Agenda

András Szörényi is senior policy advisor at Geneva Cities Hub where he works on issues like smart cities, digital transformation, urban health and climate change. Before that he worked in different diplomatic capacities in Brussels, covering EU affairs, Washington D.C. dealing with bilateral relations and in Geneva, working with the United Nations and other International Organizations. He has first-hand experience of negotiating in the European Union and the UN system as well as conceptualizing and implementing diplomatic initiatives on a wide variety of issues.

With a deep knowledge of international relations, he always focuses on new global developments and emerging challenges. He has a broad understanding of the engagement of non-state actors on multi-stakeholder platforms. He has been particularly interested in the increasing influence of non-state actors on the development of international relations since his Ph.D. research. Dr. Szörényi holds a DEA in Comparative Political Sciences from Sciences Po Paris and a Ph.D. in International Economics from Corvinus University, Budapest.

Axel Schmidt Grael is the Mayor of Niterói (Brazil), a forestry engineer, public manager, and environmentalist. In the 1970s, he began his activities as an environmentalist. Grael was president of the State Institute of Forests, of the State Foundation for Environmental Engineering, and Undersecretary for the Environment of the State of Rio. From 2013 to June
2020, he was the Niterói City Hall Vice-Mayor, Executive Secretary, and Planning Secretary. In the third sector, the highlight is its performance in the Grael Project, founded in 1998

Dr. Omar Al Shaiba is the Executive Director of information technology affairs sector at Department of 
Municipalities and Transport. He is leads the digital transformation at Department of Municipalities and 
Transport and to striving towards empowering the information technology sector, which is one of the 
most important sectors supporting corporate work in Department of Municipalities and Transport.
Dr. Omar Al Shaiba has extensive experience of more than 20 years. He started his career in 2002 in the 
Town Planning and Surveying Sector - Spatial Data Management in Al Ain City Municipality. Prior to 
joining the Department of Municipalities and Transport in 2013, he was supervising the organization of 
the Spatial Data and Addressing Division.
In addition, Dr. Omar Al Shaiba manages a number of projects, the most important of which are the 
digital transformations of the services project and the roadmap of smart city of corporate He holds a 
Bachelor’s degree in Information Security from the UAE University, a Master’s degree in GIS and Remote 
Sensing from the UAE University, and a Master’s degree in Project Management from George 
Washington University, and also holds a Ph.D. from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Barcelona.
Dr. Omar Al Shaiba will contribute in the next stage to strengthening the information technology system, 
unifying the integrated corporate work in the development of information technology & smart city
businesses and projects at at Department of Municipalities and Transport

Mr. Mohamed Husain Karmastaji is the Executive Director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Sector at the Integrated Transport Centre (ITC). He supervises the digital transformation at ITC to create a sustainable and integrated transport system that is safe and sustainable. The Technology and Transport Systems Sector follows the latest 
technologies and innovative solutions to improve the quality of services offered to the public in order to facilitate their daily travel and improve the operational efficiency and competency 
of the transport sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Moreover, Karmastaji supervises the Strategic Planning Office at ITC since 2019. He is part of many programs and mechanisms that have been created to support strategic planning at ITC and develop the implementing procedures of operational plans and performance assessment according to the highest practices and standards. This all will ensure the compliance of these plans with the strategic vision of ITC and its objectives. Karmastaji is also a member of many 
committees at the Department of Municipalities and Transport.
Mr. Mohamed Karmastaji holds a 16-year experience in technology management, business continuity, institutional development and quality and operational management. He started his career in the Government of Abu Dhabi and contributed to the digital transformation of the energy sector. Additionally, he managed number of projects of the General Secretariat of the Executive Council. In 2006, he was part of the team that created the Abu Dhabi EGovernment Programme, established the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre in 2009.
Karmastaji was part of many other initiatives and vital projects in the government sector. For example, developing the E-Government Strategy, Abu Dhabi Information Security Program, information technology designing, government information technology policies and 
supervising the Abu Dhabi E-Government network procedures. 

Mr. Mohamed Husain Karmastaji is a holder of Executive Master in Business Administration 
(EMBA), Zayed University and a Bachelor degree with honor in Computer Science, University 
of California San Diego, USA

Sami Kanaan, Deputy-Mayor of the City of Geneva, Member of AIMF Bureau, President of the Geneva Cities Hub Geneva Cities Hub
Born in 1964 from a Lebanese father and a Swiss mother, Sami Kanaan is multilingual. His life course is divided between Lebanon, Greece and Switzerland. He graduated in Physics and in Political Science.

