Laavanya Kathiravelu is Associate Professor at the Division of Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research and teaching interests lie in the intersections between migration & citizenship, urban studies, and race and ethnicity. She was Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University between 2015-2016 and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Laavanya is a board member of the migrant welfare NGO, HOME (Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics) as well as the civil society group AWARE. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the City University of New York in 2022.

Mr Ang Kian Peng, Founder of Samsui Kitchen , Founder/ Advisor for The Social Kitchen. Both social enterprises focus on helping people from the vulnerable community to become self sufficient by providing meaningful jobs to them. Samsui Kitchen is manned by underprivileged people who prepare food for nursing homes, effectively incorporating the ‘available’ manpower from the underprivileged group to give back to another sector of society. As the director of Samsui Supplies & Services, Ang Kian Peng, says, “We realised the food served at nursing homes was limited, so we decided to use our F&B skills and professional chefs to provide them with quality and reasonably priced food. Why not turn our CSR into a long-term solution for them?”

Ann has over 17 years of experience in the humanitarian and development sector in Singapore, Lao PDR, and Thailand. She is currently the Partnerships Lead for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, where her primary focus is to mobilise resources from companies, foundations and individuals, in support of displaced communities worldwide. Prior to joining UNHCR, Ann was the Head of Communications and Private Sector for IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Asia. In that role, Ann led all communications, marketing, and private sector engagement across the organization’s 11 Asian country offices. Ann has also had managerial stints with a renewable energy social enterprise, a national sports association, and a disaster relief NGO.

Dr Andrew Koh is a senior lecturer at Singapore Management University, where he teaches "AI and Humanity" and "Digital Technologies and Sustainability". Early years of his career was devoted to farming as a means for poverty alleviation and education of university graduates in Cambodia. He currently researches on enhancing the well being of the migrant workers community in Singapore through technology. Previous positions held include a Partner Seller (Analytics) at Microsoft and Assistant Director at Ministry of Manpower (ACE). His work experience through the non-profit, corporate and governmental sectors lend him an integrative perspective which he aims to empower the next generation with. He received his PhD in computational imaging in 2008.

Dr. Christoph Nedopil is Associate Professor of Practice in Economics and Director of the Green Finance and Development Center at the Fanhai International School of Finance (FISF), Fudan University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) in Beijing, China, and a Visiting Faculty at Singapore Management University (SMU). Christoph regularly provides expertise to governments, financial institutions, enterprises and civil society to accelerate the application of sustainable finance. He works with the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, as well as various private and multilateral finance institutions (e.g. ADB, IFC, UNESCAP) and international governments. He is the lead author of the UNDP SDG Finance Taxonomy, the Green Development Guidance Baseline Study of the BRI Green Development Coalition under the Chinese Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and has authored four books, dozens of articles, and research reports. Christoph is serving as board director and supports various companies in scaling sustainability in businesses and finance. Christoph is quoted regularly in Bloomberg, Financial Times, Reuters, Science. Before joining FISF, he served as Director for the IIGF Green BRI Center in Beijing, and worked in over 15 countries with the World Bank. Christoph holds a Master of Engineering and a PhD in Economics from the Technical University Berlin, as well as a Master of Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School.

Sr Ts. Gs. Dr. Khairul Nizam Abdul Maulud is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. He was also appointed as the Head of Earth Observation Centre, Institute of Climate Change, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Currently, he has published more than 124 journal papers, 39 books and chapters in book and 88 proceedings in national and international proceedings. He has successfully completed almost 20 water-related projects including sea-level rise, geospatial analysis, land-use changes, water quality, shoreline erosion, water management using GIS and Coastal Vulnerability Index. He now led high-impact research on climate change, especially on the physical and economic impacts. He also is an expert panel for the government of Malaysia, especially in coastal geomorphology, geospatial analysis and spatial water quality analysis.

Fannie Lim is the Executive Director of Daughters Of Tomorrow (DOT), a local charity with IPC that is enabling livelihoods for underprivileged women and their families in Singapore. Since 2014, DOT has impacted more than 1000 women through community mobilization to provide them with skills, confidence and access to sustainable job opportunities. Backed by an amazing team, she is relentless in her pursuit to raise awareness about urban poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. She is also a strong collaborator with private, public and non-profit sectors to uplift lower-income families towards social mobility through economic stability. Her great aspirations and unwavering dedication for this mission are grounded in her belief that every person, like a seed has the potential to blossom and thereby has a destiny to fulfil and contribute to build a stronger society. She is raising 3 children together with her husband and on the occasion of self-care, appreciates a solitary session with “teh c siu dai” while listening in to podcast or having a book in hand.

