Speakers

Cillian LOHAN, membre actif du Comité économique et social européen depuis 2015, en a été élu vice-président en octobre 2020.

Il est un chef de file dans le domaine de l’économie circulaire et a été le premier président de la plateforme des acteurs européens de l’économie circulaire, qu’il a contribué à mettre en place. Cillian Lohan possède une expérience approfondie de délégué auprès des Nations unies, travaillant sur des initiatives telles que les négociations de la COP sur le climat et le Forum politique de haut niveau pour le développement durable.

En tant que directeur général de la fondation «Green Economy», il a supervisé des projets ambitieux, notamment la plantation de plus d’un million d’arbres en Irlande ou la création d’une réserve naturelle à Tobago.

Cillian Lohan est titulaire d’une licence de sciences de l’University College de Cork et d’un master en sciences de l’université d’Ulster.

Virginijus Sinkevičius was from 2017 to 2019 Minister of Economy, and before he was leading the Committee of Economy at the Parliament of Lithuania. Mr. Sinkevičius was elected to the Parliament in October 2016. Prior, he was a Team Lead for Regulatory Affairs at Invest Lithuania. Mr. Sinkevičius holds BA in International Relations and Affairs from Aberystwyth University and Master‘s degree in European International Affairs from Maastricht University. Video message YEYS 2021

Josephine Becker (she/her) hosts the Yikes Podcast, which focuses on climate justice, anti-oppression and general “allyship”. On her blog @treesnpeace, she expands on this and advocates for system change.

When not online, Josephine is doing her MSc in Sustainability and Behavior Change, with a focus on Degrowth, Environmental Justice and transformation.

Nisreen Elsaim is a climate activist and junior negotiator at intergovernmental climate change platforms with experience across a range of environmental topics, and she was part of the social movement that brought about democratic change in Sudan.

Nisreen is the chair of the UN's SG Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change and president of the Sudan Youth for Climate Change, being an organizer of the 2019 Youth Climate Summit.

She holds a Physics and Renewable energy degree from the University of Khartoum and has actively been involved in youth climate activism since 2012.

Corina Angheloiu is Principal Design Strategist for the global sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, where she coaches initiatives and organisations tackling systemic challenges – from ocean plastics to urban adaptation. In parallel, she’s a PhD candidate in the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, where she investigates the role of systems approaches in urban resilience capacity building and co-hosts the Urban Resilience Dialogues podcast.

Lewis Akenji was, prior to his current job, Executive Director of SEED – the UN partnership promoting entrepreneurship for sustainable development. In the past he was Director of Sustainable Consumption and Production at IGES (Institute for Global Environmental Strategies). He has lead research and policy programmes on sustainable societies - including natural resources use and sustainable lifestyles. Furthermore, Lewis also lead the consortium on 1.5 Degree Lifestyles, analysing potential contributions of changes in lifestyles to the 1.5-degree target under the Paris Agreement on Climate change.

Lewis has a master's degree in Sustainable Resource Management at the Technical University in Munich and a doctorate in Political Economy at the University of Helsinki.

Saoi O’Connor is an 18 year old from Skibbereen who is a founder of Fridays for Future Ireland and who has been climate striking in Cork city for 111 weeks now. She is passionate about justice in all its forms especially climate justice. Despite the pandemic the work continues through online  and social media campaigning.  Her work protesting the climate crisis has brought her into a network of likeminded friendships all over the world from Sweden to Uganda to Palestine. She also writes, bakes and loves her 2 dogs and 4 cats!

In 2009, Christian Kroll founded Ecosia as a start-up search engine that uses its profits to plant trees and combat global deforestation. With more than 7 million active users, Ecosia is known for its industry-leading standards of corporate transparency and user privacy, alongside its mission to restore the world’s degraded and vulnerable forests, in turn aiding livelihoods and relieving poverty. So far, Ecosia has planted more than 39 million trees of its 1 billion-tree goal.

Originally from Wittenberg, Germany, Christian studied business administration in Nuremberg.   

While in university, he became disillusioned with profit-making being the only valid objective for a business, and decided to do something more meaningful. This led him to travel and learn about the importance of trees for survival of our planet, and eventually to the launch of Ecosia.

Juliet Bonhomme is using Instagram to raise awareness towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Juliet's goal is to show that second hand, old clothes, ethical brands and upcycling are easy, trendy and the solutions of Tomorrow. As a former Fast Fashion Victim, she wants to counter over-consumption by using social media wisely.

In the past Juliet earned her Bachelor's degree in Public Relations at the Institute for Higher Social Communication Studies (IHECS) and she worked as a Digital Content Manager at the Lemon Spoon.

David Holyoake is an artistic director, arts manager, a published music composer, and a climate change campaigner and policy expert who formerly worked with EU NGOs ClientEarth.org and BankWatch network.

He brings experience in bridging the fields of system change theory with the arts. He founded UK charity swarmdynamics.org to bring together artists and experts in processes of defining system change and how to communicate it to general and specific audiences. For his independent work and arts projects he has received grant awards from a variety of sources.

As a published music composer he is represented as an Associate Artist of the Australian Music Centre since 2008, after which time he relocated permanently to Europe10 years ago.

Alix Konadu is active in movement and text theater, television and film. Recent productions are the film Binti, television series Loslopend Wild and theater play A plastic State of Mind.

Alix trained as an actor at Cours Florent Bruxelles and then at the Antwerp Conservatory and studied choreography at the Institut Supérieur des Arts et des Chorégraphies.