Social Innovators

Chemical Engineer with a PhD in Environmental Science and Environmental Engineering. Main areas of focus: circular bioeconomy, sustainability, carbon neutrality.

Mayri Tiido is an adult educator with 10+ years of experience and a circular economy entrepreneur on a mission to transform the world to become circular. She’s a visiting lecturer in the Estonian Academy of Arts on sustainability and one of the co-founders of Materjalivoog, a marketplace in Estonia for industrial leftovers. In addition, she has researched what competencies young people need to become future leaders in a circular world.

Troy Nachtigall is a Designer and Design Researcher who is currently a key member of the Erasmus+ Fashion and Textile Transitions project and New Ecosystems of Textiles Research Community, driving forward new collaborations and partnerships to shape the future of the textile industry. With a background in design and a passion for exploring the data-material relationship through Fashion and Design, Troy is at the forefront of developing innovative approaches to sustainable textile production and design. As a Professor at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Troy leads the Wearable Data Studio in the computational fabrication of clothing, shoes, and accessories. Through this work, Troy is exploring the complex adaptive ecosystem of fashion, with the dataflow journey at the forefront. His fashion artifacts are physical, digital, or a hybrid of both, resulting in a more than human centered material perspective and a data-enabled ecosystem lifecycle model.

Troy’s research is founded in the interactive inter-scaler relationship between fashion, spatial design, and architecture. He developed this point of view as a fashion designer in Florence, Italy and as a research fellow in the Marie Sklodowska-Curie action ArcInTexETN at Eindhoven University of Technology, Philips Research, and the Design Research Lab of UdK Berlin.

Michaela is a circular economy consultant from the Czech Republic, now based in Stockholm. She studied Environmental Management and Policy at Lund University and has a background in marketing and liberal arts. Passionate about sustainability, Michaela works with clients to implement circular strategies that reduce waste and increase sustainability. In her free time, they enjoy sports such as running marathons and rowing, connecting with nature and finding inspiration for her work in sustainability.

Alexa Böckel is a PhD candidate, teaches and researches at the Centre for Sustainability Management at Leuphana University Lüneburg, is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt and a Research Associate at the Technische Universität Dresden. Her research focus is on circular startups and their contribution to the circular society, how circular startups can be supported by incubation programs and what impact understandings exist in incubation programs. Previously, she was a Research Associate at the Social Change Hub of Leuphana University, a DigitalChangeMaker at the Hochschulforum Digitalisierung and researched corporate digital responsibility, blockchain in the circular economy and crowdfunding for sustainable ventures.

I am a designer and researcher passionate about designing for systems change and a sustainable, regenerative future. With my intertwined design and engineering background, I adopt a holistic approach to problem-solving and innovative thinking to deliver thoughtful, tested and viable solutions. 

With five years of experience in sustainability, I have explored this field through various projects. In collaboration with multidisciplinary teams, I have conducted experiments on alternative materials in biology labs, designed sustainable buildings, analysed and developed circular economy business models, etc., while always focusing on environmental challenges. 

I graduated with honours in industrial design at the Technical University of Eindhoven with a focus on material exploration, product & systems design, and human & product interaction. At Honours Academy at TU/e, I have been part of the Energy Transition engineering group. 

Currently, I am working in the Sustainability & ESG team at the biotechnology company, assisting on projects and courses related to the holistic (re)design of sustainable systems, and finalising the MSc Design and Innovation degree at the Technical University of Denmark.

A hardware engineer interested in how we can feed and house the world’s growing population without destroying the planet.

Doris is an inclusive innovation enthusiast with 7 years of experience in designing, steering and implementing entrepreneurship programs across Europe, Asia and Africa. She has developed and implemented 10+ long-term capacity-building programs supporting 1000+ startups across the globe. She is passionate about working with impact-driven individuals toward achieving their vision and has a strong focus on making the entrepreneurship space more inclusive and accessible. Doris holds a Masters in Export- and Internationalization Management and studied in Austria, Denmark, the US and Russia. 

