Beyond Mapping: Sustainable and Inclusive Transport for Africa (Virtual Event)

Aklilu Fikresilassie is the Director of Thriving Resilient Cities at WRI Africa and Representative of WRI in Ethiopia.

Aklilu has more than 16 years of professional leadership and technical experiences in the field of Urban Development and Management as well as managing non-governmental programmes. Prior to joining WRI, Aklilu spent 7 years at United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) as a Programme Manager, representing the agency in Ethiopia. while working with the UN-Habitat, Aklilu has successful represented the agency in the United Nations Country Team and played a key role in position the urban agenda in the UN joint plans/programs (UNDAF/UNSDCF) and supporting the Ethiopian Government’s endeavor towards Sustainable urbanization through provision of technical support and implementation of several projects. He also worked with UNDP in South Sudan as Planning Specialist and team leader. Further, Aklilu led the bureau of Finance and Economic Development, managing government, bilateral and multilateral programmes.

Antoine Chevre is Senior Transport Specialist in the Mobility Division of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). Prior to joining AFD, he worked for 12 years as transport planner in French international consultancy firm. He has worked in the area of sustainable urban mobility in Europe, Africa, Asia and Middle East through devising tailored transportation solutions including urban mobility plans as well as bus rapid transit, light rail, metro, and non-motorized transport projects. Since he joined AFD in 2016, he leads transport and digital strategy implementation. Especially, he organized in November 2017 the event “Towards an Open & Collaborative Digital Data Platform to improve African Urban Public Transport” jointly with Digital Matatus Team from Nairobi or Accra Mobility. He holds a postgraduate degree in urban planning and transport from Sciences Po, France (2002) and a master degree in Urban Utilities engineering from City of Paris engineering school (EIVP), France (2001).

Fatima Arroyo-Arroyo works in the Transport Global Practice, supporting the transportation agenda in Africa. Fatima is an enthusiast of integrating multidisciplinary dimensions in transport projects, such as fragility considerations, climate adaptation and technology. She leads urban transport projects with a focus in vulnerable groups, non-motorized transport, public transportation and the formalization of informal transport operators, especially in fragile environments. Before joining Africa region, she supported the urban transport and urban railway agenda in Latin-America and East Asia. She holds a Master´s in Civil Engineering from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. She also holds a Master in International Business Administration.

Frederic Tesfay is a Project Manager focused on project implementation. A Mechanical Engineer by education, Frederic immediately went into project management within the field of construction; having worked two years in USA and a further five years for GIZ in Africa. After developing a strong focus on monitoring and controlling, he then successfully began managing a variety of projects in the field of technical education and capacity building in Asia.

Through his personal and professional cultural experiences, he has gained understanding of the cultural intricacies, which are a factor in his past success. Frederic joined the TUMI team in May 2018 and is working hard to support the successful execution of projects and advancement of Sustainable Mobility Projects.

Benjie is the CEO of the Shared-Use Mobility Center; the Chair, Global Partnership for Informal Transportation; and founder/director of Agile City Partners. He writes and curates Makeshift Mobility, a fortnightly newsletter covering innovations in informal transportation.

He was the Chief of Strategy and Innovation for the Seattle DOT where he worked to prepare the agency and the city for institutional and technological change. He introduced agile methods to SDOT and initiated the department’s lean transformation. Benjie and his team drafted Seattle’s Transportation Information Infrastructure Plan and the New Mobility Playbook.

Benjie serves on the boards Project for Public Spaces, and Gehl Institute. He recently served on the advisory committee for the Roddenberry Prize. He served on the advisory committees for L.A.’s Transportation Technology Strategy, the Mobiprize, and Cooper Hewitt Museum’s The Road Ahead: Reimagining Mobility. He’s worked on urban development issues that cover technology, transportation, and informality. His ideas have been featured in Citylab, Atlantic Cities, Next City, FutureEverything, and TED City 2.0.

Mr. Hindolo Shiaka lives and works in Sierra Leone. He has an Accounting and Finance background and is a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) with a MSc. Degree in Project Management, (Construction and Infrastructure) at the University of Liverpool. In the past ten years plus, Hindolo has been in project management of various transport projects in Sierra Leone. Currently, he works for the Ministry of Transport and Aviation as the Director of Transport Infrastructure Development overseeing all matters on Aviation, Maritime and Road policy and project issues.. He is also the Project Co-Ordinator of the Integrated and Resilient Urban Mobility Project (IRUMP), a project meant to modernize and professional public transportation the Freetown and other Urban cities

Dr. Jacqueline Klopp co-directs the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at the Earth institute which is a Volvo Research and Educational Foundations center of excellence on Future Urban Transport. She is an action-oriented research scholar who focusses on pathways to safe, low emission, equitable transport and land-use, access and city governance. Jacqueline has been spearheading efforts to leverage new technologies and mapping to strengthen advocacy for improved public transportation and reduced air pollution and carbon emissions with a focus on popular transport. Dr. Klopp is a founding member of the award winning DigitalMatatus consortium which produced the first open transit data and public transit map for Nairobi’s minibus (matatu) transit system. She also helped found “Digital Cairo” a consortium led by Transport4Cairo to create open transport data for Cairo. With the French Development Agency, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Resource Institute among other partners, she helped found and continues to support new collaborative platforms on open transit data for Africa: DigitalTransport4Africa and Latin America DATUM to foster better research, planning and accountability. She is also a core member of the Clean Air Toolbox for Cities an interdisciplinary network centered at Columbia University that aims to support cities primarily in Africa and Asia with emissions, source (transport is a major source) and health impact data to address air pollution and climate change. She was honored to be selected by German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development as one of the “Remarkable Women in Transport” in 2021.

