations. She has also been the manager of a sustainable grocery store that she founded together with her mother.

Michal Berg, EGP Committee Member, Czechia

@MichalBerg

Michal Berg is a member of the committee of European Green Party. He was a deputy chairman of Czech greens until 2018 and has been a local councilor in his hometown of Vsetín since 2014. His topics on the local level are sustainable mobility, transparency of governance and youth participation.

Mar Garcia, EGP Secretary General, Spain

 @surdeuropa

Mar Garcia was born in Sabadell, Barcelona. She holds a degree in Political Science and Master on Public Management. Mar joined ICV, Catalonian Greens in 2003. Since then she has been part of the Party International Secretariat. Mar worked in the City Council of Barcelona for 12 years, as the responsible of the Environmental International Relations of the city of Barcelona first, and as the Head of Cabinet of the Deputy Mayor for Environment of the city afterwards. Mar has been elected as EGP Committee member in 2012 and as EGP Secretary General since 2014.

Arild Hermstad, Oslo vice-mayor, Co-Spokesperson for the Miljøpartiet De Grønne, Norway

@arildhermstad

Arild Hermstad is Vice Mayor for Environment and Transport and a member of the City Government for the City of Oslo. He is also elected as the national spokesperson for the Green Party in Norway. The Green Party has currently one seat in the Parliament.  Mr. Arild Hermstad previously led the Norwegian environmental organization «The Future in our Hands», the biggest environmental organization in Norway, for 15 years. He holds a master’s degree in Human Geography, and a BA in Economics.

Evelyne Huytebroeck, EGP Committee Member, Brussels local councillor, former regional minister of environment, energy and urban renovation, Belgium

@EHuytebroeck

Evelyne Huytebroeck is journalist, born in 1958. She is a member of the EGP Committee. Evelyne Huytebroeck was a Member of the Brussels Parliament between 1989 - 2002 and 2014 -2019. Meanwhile, Ms. Huytebroeck was Regional Minister of Environment, Energy, Social Affairs and Youth from 2004 - 2014 and was the Vice-President of the European network Energy Cities from 2010 - 2015. She was also president of ECOLO (French-speaking Belgian Ecologists) in the period of 2002 - 2004.

Gerhard Jordan, councillor of the 21st district in Vienna, Austria 

Born 1960 in Vienna. During 1980ies, study of History and History if Arts in Vienna, and civil society activity (anti-nuclear power, Hainburg, peace movement,/European Nuclear Disarmament, local citizens' initiatives).
Since 1986 member of Die Grünen-Grüne Alternative, delegate to the European Green Coordination from 1987-91. Member of Eupean Greens Co Secretariat from 1989-91 (in charge of contacts to Central and Eastern Europe), from 2007-11 steering group member of "Green East-West Dialogue" network on behalf of Grüne Bildungswerkstatt.
District councilor in Vienna since 1987 (from 1987-2001 and since 2010 in district 21, Floridsdorf; from 2001-10 in district 13, Hietzing).
Since 1992 advisor to the Green Group in the City Assembly of Vienna for European affairs and urban planning; since 2014 part-time local assistant to Austrian MEP Monika Vana.
With Monika Vana co-organizer of the several European local councilors meetings (Vienna 2003) and since 2005 of the annual CERT project ("Central European Round Table of Green Local Concilors") in Vienna.

Gunita Kulikovska, founder and CEO of VIVIDLY app, VR technologies for urban planning, Latvia

@gunitaKU

Gunita is the founder and CEO of VIVIDLY  an enterprise whose objective is to facilitate urban planning and architecture workflow with immersive and experiential tools such as virtual reality, web, digital solutions. She is also a member of the Good Technology Collective, a forum for piloting and discussing technology advances of the 21st century. She holds a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from the Riga Technical University and an MBA in Creative Industries from the BA School of Business and Finance. In 2014 she was awarded with the Latvian Architecture Award for  project on Urban Sports & Architecture and is a member of Forbes 30 under 30. She will be at the conference discussing on the ways in which new technologies and communication tools can encourage citizens’ participation in building more sustainable cities.

Penelope Lea, climate activist, Norway

Penelope Lea has been a central figure in the climate strike campaign in Norway and has been an environmental activist since she was 8 years old. She is the former head of the Children’s Climate Panel in Norway and has held several positions in the Eco-agents, the largest environmental organization for children in Norway. Last year she became the youngest ever recipient of the national volunteerism prize.

Petr Lebeda, senior project manager for cities, Institute H21, Czechia

@PetrLebeda

Peter focuses on research and collaboration with academics. Since 2014 he has been helping to set up various participatory projects. He coordinates the Index of Participation research project, evaluating the rate of participation of Czech cities. He graduated in Political Science at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno, with specialisation in Democratisation and Human Rights. Petr spent part of my Master's studies in Sicily at the University of Catania.