Alessandro is an academic researcher in the field of industrial engineering, with 14 years of experience as a professional nomad: through several experiential seasons he’d been an Artificial Intelligence researcher in the UK, a tech entrepreneur in Bulgaria, an explorer of trails across the Caucasus mountains, the co-creator and leader of the largest Robotics workshop in Armenia, where he was also serving as teacher and builder of large IT systems for an educational non-profit organisation.

He embraced social entrepreneurship, mentoring peers in various programmes at Impact Hub Yerevan, but also currently running his own social business making topographic maps to serve people who want to enjoy nature at a slow pace, in Armenia, just like he does. His work now combines his long term passion for the outdoors, and his mild-obsession for maps and geography, with a strong preference for everything open source and open data.

Alice Casiraghi is a designer, co-founder and design director at Future Urban Living, where she helps businesses and cities transition to the circular economy by design, with their open-source systemic thinking tools, systemic design and business innovation. She is a European Climate Pact Ambassador.

Alice is Interested in climate innovation, circular economy, cleantech, and strategic foresight. She advises 11 European cities of the Food Trails project (H2020) on circular food systems. Alice relentlessly fuels the conversation on the power of design in the transition to a regenerative economy at university lectures and talks.

Professor of Circular Economy and Climate Change Management at the Department of Management, University of Turin. Her research is focused on the role of entrepreneurship & open innovation on sustainable and circular business models. She is coordinator of several the EIT Food programmes (eg. the MOOC on Circular business models for sustainable urban food systems). She is member of the ECESP Leadership Group – Food Waste, Food Systems, Bioeconomy and co-founder of the “Circular Economy Coalition” initiative. She is also co-founder of the New European Bauhaus Stewardship Lab.

I am Anna, I am 28 years old, I live in Turin and I’ve lived in Madrid and worked in Paris at ERM where I was part of the M&A team and worked on ESG due diligence.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Economics, a master’s degree in management with a specialization in Corporate Sustainability and Social Innovation.

My internship experiences have been in the sustainability team at Lavazza, in a startup in the area of sustainable finance, and in a startup accelerator in Milan!

On a more serious note, I love traveling, sports like tennis, hiking and ski mountaineering are on my top list.

I want to have a positive impact to make our planet a better home!

Experienced program designer and trainer with 10+ years of experience in the impact entrepreneurship sector; co-founded 3 impact-led ventures in the hospitality and capacity building sector; co-founded Impact Hub Zagreb; currently working as a Head of Programs at Impact Hub Zagreb, focusing on designing and delivering diverse support programs and capacity-building processes for entrepreneurs in diverse stages (from intention to operations and growth), mentoring and training early-stage ventures, as well as co-designing and participating in the social innovation processes as part of different projects aimed at youth empowerment, policy-making and project ideations; as a landscape architect, particularly interested in circularity in the landscape architecture as well as the power of (landscape) design for education and positive social change.

C-Level Luxury & Lifestyle | Board Member I CEO TheBrandSitter | Founder Angels4Women | W20 (G20) Head of Delegation | W7 (G7) Advisor 

Making society more sustainable and circular every day, that is what Nishant is dedicated to. He prefers to work with clients to establish a bold vision for the future and then identify appropriate policies, programs, and projects based on that vision. He brings 12 years of experience working in sustainability teams across various industries. His expertise encompasses climate, circular design, eco-design, performance measurement, materiality analysis, and reporting. In the field of circularity, he has collaborated with leading think tanks and contributed to international publications.

Nienke is a truly passionate and experienced sustainability expert in the garment and textiles industry. As Global Lead for Apparel, Textiles and Footwear at the Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation Institute she drives the systems change required to accelerate the circular transition in the sector together with sector  stakeholders. Nienke has been working for almost 2 decades in the fashion industry in different roles to drive sustainability. She also served in the Steering group for the Agreement on Sustainable Garment and Textile, the Responsible Denim Alliance, the Fair Wear Committee of Experts and is the initiator and co-writer of the Sustainable Material Guide for Apparel Companies. 

Niki de Schryver is à Pioneer in sustainable fashion. Already back in 2010, she was the business developer behind HonestBy world’s first 100% transparent fashion company. Through COSH, she now continues her mission to accelerate the fashion industry to a circular and slavery free one, by making conscious shopping easy while gathering data insights for smart cities working towards climate neutrality. 

