Speakers for this event

• Emmanuel John

  Emmanuel John

  Director, Africa Sustainable Urban Mobility Course and Open Streets Abuja

  Emmanuel John is a Sustainable Transport Expert & Director of Administration and Strategy of Transportation Growth Initiative (TGI), a professional sustainable transport organization based in Abuja, Nigeria and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cycling Federation of Nigeria responsible for urban cycling development. Prior to this, he’s been working with the Federal Road Safety Corps for 20 years as a transport and road safety expert. In 2018 Emmanuel was elected as the Coordinator of Transport Research and Projects of the Africa Union of Transport and Logistics Organization, a professional organization based in Morocco with membership organizations from 28 African countries.

  Emmanuel currently coordinates many sustainable urban mobility initiatives in Nigeria and in Africa, including as director of Africa Sustainable Urban Mobility Course, which draws participants from across Africa and the recent edition focused on gender and transportation in African cities. He is also Director of Open Streets Abuja Initiative in Nigeria. Emmanuel leads different teams on policy and strategy development at national and city levels and facilitates many other initiatives such as activities marking the #WorldBicycleDay, UN Global Road Safety Week, National Road Safety Strategy for Nigeria, etc. As researcher Emmanuel facilitates many researches with expert guide to governments on COVID19 and the transport implications. Gender issues in transport in the city of Abuja, amongst others.

  Emmanuel holds Master’s Degree in Transport and Logistics from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, and a PhD Candidate at the Center for Transport Studies, University of Portharcourt. He has undertaken post graduate courses on sustainable transport and road safety and received certifications from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, University of Cape Town, South Africa, Johns Hopkins University, USA, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi India, and the World Bank, amongst others. He has authored six books among which are “The Future of Urban Mobility in Nigeria: Mitigating the Impact of Population Growth on Urban Mobility” and “Non Motorised Transportation in Developing Countries”. He is a development expert, researcher, registered Engineer with Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, Member Nigeria Society of Engineers, Fellow, Institute of Public Administration, and Corporate Member of the Chattered Institute of Logistics and Transport, UK. He is a widely travelled regular keynote speaker and Radio/TV commentator. He is married and lives in Abuja.

  Director, Africa Sustainable Urban Mobility Course and Open Streets Abuja

• Mirjam Borsboom

  Mirjam Borsboom

  International Cycling Policies Strategic Advisor, DG Mobility

  Mirjam Borsboom is the Strategic Advisor of Cycling Infrastructure, Data and Innovation at the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Watermanagement. With almost 10 years experience in the field of sustainable transport and urban planning. She is a civil engineer from the Delft University of Technology, focusing especially on cycling and urban planning. She is also the former director of the Dutch Cycling Embassy, stimulating bicycle use all over the world and making the bicycle accessible for all: young and old, rich or poor, commuting or recreational cyclists.

  She’s chair of the Community of Interest of Active Mobility within the Transport Decarbonisation Alliance (TDA) where we exploiting the COVID-19 momentum: as car and public transport use are dropping due to COVID-19, levels of walking and cycling are rising, putting pressure on existing active travel systems and infrastructure. We share best practices so we can learn and share with our partners. There’s currently a lot of traction and action from cities, but at the same time, countries and companies should be part of the transition towards more active modes of transport.

  International Cycling Policies Strategic Advisor, DG Mobility

• Sina Zhen

  Sina Zhen

  Junior Officer, Sustainable Mobility

  Sina supports the EcoLogistics Community project in the Sustainable Mobility team at ICLEI. Her previous professional experiences include transportation consulting, policy research and business development in the fields of electrification, automation, and shared mobility. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Mobility Management from the Technical University of Berlin and a BS in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University.

  Junior Officer, Sustainable Mobility

• Sonal Shah

  Sonal Shah

  Executive Director, Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities and Founder, The Urban Catalysts

  Sonal Shah is the Executive Director of the Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities and the founder of The Urban Catalysts, advising multiple stakeholders – governments, development banks, philanthropic organizations and think tanks on sustainable, equitable cities and transport.

  Over the last 15 years, she has worked across 10 states in India, Asia and the United States. She has advised on gender and social inclusion in public transport, road safety programs and mainstreaming gender in urban mobility, street design and urban planning. She was responsible for introducing India’s first gender-sensitive urban planning guidelines and actively contributed towards revising India’s national urban street design guidelines (IRC codes) to make them people-oriented. Sonal has led projects supported by UK Aid, ADB, IKI, Oak Foundation, Gates Foundation, GIZ and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She has taught at numerous institutions such as the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Anant National University, KRVIA, Academy of Architecture and the JJ School of Architecture.

  Sonal graduated from the MSc Urban Planning program from Columbia University. She was featured in the Alumni Spotlight in Fall 2013-14, and in the Remarkable Women in Transport 2020 by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative. She was also part of the NITI Aayog’s WEP-UNDP program on Innovative Finance.

  Executive Director, Centre of Sustainable and Equitable Cities and Founder, The Urban Catalysts