The 21st Century City: Future Opportunity or Future Threat?
Speakers
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International-Affairs Columnist, Globe and Mail
Doug Saunders is a Canadian-British author and journalist. He is the author of the award-winning book Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World (2011) which has been published in ten languages, as well as The Myth of the Muslim Tide (2012). He is the international-affairs columnist for The Globe and Mail. He served as the paper’s London-based European bureau chief for a decade, after having run the paper’s Los Angeles bureau, and has written extensively from East Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and North Africa. He writes a weekly column devoted to the larger themes and intellectual concepts behind international news, and has won the National Newspaper Award, Canada’s counterpart to the Pulitzer Prize, on five occasions.
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Joel is one of the co-founders of SDI. This globally recognized initiative began in 1991 when he teamed up with visionary Indian slum dweller Jockin Arputham, linking South African shack dwellers with Indian Pavement Dwellers. The result has been the evolution of a trans-national movement of the urban poor that now spans 34 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Joel is the Managing Director of SDI's Cape Town based Secertariat.
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Founder & CEO, Mobile Metrix
Melanie is founder and CEO of Mobile Metrix, a market insights and marketing services company serving marginalized communities. Local young adults are employed and trained to collect demographic/consumer data door-to-door in their own neighborhoods using handheld technology. While on these hard-to-reach doorsteps, social benefits are also distributed. Melanie’s experience spans both the private and public sectors: previous to starting Mobile Metrix, she worked in management for J.P. Morgan, International Data Group (IDG) and as an executive for Key Accounts at AT&T. She launched the Global Technology Corps, a “digital Peace Corps,” with the U.S. Department of State and co-created the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS). Melanie is a Return Peace Corps Volunteer from Togo, Africa, a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow at Stanford University and an Echoing Green Fellow, PopTech Fellow, SOCAP Social Entrepreneur, AVINA Partner, Cordes Fellow, YUNUS Social Business, Fast Company Innovation Agent and PBS Newshour Agent for Change. Melanie is also an adjunct professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford University and Columbia Business School.
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Director, COMPAS, University of Oxford
Michael Keith is Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), Co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities and holds a personal chair in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oxford. His research interests focus on the interface between culture, urbanism and migration. His most recent book is "China Constructing Capitalism". His current research includes risk cultures in China, the future of multiculturalism in urbanism, and social externalities in rising powers.
Michael was formerly Professor of Sociology, Head of Department and Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research (CUCR) at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