With the ScaleUp Practitioners (Fran Nardocci, Peter de Boer and myself) I help scale transformative innovations. Before founding the Practitioners (2022), I spent over 20 years in corporate innovation and product development with Unilever, Corbion and Schlumberger, and over 5 years in start-up and scaleup support in Food, Agri, Chemistry, and Circular Economy. I combine scientific background (PhD in Colloid Chemistry) with an education in Advanced Change Methodologies.

Social innovator, elected Ashoka fellow in Canada in 2011. I have more than 15 years of experience in the global fashion field, working in particular with a lens of sustainability, circular practices, social impact and gender equality. With a systems-thinking mindset, I have worked in several countries including (Canada, Colombia, Ecuador,The Netherlands Bolivia,India, Mali and Thailand) connecting producers and consumers, governments and academic institutions to co-create a more sustainable industry. I am currently a Doctoral researcher specialising in  the social impacts of circular strategies applied in the textile and apparel value chain and how they can be improved.

Ani is a Program Manager at Impact Hub Global, Board Member at Impact Hub Yerevan, and a co-founder at Cartisan.org 

She holds a Master’s degree in “Project and Enterprise Management” from “University College London” (UCL), which opened up doors for her to move into the territory of social innovation.

Her passion, skills, and experience come together when designing, developing, and implementing meaningful projects. Being part of the Impact Hub network, gives her the opportunity to focus on the long-term impact of such projects.

Tuğçe Ergün Cireli, who studied economics in Montreal after Üsküdar American High School, started to research the relationship between nutrition and health as a result of the ailments she had while working in these fields. After completing her MA in entrepreneurship and business at Imperial College London, she studied plant-based nutrition at Cornell University.

Since 2015, she has been doing an entrepreneur, consultant and impact investor in the field of agriculture and food. After working as the Innovation and Growth Officer of the SAF Nutrition brand for 2 years, she devotes all her attention to Foodback, the EU-supported agriculture and food innovation platform, which she previously carried out part-time. Foodback accelerates the growth of impact-oriented agriculture and food entrepreneurs in Turkey. She continues to produce and share content in this field through her articles on the Ruhun Doysun platform, “Konusuyoruz” podcasts and the conferences she organizes such as the Impact in Food Conference.

Cansu is an inspiring business trainer and innovation professional who dedicated her career to promoting regenerative practices and a circular economy for current and future generations. She has trained hundreds of youth, changemakers, businesses, and entrepreneurs from 40 countries across Asia, Europe, LATAM, and Africa on circular economy and climate, inspiring them to embrace practices and mindset. Her guidance has helped various companies to adopt sustainable practices and embark on their paths.

After graduating in Food Engineering, I have worked as a Business Development Manager, R&D Manager, and Quality Manager in a food laboratory. During this period, I completed my master’s degree in Marketing Communications and subsequently started my own business.

Currently, I am the founder of FoodSciComm (Food Information Media), a company that provides solutions to misinformation in the field of food and nutrition. I reside alternately between Ireland and Turkey and manage communication and research projects in the field of food.

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.

Yioula Melanthiou, is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Cyprus University of Technology. She holds a PhD in Marketing (University of Manchester, UK) and has been in academia since 2004 where she served as Head of the Department and Director of Doctoral Studies at the University of Nicosia. Her academic experience involves teaching Marketing at all levels and supervising doctoral students. Her primary research interests are in the areas of Social Media Marketing and Consumer Behavior, presenting and publishing extensively on related topics. She has also served as Research Director and Marketing Consultant at a Multinational Company.

A dynamic problem solver with a penchant for critical thinking, I specialize in interim executive roles, business strategy, and mentoring for tech start-ups. Armed with a Computer Science degree and 13+ years of software development expertise, I am passionate about start-up business development and sales.

My accomplishments include co-founding several thriving businesses, investing in and advising four start-ups, and serving as a City Councilor in Cluj-Napoca, the 2nd largest city in Romania. 

