Eric Huybrechts, France
Eric Huybrechts is a senior Architect and Regional/Urban Planner, member of SOCARP and Icomos, Officer in the Royal order of Sahametrey (Kingdom of Cambodia). He is in charge of the International and European affairs for the Regional planning Agency of Paris region (www.iau-idf.fr). He has developed a large experience in the field of Urban and Regional Planning as expert and team leader on Algiers, Beirut, Cairo, Ethiopia, Istanbul, Mongolia, Mumbai, Paris region, Phnom Penh, Rio de Janeiro, Saudi Arabia, Tripoli-Libya and others. He was resident in Cameroon, Egypt, Lebanon, Cambodia and Syria and then develop specific methodologies for planning in developing countries, taking into account the effects of climate change. He has prepared projects at local level, sub metropolitan, metropolitan, regional and national scales. He represents the Paris Planning Agency to the World urban Campaign of UN-Habitat and in the global network of Urban and Territoiral Planning Agencies (MTPA). He has also an academic experience as a scientific researcher for Middle-East countries and as a lecturer in several universities in France and abroad. Today, he teaches urban planning for the Global South at the Paris-Panthéon-Sorbonne University and on Smart City at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.
Lena Niel, The Netherlands
Lena Niel is an urban researcher working both at research institute Deltares (NL) and the design office Posad (NL). She studied both urban planning (Technical University of Delft, NL) and interior architecture (Royal Academy of Art, NL). Lena is a planner, who is focusing on the integration of Dutch water management, land use planning and stakeholder participation in strategic (urban) projects on different scale levels. She is dedicated to designing a climate-proof future, both for human and nature. Thinking out of the box and crossing the borders of other disciplines is what she sees as one of the biggest challenges for the design of climate-proof cities.
Consequently, she is actively seeking the combination of engineering, science and planning/design. She has gained international experiences in integrated regional planning in Mexico, Brazil, Canada and Kenya. Next to her work at Deltares, she holds a position in the Dutch delegation of the international society of city and regional planners (ISOCARP).