We wish you a very warm welcome on this second day of our conference, focusing on Culture & creativity in disruptive times of change and Urban and Rural resilience
Today we will open our program with inspirational talks by Aranxta Acha, Director at UNESCO Etxea – UNESCO Center Basque Country
Following this Simon Höher will talk about the Hybrid City Lab and the Future Overflow report
Director of UNESCO Etxea, the UNESCO Centre of the Basque Country
Arantza Acha has a degree in Biology from the University of the Basque Country and a Masters in Conservation and Rural Development from the University of Kent (United Kingdom). She has worked for 7 years in the Environmental Sciences Unit of the UNESCO Office in Indonesia, two years as a beneficiary of the UNESCO Etxea and Basque Government fellowship programme and later as a consultant. Her work focused on promoting sustainable development in Indonesia, East Timor, the Philippines and Vietnam. To this end, she has worked on ecotourism, training, climate change and cultural promotion programmes, working closely with national and local governments, local communities, experts and scientists, various UN agencies and civil society organizations. Since 2014 Arantza is the director of UNESCO Etxea, the UNESCO Centre of the Basque Country, which works in the fields of sustainability, education, culture and human rights in the Basque Country. UNESCO Etxea acts as a bridge between the Basque Country and other territories of the world, taking the United Nations and especially UNESCO as a reference. "We work to build peace in people's minds through education, culture and science. We are committed to building a world in which people, social organizations, linguistic and cultural communities and peoples count for the construction of a democratic global citizenship. With human rights and human dignity as reference horizons. We consider culture to be an essential factor for social transformation and sustainable development, which is why we work in partnership with cultural agents, public institutions, the United Nations, the education sector and citizens, to promote cultural rights, artistic education, cultural heritage and cultural and linguistic diversity. We therefore work hard to integrate culture as an essential element of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development".
heads the Hybrid City Lab, the urban & public design unit of Berlin-based innovation firm zero360
Simon heads the Hybrid City Lab the urban & public design unit of Berlin-based innovation firm zero360 where he helps public organizations create equitable places in the digital age – within and well beyond the city. Since 2014 he also co-chairs ThingsCon one of Europe’s leading initiatives on building a responsible Internet of Things. For over a decade now, Simon explores systemic concepts of technology and society in a global context, reaching from strategic foresight and innovation, to tech and data ethics, to More-Human-Centered Design. He is a visiting lecturer at the Social Design faculty at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, an alumnus of the MIT’s International Development and Innovation Network (IDIN) and of Seedcamp, Europe’s leading early stage accelerator program. Over the past years, his work and contributions have been featured in international media like WIRED, Fast.co, Make:Magazine, Deutschland Radio, and others.