Fluent in English and French, with a working knowledge of Italian and Spanish, I am an avid reader, gym enthusiast, and data-driven optimist.

I pride myself on my robust professional network, and my ability to define my identity and life goals. My hands-on, results-oriented consultancy approach is driven by my love for finding solutions and implementing effective systems. As a co-founder of KIDPRENOR, I am dedicated to fostering entrepreneurial mindsets in children aged 6 to 18.

Embodying the mantra “Keep calm and smile,” I view challenges as opportunities for exponential growth, guided by Ray Dalio’s formula: “Pain + Reflection = Progress.” Through resilience and continuous learning, I strive to make a lasting impact in the start-up ecosystem.

Diana is an interdisciplinary strategist with a passion for cities, a knack for transformation and a commitment to social & environmental impact. Originally from Bucharest, she’s lived across Europe and has been working through the overlaps of strategy & innovation consulting, community engagement, data analytics in the private and third sectors. She brings expertise in innovation processes, knowledge on circularity challenges and opportunities, and a curiosity to improving urban systems and supply chains.

Everyone has a story to tell, mine is about health, food, and the science behind it. As a Registered Dietitian, and Ph.D. candidate in Food Science, I’m trying to connect the dots between human health, food science, and the circular economy. I study what gives people energy and the science behind every process that takes place on the plate and inside our belly, but not only that, all the way to the end of the digestive tract.

My work helped me to better understand the need of individuals to improve their eating habits, then, researching food by-products brought to my attention the circular economy and the importance of valorizing these products, as a significant source of beneficial compounds for human health, but also from a financial point of view for the industry.

Besides the aspects mentioned above, during my research I’m focusing on finding new connections between academia and the private sector, to fulfill the industry requirements. The high amount of food by-products resulting from the industry represents a valuable source of beneficial compounds for human health, but also for the reduction of food waste and food loss.

Liza Degtyareva is an impact strategist, business designer and start-up mentor, a keen advocate for regenerative economy with consulting experience in the energy, technology and social impact sectors. She’s alumni of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and holds a diploma in Social Innovation Management. Liza co-founded and developed the 4D Sustainability Canvas framework to help SMEs set on their sustainability journey as she is convinced that only with SMEs on board will the transition to a sustainable and just future be possible. She currently works in the renewable energy space, besides she advises sustainability accelerators as an independent consultant.

I’m a startup geek, mentor, business analyst. I have come from the marketing field. I am the founder of Women Startup Competition Europe event series with 9 seasons. I was a professional advisor and mentor of Start it @K&H, EIT, GE, Intesa Sanpaolo – Novathon, Startit@ K&H, Nestle – HackYourCompany, SPAR network – Hungaricool and organizer of Hackathon-in-the-box event series with more than 50 hackathons. Now I’m co-Founder of Pozi.io, the free, open innovation platform for the startup ecosystem.

CEO of ekolive – cleaning and processing of wastes/soil/minerals by EU ETV certified eco-innovative bioleaching producing biofertilizers, biostimulants and biopesticides increasing yield and immunity of plants to reduce agrochemicals, environmental consultant for Košice Self-governing Region, member of CircLean European network of businesses and SMEs for Industrial Symbiosis and Towards zer0 Pesticide AGRIculture: European Network for sustainability.  Business mentor for ICKK, Beyond, In the TOP 5 creative young Entrepreneurs of Slovakia 2020, winner of a special award of the Ministry of Economy Slovak Republic, personality of the Košice self-governing region 2021 and in 2022 winner of the first edition of the Feike Sijbesma Sustainable Innovation Award of top agricultural university Wageningen, WomenTechEU and BASF Innovation Hub 2022.

Michał Kowalkowski is the CEO and founder of the start-up No Spoilers. He lived and worked in China for most of his professional life. In Shanghai, he founded his first start-up Hyperyun, building programming tools to create apps without the need to manage the server side. Upon returning to Poland, he shared his knowledge about doing business in China in press publications and at events organized by universities and start-up communities. Due to his achievements with No Spoilers, he was selected as a member of the Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative program sponsored by the US State Department.

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’.

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.

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.

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 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.