KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
We are pleased to announce the following line up of speakers:
(Further speaker names will be added when confirmation is received)

For detailed profiles, please visit the Speaker Profiles page.

Professor Rebekah Brown, Director, Centre for Water Sensitive Cities at Monash University, Australia. Rebekah has a vision of creating a new socio-technical discipline that directly enables society to advance sustainable futures

Dr Phillip Daffara is Principal of Future Sense based in Australia. He describes himself as a urban futurist and advisor creating better futures city by city. Phillip’s mission is to build foresight capacity in the development of city policy, planning and design giving communities greater capacities to create humane and sustainable urban futures. Phillip has a detailed understanding of the local and global forces of change and trends shaping towns, cities and their communities, as well as the foresight methods to help a place co-create the future it wants and be the best place it can be for the world/planet.

Dr Cheryl Desha is a lecturer in sustainable development at the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, and a Research Principal at The Natural Edge Project (TNEP), a non-profit partnership on research, education and strategy for innovation for sustainable prosperity. Cheryl’s career goal is to facilitate sustainable development by empowering society with emerging language, knowledge and skills related to achieving sustainable solutions.

Sara Parkin OBE is founder director of Forum for the Future, UK. Her new book, “The Positive Deviant: Sustainability leadership in a perverse world” condenses her years of teaching experience into the definitive ‘how-to’ guide to sustainability leadership.

Aroha Mead, Victoria University of Wellington
Aroha Te Pareake Mead is the global Chair of the IUCN Commission on Environment, Economics and Social Policy and a Senior Lecturer in Maori Business, Victoria Management School, VUW. Aroha has been appointed to Te Papa’s ‘Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Advisory Panel’, and is a member of Te Pae Whakawairua, the Maori Advisory Committee to Archives NZ as well as a member of the Maori Advisory Statistics Committee, Statistics NZ.

  • Editorial Board, Handbook for Parliamentarians on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, UN Headquarters New York, (November 2010-present)
  • Steering Committee member, Treaty of Waitangi Refurbishment Project, Department of Internal Affairs (March 2011-present)
  • Appointment to the Independent Reference Group for the Christensen Fund Review and Evaluation, San Francisco, October 2009 – February 2010
  • “Sustainable Agriculture & Rural Development and Indigenous Peoples”, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation,Rome, 23 October 2010
  • Appointment as Chair of the Chairs of the six IUCN Scientific and Technical Commissions, 2009-present
  • “The History of the Elaboration of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 19 June 2008

Davina Jackson
Davina Jackson is an international writer and promoter of progressive ideas and talents.
Her key recent project has been to evangelise and catalyse a global technology network to accelerate climate change solutions. Initially funded by various Australian government agencies, her proposals now are being developed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including leading international science organisations.
Now she is editing the first of a cluster of d_city (data cities) publications to help promote the activities and achievements of the network’s participants.

Professor Chris Rapley (Principal Keynote)
Prof. Chris Rapley CBE is currently professor of Climate Science in the Department of Earth Sciences at UCL (University College London). Prior to this appointment he was Director of the Science Museum from 2007-2010. He was Director of the British Antarctic Survey from 1998 to 2007 and Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme IGBP from 1994 to 1998.  In 2008 he was awarded the Edinburgh Science Medal – “For professional achievements judged to have made a significant contribution to the understanding and well-being of humanity.” Rapley became a Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge in 1999.

It is with regret that Prof Masuda has withdrawn from the conference due to commitments at the university.

Confirmed Sponsor: Timbertank Enterprises Limited