Emma Jurczynski is a British-Canadian designer and researcher from London, currently based in New York City. Her work applies experimental and playful design methods to repurpose used construction materials. Combining digital and analog tools, Emma’s practice transforms discarded matter to revalue waste and redefine its role in the built environment. She uses prototypes and film to investigate the physical, social, and cultural implications of the materials that shape our spaces. Emma recently collaborated with IKEA to design and build a shelter from dimensional timber to reconfigure our relationship with nature. Her projects have been featured in Fast Company and The Wall Street Journal. She holds a BSc from The Bartlett School of Architecture and a MA from MIT. Emma has worked in London, Berlin, Mexico City, Boston, New York City, and Tokyo

Sheila Jagannathan is, first and foremost, a lifelong learner—and a passionate advocate for ensuring that people of every age and geography have the opportunity to keep learning, adapting and shaping their own futures. A globally recognized leader in AI-enabled learning, human capital development and sustainable development, she has spent more than four decades working at the intersection of education, technology, climate action and international development.

She spent 26 years at the World Bank, including as Global Head of the Open Learning Campus, where she built a global digital learning ecosystem reaching millions of learners worldwide. She continues to serve as a Senior Advisor on 21st Century Skilling at the World Bank and as a Senior Advisor to the African Development Bank, supporting future-ready skills, digital capacity development and the Bank’s Virtual Capacity Development Academy across Africa.

She is Vice President of Strategic Relationships at Saylor University, advancing global partnerships and access to free and tuition-free higher education, and a Senior Research Affiliate (Skilling) at George Mason University. She is also a Global Advocate and AI Sherpa for AIFOD, championing responsible, human-centered AI and greater agency for developing countries in shaping the AI future.

Sheila has served on or advised numerous international initiatives, including UN SDG:Learn, UNESCO, OECD, IMF Academy and FAO Learning Academy, and serves/has served on the boards of eLearning Africa, the Global Distance Learning Network and the Chief Learning Officer Exchange/IPQC, among others.

An author, editor and international speaker, Sheila’s work increasingly connects AI, learning and climate action. Her books include Reimagining Digital Learning for Sustainable Development and the forthcoming AI-Enabled Learning for Climate Action: Building Skills, Capacity and Collective Intelligence for a Warming World.

Her central message is simple: the AI and climate transitions are ultimately about people. Young people should not merely inherit the future—or adapt to it—but have the knowledge, agency and opportunity to help shape it.

Alexandra Climent is a rainforest conservationist, artist, and founder of Endangered Rainforest Rescue. She is spearheading efforts to protect and restore a vital wildlife corridor along the Chucunaque River in Panamá’s Darién Gap. This river basin represents a missing link in the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, reestablishing forest connectivity between North and South America for wide-ranging wildlife, including keystone species such as the jaguar. Her work reconnects two intact Indigenous territories and helps revive a continental passage that once allowed species to move freely across the Americas.

Her model combines applied science, strategic land acquisition, community partnership, and native forest regeneration, including the creation of Indigenous-led tree nurseries cultivating locally sourced species to support long-term ecosystem recovery. Alongside her conservation initiatives, Alexandra sustains a sculptural and fine furniture practice using materials from naturally fallen rainforest trees encountered during fieldwork.

Marcele Oliveira is a communicator, cultural producer, and researcher in culture and climate, and a young climate justice activist at the UN and Executive Director of Instituto Perifalab.

Fatima-Zahra Tarib is an internationally trained political science major and climate advocate with six years of combined experience in digital campaigning, cross-functional strategy, and representing organizations at high-level UN forums.

Qiyun Woo is an environmental communicator and illustrator behind The Weird and Wild, a platform she founded in 2018 that makes climate science accessible through colourful illustrations. She makes complex issues easy to read without losing their nuance, with comic explainers breaking down IPCC reports, carbon tax, and why it’s so hot in tropical Singapore. She believes that informed communities are powerful communities. Through bright colours and the comic form, her work aims to make climate topics less intimidating and invites people to approach them with curiosity, nuance, and awe. Qiyun also works as a Senior Communications Manager for Working Group II of the UN climate organisation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Dedicated to promoting cultural integration, American Rebecca Hui is an entrepreneur, designer, and founder of Roots Studio. Rebecca leads a global group of cultural and creative technologists to reinvent sustainability in new formats through intellectual property licensing.

Representing 42 indigenous communities worldwide, Roots Studio fosters the connection between art and sustainable knowledge alongside partners such as Patagonia, NOAH, 3.1 Philip Lim, Chanel Foundation, Cartier Women’s Initiative, and others.

Rebecca is also a supporter of environmental issues such as supporting communities combating climate change. She has collaborated on mapping policy formulation for “The Rurban” with the Government of India, aiming to expand water and infrastructure planning.

In her leisure time, Rebecca turns to the world of arts. She is an author of children’s books, with the latest focusing on social entrepreneurship titled “Old Enough to Make a Difference”.

Kevin J. Patel is an LA-based impact leader and policy advisor working at the intersection of culture, creativity, and civic changemaking. As Founder of Earth Era Institute and its predecessor, OneUpAction International, Kevin builds platforms for intergenerational leadership on community-rooted climate solutions, driven by culture and strategic storytelling. Kevin founded and chaired the LA County Youth Climate Commission (2022–2025), shaping one of the nation’s  first youth-led policy bodies. He is an LA28 Next-Gen Council Member and Co-Founder of the Broadway Climate Summit, Youth Impact Council, and Earth Era Studios. He serves as an Ambassador for Amazon Watch, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Symmetry Woods; an Ambassador and Board Member of the Keystone Species Alliance, and a Board Member of Climate Words and the LA Climate Week/Collidescope Foundation. A 2020 National Geographic Explorer, Kevin also advises organizations on corporate strategy and community and cultural engagement, helping them rethink how change actually happens.

Pamela is a documentary photographer and visual storyteller, who has built a body of visual work and organizations around climate justice and gender equality.

Pamela has integrated design thinking from her product design and photography education at Parsons in New York, creative journalism from her MA Photojournalism at UAL: LCC, to synthesize compelling stories from the frontlines and encourage climate optimism in others.

Allegra V. is a Grade 12 student at Institut auf dem Rosenberg in St. Gallen, Switzerland, where she is completing the International Baccalaureate. At sixteen, she founded an independent research venture providing financial analysis for small businesses and investors.

Her interest in business and investment has since taken her from an internship at Philips, supporting a senior leader across several European offices, to working with a private equity firm on the commercial due diligence of an acquisition, where she contributed to market sizing and competitive analysis.

Allegra has presented her research on cocoa supply chains during the World Economic Forum in Davos and is currently exploring how AI is being developed across emerging markets, while competing as a finalist in the Swiss Economics Olympiad.

She plans to study International Management in London, with the ambition of building businesses that can grow across borders. At the heart of her outlook is the belief that the best businesses create opportunity where it is most needed, not only where it is most profitable.