Ben Welle is a Director of Integrated Transport & Innovation at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities.

Ben’s work includes leading global research and projects, particularly in the areas of public transport, minibus services, mobility planning, access to opportunities, new mobility and innovation, traffic safety, walking & cycling, and public space. Prior to this role, Ben was Senior Associate for Urban Mobility at WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, working on many of the same issues. Prior to working at WRI, he was assistant director of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land in Washington, D.C., researching and consulting on city parks, public space, green infrastructure, transport planning, and related economic impact.

Iman Abubaker is the Urban Mobility Project Manager for WRI Africa, specifically working on improving livability of cities through integrated and equitable planning and safer street design. She works in coordination with city governments, local and international partners to research and implement sustainable and low carbon transport solutions particularly for African cities.

Prior to joining WRI, Iman worked as a consultant for SYSTRA, an international engineering and consulting company. She held internships at the Institute for Sustainable Development in Addis Ababa and Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority.

Abdelrahman Melegy is a GIS project manager at Transport for Cairo (TfC). He combines software development, spatial data management and automation knowledge to empower project management in an information systems context. He also Designs processes for data collection and integration in projects where data is usually scarce. He is an avid free and open-source software and open data promoter.

Enock Seth Nyamador is a GIS Consultant and Free and Open Source Software advocate. He believes and supports Open, Participatory Technologies, and communities. He is involved in OpenStreetMap, Wikimedia, Open Source Geospatial Foundation, Digital Transport 4 Africa, and other Communities of Practice.

He has worked on AccraMobilie3: mapping paratransit “trotro” routes in Accra, Ghana into OpenStreetMap; the Wikipedia of maps, and support related transport mapping projects across Africa.

Rafael Pereira (Rafa for short) is a researcher and head of the data science team at the Department of Regional, Urban and Environmental Studies and Policies at the Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) in Brazil. His research looks broadly at how urban and transport policies shape the spatial organization of cities, human mobility patterns as well as their impacts on social and health inequalities. He is particularly interested in the equity concerns underlying impact assessment of urban and transport planning policies and their effects on inequalities in access to opportunities.

Rafa received the 2017 Lee Schipper Memorial Scholarship from the World Resources Institute (WRI). More recently, in 2019, his work received the award for best PhD thesis in transportation by the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and the Young Researcher of the Year Award by the International Transport Forum (ITF/OECD).

Agraw is a GIS research analyst at the WRI Africa regional office. He works to present technical experience, analysis and administrative assist to the WRI Africa Cities Program focusing on the scaling of transit mapping in African cities for improved transport planning.

Prior to joining WRI, Agraw worked as a research associate in a laboratory at the University of Seoul. Before that, He worked at the Addis Ababa Science and Technology University as an assistant lecturer. In addition to that, he has participated in various GIS, urban planning and design projects in Ethiopia.

Bertrand Billoud works for Kisio Digital, the digital subsidiary of Keolis Public Transport operator. Kisio Digital provide Navitia open source platform, as a MaaS enabler dedicated to travellers information, intermodal trip planner and mobility data management. As the Communication Marketing Vice-President, he’s in charge to develop links in Navitia community and strengthen relations with Kisio Digital stakeholders, as a human connector. He promotes commons around mobility and digital services, creating value leveraging mobility open data with www.navitia.io API. He’s also committed to developing open innovation with Navitia Lab (white label open innovation platform), as an open transport tool box for developers, made with API, mobile SDK, widget, API console and good quality datasets.

Christoph is President of Trufi Association, an NGO that supports public transport worldwide with digital solutions. He is based in Germany but previously lived in Bolivia where he saw the necessity of making informal and semiformal transport more transparent for people. This helps people to better and easier use public transport in all its options.

Elleithy is a subject matter expert on adopting tech-based operational solutions to resolve productivity and optimization challenges in the transport industry. He currently holds the position of VP commercial department at Mwasalat Misr SAE, where he served as Chief Operations Officer since 2018. Mwasalat Misr the first public transport operator to bring true smart urban mobility to Africa. He is currently accountable for the end-to-end development of efficient, water-tight operational modules which output much-needed scalable, reliable, premium public transport service for people moving around Cairo daily. Elleithy is specialized in Industrial Engineering with a focus on Operations Research, Network Planning, and Logistics Management. He also holds a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Subsequently, he has built years of hands-on experience in the fleet and transport management fields.

Anna is a certified Urban Planner and Architect with ten years of international development experience. She specializes in managing projects at the intersection of planning, architecture and engineering, and has worked at multiple scales of governance in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya and the United States.

