Tadej Vindiš is Senior Lecturer in Creative Technologies at the Westminster School of Arts and Academic Fellow at the Creative and Advanced Technologies Lab (CAT Lab), University of Westminster in London. His work combines interdisciplinary research, programme development, R&D and curation across emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, immersive environments and digital cultures, with a focus on how technological acceleration is reshaping human experience, societies, and institutions. Before joining Westminster, he was Lead Producer at body>data>space, a London-based digital design and innovation studio, working on cross-sector projects with organisations including Innovate UK, Nesta, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and Deutsche Bank. His current work connects research, strategy, and public engagement, exploring how interdisciplinary approaches can help anticipate technological and societal change and shape alternative futures.

Prateek is a strategic designer, writer, and educator whose practice explores how our institutions, governance systems, and ways of knowing must evolve to meet today’s challenges. He is currently Steward (Mission & People) at Dark Matter Labs, where he previously co-led the Planetary Civics mission. He is also a founding member of the Planetary Civics Inquiry. Prateek has spent over a decade working in the fields of international development, ethnographic research, public humanities, and design. He has lectured at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and RMIT University, served as Strategic Design Fellow at the Center for Complexity, and is a Young India Fellow.

Alessandro Masserdotti is a philosopher and digital technology expert, and CEO of Dotdotdot, founded in 2004. Dotdotdot is a studio that designs interactive environments and digital architectures. Over the last 22 years, the studio has won awards such as iF Gold, Red Dot Gold, and DIA Silver and Gold Awards. Alessandro has been teaching Interaction Design at the Politecnico di Milano since 2011. In 2014, Dotdotdot founded OpenDot, an innovation hub turned ETS Foundation in 2025.

Pierre Lanfranco supports the development and implementation of Biodiversity Finance Plans across Africa. He works closely with governments, communities, and private actors to implement the BIOFIN methodology, with a focus on strengthening national capacities, facilitating regional knowledge exchange, and designing impactful financing mechanisms for Nature. Pierre has over eight years of experience in biodiversity finance, project cycle management, and resource mobilisation. Before this role, he served as a Global Technical Environmental Finance Analyst with the UNDP-BIOFIN team. He previously worked as an Investment Officer with the French Development Agency in Zimbabwe and as a Development Project Manager for West Africa at a consultancy firm. He holds a master’s degree in Development Economics and a master’s degree in Management and Finance. Fluent in French and English, Pierre is home-based in Rome.

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. She is the Executive Director of Global Voices, a community of writers, editors, and translators providing community journalism from all over the world. She is the author of critically acclaimed science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy as well as The Mimicking of Known Successes, a murder mystery set on Jupiter, and co-edited We Will Rise Again, an anthology of speculative fiction and essays about activism. She has published academic work on disaster studies and predictive fictions.

Živa Kavka Gobbo is a cultural anthropologist and president of Focus, an environmental organisation. Her work connects sustainable development, global learning, environmental justice, human rights, and community engagement. She researches and educates on global responsibility and the impacts of the economic system of the Global North on the environment, climate change, and human rights worldwide. She collaborates on international projects with non-governmental, research, and educational organisations. Her areas of interest include sustainable systems, degrowth, food self-sufficiency, environmental sustainability, critiques of anthropocentrism, participatory methodologies, and the development of community-based projects.

Guillian Graves works with companies (startups, brands, and major industrial groups) and research centres to develop tangible innovations designed to meet future challenges; he teaches at leading schools, training the next generation of professionals to create impactful solutions through the intersection of science and design; and he raises public awareness by presenting his unique approach to innovation at conferences. His preferred innovation process is biomimicry—an approach that draws inspiration from the natural world, leveraging solutions and inventions refined by 3.8 billion years of evolution.

Dr Maja Simoneti is a landscape architect and urban planner at the Institute for Spatial Policies (IPoP). Her work focuses on sustainable spatial development; the planning and management of public space, green spaces, and urban trees; as well as the promotion of walking and the planning of walkable environments. She advocates cross-sectoral cooperation, community-based approaches, and the involvement of residents in working processes and decision-making concerning spatial solutions and development. She sees nature conservation and nature-based solutions as an important foundation for addressing climate change and future challenges such as public health, resilience, and the safety of urban environments.

