Mission of South-West (Portugal, Spain, Southern France)

Support Iberian farmers, producers, and consumers in a 3R agricultural revolution (one that is regional, regenerative, and resource-efficient) through platforms, tools, financial incentives, education, and transparent information.

Gabriel Tual

Michael Karner

Manuel Vilhena

João Amaral

Tiago Filipe Marques

Domenico Dentoni

Gabriel Tual

Mission Council: Region of South West

Gabriel is working to crack the case for the scaling-up of regenerative agriculture in Spain and the Mediterranean region. After having worked in various startups and as an innovation consultant, he joined the first ever Fresh Ventures cohort to start a start-up in the regenerative landscape and ended-up joining forces with Azolla Projects in Barcelona to finance the transition through the recognition of the positive outcomes of practices change. Today, he is focusing on making regeneration easier and financially viable, leveraging networks and his background as an engineer.

 

Michael Karner

Mission Council: Region of South West

Michael is a Franco-Austrian landscape restoration professional. Currently based in his hometown Marseille (France), he works on coastal adaptation to climate change, biodiversity conservation and wetland restoration at Plan Bleu, a regional center of UNEP’s Mediterranean Action Plan. He first trained in permaculture in Brazil in 2012, followed by more training in France and Spain, and has supported landscape restoration and regenerative projects around the Mediterranean ever since. In 2017, Michael co-designed the food production and gardens of the Nest City Lab in Barcelona, and produced a report on regenerative agriculture in Latin America with his friend Massimiliano Miatton for the Mustardseed Trust in 2020. Michael holds a Bachelor’s in History and Politics from the University of York, a Master’s in International Development from the Graduate Institute Geneva, and a Master’s in social sciences from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). His fieldwork focused on landscape restoration in drylands, during which he coordinated one of the early efforts of Ecosystem Restoration Camps in Jordan.

Manuel Vilhena

Mission Council: Region of South West

Silveira Tech Re_generation Village is meant to disrupt how we look at work, life and today’s society.

Bringing Regeneration to the center of discourse in Tech and Tourism industries, the project aims not to change the world but to be bold enough to point a way forward.

With a background working in tech, in Lisbon and Amsterdam, Manuel is looking to bridge technology and human connections to bring our systems into a new paradigm.

João Amaral

Mission Council: Region of South West

Motivated by the desire to leave a positive footprint, I believe that changing the way we look at the resources we need and the people around us is key. Finding alternatives to the take-make-waste system we live in will not only mitigate the environmental and social harm it causes but potentially create a positive impact on communities and ecosystems. I’ve been looking for ways to contribute to turning this idea into reality. With previous management consulting experience, for the past five years I have been helping build and expand the production and logistics operations, as well as the social and environmental responsibility areas in an innovative plant-based food company. In my current role, I’ve been leading and growing multiple diverse teams in a wide range of areas – from the production floor to inventory and shipping management – while driving the company’s sustainability initiatives by partnering with different areas of the business to find ways of making our products and operations more socially and environmentally responsible, striving for creating a positive impact on the world.

Tiago Filipe Marques

Mission Council: Region of South West

Tiago connects the dots in the realm of collaborative innovation. His mission encompasses addressing complex sustainability challenges within broader systems, connecting stakeholders from various backgrounds, co-designing sustainable solutions and helping secure funding to empower changemakers and innovators in their communities – from open innovation to building new ventures and innovation strategy. With prior work experiences in China and Spain, he is currently based in Portugal, working with city councils, universities, companies, foundations, startups, artists, activists, citizens and schools to orchestrate green innovation worldwide.

Domenico Dentoni

Mission Council: Region of South West

Domenico Dentoni is Full Professor in Business, Resilience and Transformation and Co-Director of the Communication and OrgAnizing for Sustainable Transformations (COAST) at Montpellier Business School (MBS) since 2021. After a PhD at Michigan State University, he spent 10 years as professor – with international research, project management, multi-stakeholder engagement, course development and teaching tasks – at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. Domenico’s research seeks to understand why, when and how organizations coordinate across scales to address complex sustainability problems. As practice informed by this research, Domenico specializes in novel applications of systems thinking and systems mapping within and across organizations in multiple industries including food, agriculture, energy and water. For these projects, Domenico has acquired and managed 3 million EUR in grants from national and international public organizations between 2011 and 2022. Domenico is author of more than 70 international publications contributing to entrepreneurship, organization, business ethics and socio-ecological studies. His studies have contributed to advance the fields of organization and management studies as well as sustainable food and agriculture. His research, training and innovation work was awarded by the US non-profit Food Tank: The Think Tank for Food as one of the Top 25 world leaders ‘shaking the current food systems’.