Anna holds a Master of Science in Urban Planning and Master of Architecture from Columbia University, a Post-Graduate degree in Urban Management from the University of Nairobi and Bachelors of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley.

Philip is a Transport Engineer with 10 years of product development/production support experience. He has been involved with the ground-up development of heavy-duty road legal vehicles for the North American Market, the development of systems to improve assembly line efficiency, cost reduction initiatives, operator/service manual development, vehicle legal compliance assurance, and safety recall campaigns management.

He has developed a Python coded GIS based inclusionary housing planning support system, intended to aid decision making at both policy development and implementation levels, by allowing evaluation of various spatial factors which impact on the financial viability of inclusionary housing developments (specifically, in the context of urban South African environments).

Currently, he is project managing the development of the GoAscendal Africa Urban Mobility Observatory, an FCDO funded research project, which aims to establish new mobility data collection techniques using existing, and therefore affordable, mobile technology and infrastructure, in six African cities.

Philip holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Electro-Mechanical Engineering (University of Cape Town), and a Master of Science in Engineering, specialising in Civil Engineering – Transport Studies (University of Cape Town).

George Kibala Bauer is Senior Advocacy and Insights Manager in the Digital Utilities programme, which supports urban resilience in low- and middle-income countries by enabling access to essential utility services through digital solutions. His responsibilities include developing and managing strategic partnerships, conducting research on basic service provision in the context of rapid urbanisation in low- and middle-income countries, disseminating insights and best practices, and representing the programme at a range of external events. Prior to joining the GSMA, George gained experience in economic research, development finance, consulting, and government affairs. George holds a MSc in International Economic Policy from Sciences Po Paris, a BA in Economics from McGill University, as well as certificates on infrastructure finance, impact evaluation, and urban planning.

Business and Technology pacesetter with 10+ years of success strategizing and leading innovations and organizations at the brink of change and growth. History of leveraging existing and emerging technologies, uncovering opportunities, and directing trailblazing strategies to improve operations, develop leading-edge products, and increase marketability for forward-moving organizations. Deep expertise in management strengthened by intellectual curiosity and grounded in real-world technical experience, providing the foundation for next-generation ideas, development, and implementation. Focused on value-creation, innovative products, solution-based offerings and novel models that fully realize potential of ideas, teams, skills, assets, networks, products, and services

Sarah Williams is an Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she is also Director of the Civic Data Design Lab and the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. Williams’ combines her training in computation and design to create communication strategies that expose urban policy issues to broad audiences and create civic change. She calls the process Data Action, which is also the name of her recent book published by MIT Press. Williams is co-founder and developer of Envelope.city, a web-based software product that visualizes and allows users to modify zoning in New York City. Before coming to MIT, Williams was Co-Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). Her design work has been widely exhibited including work in the Guggenheim, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Venice Biennale, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum. Williams has won numerous awards including being named one of the top 25 technology planners and Game Changer by Metropolis Magazine. Check out her latest exhibition, Visualizing NYC 2021, at the Center for Architecture in New York City.

Carly manages the UNEP team for Active Mobility, Digitalisation and Mode Integration working with countries around the world to decouple mobility from increasing emissions.

Carly has been working in the field of sustainable mobility for almost fifteen years in the areas of active mobility, road safety, bus rapid transit, congestion charging, low emission zones, bike share systems and digitalisation.

Prior to her time with UN Environment Carly was the Programme Manager for the UN-Habitat Sustainable Transport for East African Cities Programme supported by the Global Environment Fund. Working with city leaders in Nairobi, Addis Ababa and Kampala to plan for implementation of bus rapid transit systems.

Before moving to Kenya, Carly worked for Transport for London supporting design, implementation and launch of the London Cycle Hire Scheme and the London Low Emission Zone.

Carly holds a Masters in Business Administration with an elective in management. She also holds the UK Association of Project Management Professional Qualification (APMPQ).

Carly is also a Council member of the World Economic Forum Future Council on Mobility and a Board Member of the Flone Initiative

Fatoumata Diallo is a PhD candidate in comparative political sociology at the Center for International Studies of SciencesPo. Her work investigates the implementation of urban transport projects and the circulation of urban policy models around the world. Her research is located at the intersection between public policy analysis and urban studies and aims at deepening our understanding of governance structures using qualitative methods. She has notably analysed transport reforms in Cape Town, South Africa, Lagos, Nigeria and Greater Paris, France.

 

Charlene Kouassi, Director, African Mobilities Observatory

Before joining ITDP, Gashaw was the team leader of the transport and road network planning department for the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the past six years. His responsibilities included planning the city’s road network, leasing with stakeholders, and planning the city’s parking and terminal provisions. Gashaw has extensive experience as a consultant having previously worked with three consulting firms. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Addis Ababa University and a Masters Degree in Urban Administration and Planning from the University of Seoul in Korea.

At ITDP Africa, Gashaw is a Country manager based in Ethiopia. working on different sustainable urban mobility projects in Ethiopia, mainly the non-motorized transport strategy, Bike sharing, and Sustainable urban mobility projects.