Associate Professor Dr Miha Krofel is a lecturer in animal ecology at the Department of Biology at the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana. As a visiting researcher and lecturer, he also works with several institutes and universities in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Portugal. His research focuses primarily on the ecology and conservation biology of large carnivores in Europe, Africa, and Asia. He is interested in the roles that different animals play in ecosystems and how understanding their behaviour can contribute to enabling coexistence between wildlife and humans. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles and 18 books and book chapters.

Doenja Oogjes is an assistant professor in Industrial Design at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and a researcher in the field of human-computer interaction. Her work starts from the premise that technology is reshaping the world around us in ways we rarely stop to examine, especially when that world extends beyond the human. Her research moves through material dialogues with city trees, the company of bees, backyards as liminal spaces, and listening practices for waters running through her own neighbourhood, workshopping more-than-human practices across these sites. Grounded in feminist posthumanism, her work moves between theory, method, and design research practice, and is currently taking shape in MoTH Studio, a space she is co-establishing on campus for biomonitoring and situated research and teaching.

Maja Prijatelj Videmšek is a freelance journalist and a long-standing contributor to the Slovenian newspaper Delo. Her articles have also been published in numerous other media outlets, including The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic China, The Hindu Times, Das Magazin, and Haaretz. In 2024, she received the Prometej znanosti award for excellence in science communication, presented by the Slovenian Science Foundation, in recognition of her journalistic work. She is the co-author of the book The Last Two: The Battle to Save the Northern White Rhinos, published in Slovenia by Umco (2022) and in English by Rowman & Littlefield (2023).

Matea Benedetti is a Slovenian fashion designer, professor, and founder of Benedetti Life, a sustainable luxury fashion brand. In 2014, Sara Sozzani Maino of Vogue Italia selected Benedetti Life among the world’s 20 most promising sustainable fashion brands, acknowledging its pioneering approach to sustainable luxury. A frequent speaker at international conferences and institutions, she has presented on sustainability, innovation, and fashion at COP28 in Dubai, the Vatican, and Brussels. Bentley Motors featured Benedetti Life among its “Extraordinary Brands” in its centennial publication. Working between Ljubljana and Milan, she continues to advance sustainable luxury through innovative design and responsible fashion practices.

Achenyo is the Founder/CEO of MitiMeth, an award-winning materials and artisan studio transforming invasive weeds and agricultural residues into material innovations and design-led products. She has spent over 14 years working with water hyacinth, banana fibre, coconut shells, bamboo and food waste across interiors, fashion, and art. MitiMeth’s work has been showcased globally, including Woven Threads at Lagos Fashion Week and the London Future Fabrics Expo. A Vital Voices GAP Fellow, MIT Foundry Fellow, and Cartier Women’s Initiative Fellow, her TED Talk has over 1.9 million views. MitiMeth has featured in global media and academic case studies.

Zack Denfeld is an American artist who lives in Amsterdam. Since 2010 he has co-directed Genomic Gastronomy, CoClimate, and the Office of Life + Art with the Norwegian artist Cathrine Kramer. They create artworks, exhibitions & events about food systems, emerging technologies, and the life sciences. Their current research is on taste, place and change, and agricultural biodiversity. In 2007 Zack co-founded the Center for Experimental Media Art at the Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology (Bengaluru, India), and in 2010 he helped launch the MFA in Collaborative Design (Portland, OR). His work has been reviewed in Science, Nature, and Gastronomica, and has been exhibited at the World Health Organization, Kew Gardens, V2_, MU, V&A Museum, Science Gallery, MIT Museum, and others. Zack holds degrees from Syracuse University and the University of Michigan.

Daša Ličen is a research associate at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), a lecturer at the ZRC SAZU Postgraduate School, and a habilitated assistant professor at the University of Maribor. She holds a PhD in Ethnology, Cultural and Social Anthropology from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana. Her research lies at the intersection of ethnology and history, with a particular interest in changes in everyday practices during the final decades of the Habsburg Monarchy. In recent years, her work has focused primarily on human–animal relations as they developed in the 19th century and the ways in which their legacy remains strongly present today.