Heng Wang is a Professor of Law at Yong Pung How School of Law, Singapore Management University (SMU). Before joining SMU, he was a professor and a founding co-director of UNSW Law & Justice's Herbert Smith Freehills China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre. He was a founding co-director of Tsinghua-UNSW Joint Research Centre for International Commercial and Economic Law. Heng is a recipient of major grants and awards, including being named Australia's research field leader in international law by The Australian newspaper’s Research 2020 magazine. His current research focuses on digitalization, sustainability, and the future of international economic relationship.

Eric Fesselmeyer is an economist with a PhD in Economics from the University of Virginia, and a master’s degree in Economics from Duke University. He studies urban, housing, and environmental issues, with a focus on Singapore. Recent research papers analyze urban density, inner-city blight, and how climate change and heat affect urban behaviour, including commuting patterns, leisure/work time allocation, and residential location decisions. He has taught economics and data analysis for nearly 14 years to undergraduate, graduate, and MBA students.

Jayeel Cornelio is Associate Professor of Development Studies and the Associate Dean for Research and Creative Work at the Ateneo de Manila University. He has written extensively on religion and public life in the Philippines. He is the author of Being Catholic in the Contemporary Philippines: Young People Reinterpreting Religion (2016) and lead editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Religion in Global Society (2021). In a documentary, Channel News Asia describes him as the 'leading sociologist of religion in the Philippines'. Jayeel, who holds the PhD in sociology from the National University of Singapore, engages the public through various faith-based advocacies and as a regular columnist for Rappler.

Kenneth Paul Tan is a tenured Professor of Politics, Film, and Cultural Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU). He teaches and conducts interdisciplinary research at the Academy of Film, the Department of Journalism, the Department of Government and International Studies, and the Smart Society Lab. His recent books include Movies to Save Our World: Imagining Poverty, Inequality and Environmental Destruction in the 21st Century (Penguin, 2022), Singapore's First Year of COVID-19: Public Health, Immigration, the Neoliberal State, and Authoritarian Populism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Singapore: Identity, Brand, Power (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and Governing Global-City Singapore: Legacies and Futures After Lee Kuan Yew (Routledge, 2017).

Crispin Rodrigues is a poet, educator and literary event organiser. He has published three collections of poetry, and is the co-editor of an anthology of unpublished Singapore youth poets. He was also a Virtual Writer-in-Residence with the National Centre for Writing, Norwich. He has his own literary podcast called Sporeken Word, which you can follow at @sporeken.word. He currently teaches English Literature at Eunoia Junior College. 

Imran Manaff an avid creative producer is the co-founder and managing director of Maya Dance Theatre (MDT), recipient of National Arts Council’s SEED Grant (2012-2015). “The Cold that Creeps in with a Thousand Cuts” (2016) was an independent work produced by Imran and beyond Singapore, the work toured to Tanzmesse (Germany) and I Dance Festival (Hong Kong). In 2019, MDT’s International Collaboration with IP Tanz (Germany) and Imran gave rise to a photo exhibition, ‘+/-‘ focused on Body Image. The pandemic inspired Imran to feature an online solo photographic exhibition, Sky Lines and collaboratively create a web-based digital work, “Behind Closed Doors”, addressing loneliness among seniors. His recent curation, Inner Reflections, a photo exhibition highlighted the potential of diversely abled individuals from DADC. Imran is a strong advocate for digital poverty in our society today and is part of Singapore International Foundation (SIF) Arts for Good Fellowship (2022).

Ng Teng Kuan is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at SMU’s College of Integrative Studies. His primary research revolves around the interdisciplinary study of religion and cinema in Asian contexts. His work – which extends to the fields of Buddhist studies, Chinese philosophy, religion & economics, and world Christianity – has appeared in The Journal of Religion & Popular Culture, Religions, Buddhist-Christian Studies, Literature & Theology, and the Database of Religious History. He holds an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. from Fuller Theological Seminary, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Georgetown University.

Dr Janil Puthucheary is Senior Minister of State at the Ministry of Communications and Information and the Ministry of Health. He is also Minister-in-Charge of GovTech, the government technology agency, and a member of the Smart Nation Inter-Ministerial Committee. Dr Janil chairs the Inter-Agency Task Force on Mental Health and Well-being and is also a member of the National Integration Council and an Advisor to Cyber Youth Singapore. Dr Janil is a board member of the People’s Association, as well as Advisor to PA Youth Movement and Narpani Peravai. He chairs OnePeople.sg, which works to promote racial harmony in Singapore.

Aidan Wong is Assistant Professor of Urban Studies (Education) in the College of Integrative Studies at Singapore Management University. Trained as a Geographer, Aidan’s research interests include debates on the politics of heritage, global economic change and public geographies. In addition to this, Aidan has been researching on waste and the politics and practices of electronic waste management for more than a decade, and is more recently engaged in qualifying and quantifying the impact of the extended producer responsibility framework in Singapore. Within SMU, he has researched on the impact of online teaching and learning on the core curriculum, particularly at how better collaboration, inclusivity and scalability can be adopted.