Pontus works with digital projects, community participation and open data at UN-Habitat, the United Nations programme for sustainable cities. He is the coordinator of Block by Block, an innovative partnership between UN-Habitat, and Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, in which Minecraft is used as community participation tool in urban planning projects.

For the last 10 years he has worked with ICT4D, digital technology and communications in Europe, Africa and Latin America and holds an MA in Global Media and International Communication from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Recently he is co-author of The Citizen Field Engineer: Crowdsourced Maintenance of Connected Water Infrastructure. Scenarios for smart and sustainable water futures in Nairobi, Kenya,presented at the Third International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (ICT4S 2015) and Using Minecraft as a citizen participation tool in urban design and decision-making, presented at the Third Future of Places Conference.

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Emiel is an international urban economist (PhD in Economics, University of Amsterdam, 1977) with more than 40 years of experience in a wide range of advisory and capacity building assignments across the world. Emiel has worked with a wide range of international institutions including IADB, ADB, World Bank, UNDP, UN-Habitat, and bilateral external support agencies, such as DGIS, GIZ (formerly GTZ), and SDC.

He is currently the Director of UrbAct – International Advisory Services for Urban Action in Rotterdam, Netherlands, a position he also held during 2001-2007. During 2007-2012 Emiel was the GIZ Program Coordinator for the ADB , BMZ, Sida, Austria and Shanghai Municipal Government supported Asia-wide Cities Development Initiative for Asia (CDIA), based in Manila, the Philippines.

Emiel has worked on long-term assignments abroad for more than 20 years, mainly in Asia. His assignments comprised work on urban infrastructure planning and programming, urban informal settlements development, urban land planning and management, urban policy programme development and management, housing policy and programme development, local government finance and housing finance, decentralisation, institutional assessments and strengthening, and project evaluation and formulation.

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Francesco is a research fellow at Gran Sasso Science Institute (L’Aquila, Italy), where he is member of the scientific committee of the international PhD Program in Urban Studies. His research focuses mainly on the nexus between spatial planning and urban conflicts. He investigated in particular the political role of urban space and the related importance of spatial measures (such as urban policies, plans and projects) aimed at shaping it with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem. The politics on informal housing in the Arab sectors of the Holy City is at the centre of his research.

His papers have appeared in international journals such as Planning Theory, Town Planning Review, Cities, Geoforum, Journal of Urban Affairs, Land Use Policy, Journal of International Development. He wrote Shaping Jerusalem. Spatial planning, politics and the conflict (Routledge, 2016) and co-edited Cities to be tamed? The space of urbanism and planning in the urban South (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014).

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Marco is an architect trained in Universitas Katolik Parahyangan in Bandung (1986) and K.U. Leuven (1990). He is co-founder of Rujak Center for Urban Studies (RCUS) in 2010 and has been its director since. He was chair of Jakarta Arts Council in 2006-2010. His notable works include reconstruction of 23 villages in post-tsunami Aceh (2005-2007) and Salihara Arts Center in Jakarta. He set up and built Bumi Pemuda Rahayu sustainability learning center in 2011.
He has published four books and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines. RCUS’s current main programme is “Citizen Urbanism” in 8 cities in Indonesia. It works with communities to co-produce urban knowledge and actionable initiatives.

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