Sami Kanaan has been a member of the social-democratic party since 1988, elected to the parliament of the City of Geneva, between 1997 and 2001, and to the parliament of the Canton of Geneva between 2001 and 2005. In the spring of 2011, he is elected to Geneva’s City Hall, in charge of the Department of culture and sports.

Since 2016, he chairs the federal Child and Youth Commission and is Vice-President of the Swiss Union of Cities and the Geneva Union of Cities. He is a member of the AIMF Bureau and the President of the Geneva Cities Hub.

Eugenio Di Sciascio received the MS degree (Hons.) from the University of Bari, Bari, Italy, and the PhD degree from the Polytechnic University of Bari. In 1992 he began his academic career at the University of Lecce as a researcher. Since 2004, he is a full professor of Information Technology engineering at the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Bari.
He has been President of the Regional Coordination Committee (CURC) of the five Apulian universities. He has been Vice President and then President of CINECA consortium (2016 – 2021).His research activity is oriented to the structured knowledge representation, user profiling systems, pervasive systems, semantic web and information systems for ports and home automation. He is the scientific director of the Information Systems laboratory of the Polytechnic 
University of Bari. Author of over 300 publications, he has participated in numerous international 
and national research projects.

He is the Vice Mayor of the City of Bari since August 2019. Alongside the function of Vice Mayor, he has been granted the powers for technological innovation, information systems and TLC, demographic, electoral and statistical services, general and institutional business, the industrial area development, the special economic zones and active work policies, as councillor for Digital Transformation and Civic Services.

Carla Castelo. Independent Non-executive Councillor for Oeiras Municipality in Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal. Co-founder and president of the civic local non-profit organization, Evoluir Oeiras - Associação. PhD student in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies, at ICS-Universidade de Lisboa. Environment and Communication Consultant. Was a Journalist for 28 years, covering environmental and climate change issues between 2000 and 2019. 

Sayyed Abdullah Arjaei Shirazi was born on September 21, 1980.
He is MA. graduated from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in the field of information 
technology management and is a political and social activist.
He was elected as the Mayor of Mashhad by the members of the Islamic City Council of 
Mashhad (the sixth council) on August 15, 2021, and officially began his activity on September 
6, 2021 by the decree of Ahmad Vahidi (Minister of Interior).

Jordi Vaquer is the Secretary General of Metropolis, the international association of major metropolises, that includes amongst its 140 members city ad metropolitan authorities from all continents. Previous to that, he worked at the Open Society Foundations - OSF, a global philanthropical organization working on human rights, civil liberties and democratic practice, and he was the director of CIDOB, the Barcelona Center for International Affairs, one of Southern Europe's leading international relations think tanks. Dr. Vaquer often offers commentary on international affairs in media and public events. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and he has been teaching part-time at IBEI, the Barcelona Institute for International Studies, since 2009.

Prior to her appointment as Secretary-General of WeGO, Jung Sook Park has dedicated her career in the field of international cooperation. She served as the Korean Representative of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) for ten years from 2009 to 2018, and she worked as a high-profile broadcaster as the host of morning news shows for major TV networks in Korea for over ten years from 1994 to 2004, as well as starring in “Jewel in the Palace,” one of the highest-rated TV dramas in the world. Since then, she has focused her career on education and research as a professor at Kyung Hee University and an adjunct professor of cultural diplomacy at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.

She served as the honorary ambassador for Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and the City of Seoul with a mission of increasing public awareness on Korea’s leading and responsible role in the international community. As a philanthropist, she is the Founder and Executive Director of the Multicultural Network & Hope Kids Korea, an NGO that provides education and mentoring for underprivileged children in Korea. Ms. Park is a graduate of Seoul Women’s University (BA), Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (MIA), and Yonsei University’s School of Public Administration (MPA) in Korea. She was a visiting scholar and studied in a doctoral program at Keio University.
 

Salar Shahna is the President and founder of the World XR Forum, the producer/creative director at Dirty Bacon, a film and XR production company and curator/founder of SP3CE | The NFT Gallery.

He recently launched a new series of NFTs as an independent artist. Dirty Bacon will be releasing Cosmic Birds, a VR Film, and pursuing the development of Relife, a feature film plus XR experience. 

In Crans-Montana, Salar has annually gathered industry leaders from all around the world. The Alpine resort is home to many pioneering programs such as the XR Residency, WXRChat, Virtual Travel Lounge, and XR Kitchen. Witnessing and participation in the transformation of Crans-Montana into a worldwide start-up hub and destination.   

In 2021, he co-founded āto with Matthieu Quiniou and Julien Béranger to take an active part in the construction of web3. The start-up builds technologies along legal tools for a healthy and successful development of the NFT ecosystem. 

Salar is an international public speaker and lectures in France and Switzerland. He sits as an expert for Canada’s New Media Fund.