Plenary 1 - Global updates on progress towards traffic-free city centres

Since 2016, Demetrio has been coordinating complex projects, policies and programs, ranging from the Milano 2030 City Plan, the Railway Yards Regeneration Masterplan, the Reinventing Cities competition launched in collaboration with C40 and the Piazze Aperte (Open Plazas) program with Bloomberg Associates and GDCI-Nacto.

Demetrio is an architect who loves cities and believes in urban design as a tool for innovation and change. He has 9 years of experience in urban projects in various contexts and scales, addressing integrated planning and public space design. Particularly, he spent five years working as an Urban Designer at Arup, where he has collaborated with Milan, Berlin, Madrid, London, New York and Istanbul offices, participating to a wide range of urban design projects all over the world. He is the co-author of the report Cities Alive, Towards a Walking World, edited by Arup.

Daisy Narayanan is the Director of Urbanism for Sustrans, where her role involves interweaving policy, public realm design and a broad integration of key place principles to help create liveable towns and cities.

Daisy is on the Board of Architecture & Design Scotland and a member of the Edinburgh Climate Commission. She was on the Active Travel Task Force set up by the Minister for Transport and the Islands and is a member of the Scottish Transport Awards judging panel.

Drawing on her previous experience working as an architect and urban designer in India, Singapore, England and Scotland, Daisy believes passionately in the importance of creating places for people: places that reflect and complement the communities that live in them.

Kirsten is an Urban Designer and Experience Architect with over 15 years of experience in forwarding social justice in spaces of mobility and spatial design through the work as founder of ContestedSpaces. In her recent appointment as Managing Director of Open Streets Cape Town, she is tasked with pairing the imperative of overcoming spatial and social divisions with reimagining South Africa’s streets as public space for gathering and connection. Through her work, she researching practical tools to bring together constructs of social cohesion, conflict resolution and placemaking in response to post-apartheid spatial planning legacy in the context of a dissipating neoliberal democracy.

Hamish has worked in international land and housing finance for over a decade. He currently lives in London, UK and started Car Free Day when a member of his family was hit by lorry and injured near Borough Market. He believes that prioritising systematic traffic removal and investment in public transport can help cities around the world to become safer, healthier, and more equitable places. Hamish’s professional work focuses on financing the transition to net zero emissions. He has a Juris Doctor degree from the University of British Columbia and an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics.

Jiregna Hirpa Debelo is the General Director of the Addis Ababa Traffic Management Agency (TMA). A transportation engineer by profession, he leads road safety improvement efforts across the city. Previously, he worked for the TMA and the Addis Ababa Transport Bureau as a road safety expert as well as in leadership positions. Before joining local government, he worked as a lecturer at Dire Dawa University and in the construction industry.