Speakers Corner Part 2: Taking back the streets

Sindile (Sindz) Mavundla is a social entrepreneur. He is the Founder and Managing Director of Khaltsha Cycles, a one-stop bicycle shop that aims to inspire and create cycling townships by providing quality affordable bicycles. Khaltsha Cycles’ is working to increase ridership through social events, promoting cycling mobility and advocating for safe cycling infrastructure.
Sindile's love for bicycles started just when he was 6 years old cycling from home to school and soccer practice. In 2019, he became South Africa’s first Avalanche Bicycle Company Brand Ambassador and has continued to work with Avalanche, Pedal Power Association, Bicycling Empowerment Network to promote cycling, and provides Learn2Cycle classes predominantly to women.
His current project Heroes-on-bikes has been a great success in response to COVID-19. The project’s initial goal was to provide 20 bicycles to essential workers, to date Heroes-on-bikes has distributed 145 bicycles to essential workers, soup kitchens and micro-businesses. Thanks to the support of Qhubeka and Tour de France, Heroes-on-bikes will soon distribute a further 500 bicycles to beneficiaries.

Kristen E. Jeffers (she/her) is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Black Urbanist multimedia platform, as well as an author, textile artist and designer, urban planner and activist. She holds a Master of Public Affairs focused on community and economic development from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Bachelor of Arts in communication with a concentration in public relations from North Carolina State University. She has presented at the annual gatherings of the Congress for New Urbanism, YIMBYTown, Walk Bike Places, CityWorksXpo, APA Virginia, NACTO and to communities around the US and Canada, using her personal story to illustrate what land use and planning really means and really does, plus encourage practitioners, both young and old in best practices. She is a Streetsblog Network member and has also contributed articles to CityLab, Greater Greater Washington, [Greensboro] News & Record, Yes! Weekly, Grist, Next City, Better! Towns and Cities, Triad City Beat, Urban Escapee and Urbanful and appeared on several NPR affiliate stations as a commentator and expert.

Giovanni Zayas is an active mobility and urban development specialist with 9 years of experience in the management, design and promotion of sustainable urbanism projects in several cities in Mexico and Latin America. He is a very passionate advocate for urban transformation through academia, international cooperation and social participation.

Giovanni has supported different private organisations, companies and public institutions in Mexico and abroad. As a consultant for The World Bank Group, he has participated in the planning and design of cycling policy and infrastructure projects at the local, national and regional level in Latin America, with a focus on low stress network development and public space recovery. For the Dutch Embassy in Mexico, he contributed in developing a Resilient Cities strategy, with a focus on sustainable transport. In 2018, he was the academic coordinator of the Mobility in the Sustainable City diploma course at Universidad de las Américas, Puebla.

As an advocate, Giovanni has launched and co-managed local and national campaigns supporting cycling as an accessible, clean and resilient means of transport. In 2015 he co-founded the Metropolitan Open Streets programme, a monthly car-free event that allows thousands of people to enjoy safe, clean and fun spaces on main roads in the Puebla Metro Area.

Giovanni holds a double degree in International Business Administration from Universidad de las Américas, Puebla and Northeastern University in Boston, USA. In 2018 he received a Chevening Award from the British government to study an Urban Regeneration MSc at UCL's Bartlett School of Planning in London.

Peter Norton is associate professor of history in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia, where he teaches history of technology and social aspects of engineering. He is the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City (MIT Press). He is a member of the University of Virginia’s Center for Transportation Studies.

Carlos is a Colombian psychologist with a MSc in Contemporary Urbanism from the London School of Economics. He focuses on urban development, mobility, lighting and climate change projects in cities of the developing world. He has participated in technical consultancies in more than 30 cities in Asia, Latin America and Africa, and has coordinated and delivered more than 70 training courses on urban development, climate change, public and non-motorized transport, travel demand and sustainable transport. Has coordinated projects at a regional level and is also the author of various documents. Proud recipient of the Danish Cycling Embassy’s 2018 Leadership Award, and a Distinguished TUMI friend 2019. He is the Founder of Despacio.org and was its Executive Director until 2018. He is Senior Manager for Pilots in NUMO.