Benni Leemhuis, city councillor in Groningen, the Netherlands

@bennileemhuis

Benni has been a member of the city council of Groningen since 2010 and from 2014 to 2018 he was group chairman. In the new GroenLinks group in Groningen city council he is responsible for mobility. Born (1972) and raised in his hometown Groningen, but from partly Swiss decent, Benni Leemhuis holds a masters degree in history from the University of Groningen.

GroenLinks has been part of different governing coalitions in Groningen since 2002, only with a short break 2012-2014. At the last elections of November 2018 GroenLinks managed to get 21% of the votes of the municipality of Groningen. (230.000+ inhabitants) Groningen, seen in the Netherlands as the metropole of the North is the a (to often hidden) gem of bike mobility, with some of 2/3 of mobility is done by bike (in stead of car of public transport).'

Magid Magid, former Lord Mayor of Sheffield, Member of the European Parliament, United Kingdom

@MagicMagid

Magid came to Sheffield from Somalia as a refugee aged five. He then went on to study Aquatic Zoology at the University of Hull. He is the youngest and first refugee and first Green Party Lord Mayor of Sheffield. He has made headlines nationally and internationally for his creative ways of campaigning while not conforming to tradition and being unapologetically himself. He has campaigned on climate change, support for migrants & refugees, set up the first UK suicide prevention charter and even banned Donald Trump from Sheffield. Magid was named one of the top European Young Leaders (Friends of Europe) 2019 and was part of the top 100 Future Leaders.

Hanna Marcussen, Oslo vice mayor, Norway

@hannamarcussen

Vice Mayor Marcussen represents the Norwegian Green Party in the Oslo City Government and is the Vice Mayor for Urban Development.

She is in charge of urban development, city planning, building regulations and development projects, including architectural and historical heritage, urban regeneration as well as City’s real estate holdings. Hanna is one of the city’s main drivers of change towards a greener Oslo. She’s the one in charge of Oslo’s car-free city-centre initiative.

From 2014 to 2015, she was the manager of Bergfald Environmental Advisors. She has also been the co-spokesperson of the Norwegian Green Party. Hanna is a qualified archaeologist from the University of Oslo.

Saraswati Matthieu, Gent local councillor, Belgium

@msaraswati

Saraswati Matthieu has held multiple positions within the Flemish Green party Groen, on youth, local, national and European level. She is the former chief of the general politics team at the cabinet of Brussels Mobility Minister Bruno De Lille. Sara has built expertise in fields such as environment, mobility, energy and economics. She is a group leader and city councillor in Ghent, where Greens are part of the majority. She is also Secretary General of the Green group in the Brussels Regional Parliament.  She has been a member of  the European Green Party Committee from 2012 to 2015. She is the current president of the European Network of Groen. 

Barbara Neuroth, deputy mayor of the 4th district in Vienna, Austria

Born in Vienna, mother of 2 sons, translator for Spanish and English, she joined the Green Party of Vienna in 1996 when she was engaged in a citizens movement to safe a public park from being destroyed by a a multi-storey car park.
Barbara is a local politician in Vienna's 4th district and held various postions in the Green Party over the past 23 years. Her political passion is local politics and over the years she tried to the improve participation processes and direct demoracy in urban decision making. Her further topics are mobility, ecology, cultural affairs and foreign policy.

Claudia Niessen, Eupen mayor, Belgium

Claudia Niessen, born in 1979, is a German-speaking Belgian politician and member of Ecolo. She is an urban planner by training and has been working since 1999 in the local Ecolo in Eupen. She was appointed alderman after the 2012 municipal elections. In consequence thereof she resigned from her mandate as a senator, which she hold since 2010, in December 2012 to avoid a dual mandate following Ecolo’s best practice rules. In the municipal elections of 2018, she was elected mayor of Eupen. She will be at the conference discussing strategies and policies for green urban transformations relating to different policy areas for local governments.

Nicola da Schio, researcher in urban ecology at the VUB, Belgium

@nicdas13

Nicola is researcher at the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). His research focuses on questions of socioecological justice, and on the relation between science, governance and activism.  In 2019 he coordinated the first Brussels General Assembly on Air (Etats Generaux de l’air de Bruxelles), bringing together scientists, hackers, activists and practitioners, to work together for a healthier city. Before joining VUB he worked with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on issues related to the urban environment and cycled through Europe to explore and promote eco-mobility practices. Previously he also worked with different international institutions and NGOs in Western Europe, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sanna Vesikansa, Helsinki deputy mayor, Finland

@sannavesikansa

Sanna Vesikansa, born in 1972,  is a Finnish politician representing Vihreät - De Gröna. She is a Deputy Mayor for Social Affairs and Health Care in the city of Helsinki. She is a sociologist and holds a masters’ degree in Sociology from the University of Helsinki. Before becoming a deputy mayor, she had worked Save the Children Finland, and previously also in the National Institute for Health and Welfare and United Nations Population Fund in Ethiopia.