Milena Ivkovic, Netherlands/Serbia

Milena Ivkovic is an experienced urban designer and researcher, specialised in public space renewal and civic participation. After receiving MSc degree in Architecture and Urbanism at Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Milena moved to the Netherlands and has spent several years designing for renowned Dutch urban planning offices. She started her own Rotterdam-based practice Blok74 in 2011, with the idea to improve the process of urban planning using game design techniques. Blok74 develops mixed-media playful simulations, bringing together different stakeholders, allowing them to communicate better about the complex spatial issues and therefore creating more sustainable plans for their streets, neighborhoods or the whole city.
When not busy with creating urban gaming formats, Milena co-develops “smart citizen” mobile applications and writes about the new links between urban design and civic engagement. She also frequently collaborated with several European urban planning knowledge platforms (Urbego/IFHP, School of Urban Practices Belgrade, YDF Brussels) on various public space renewal projects worldwide, from Asia and Africa to Europe and the Balkans.
Between 2013 and 2015 Milena was the chairwoman of YDF (Yellow Design Foundation), an independent platform for research on community oriented planning. She divides her time between Rotterdam, Belgrade and ongoing project locations.

Nuin-Tara Key, USA

Nuin-Tara Key is Executive Director and Producer at PrettyGoodProductions, an independent media and film company. She is the co-founder of an international multi-media and research initiative on community-based climate action and for the last two years has been producing multi-media case studies and documentary films that highlight innovative community-based approaches to climate adaptation and mitigation from around the world. With almost ten years experience, Nuin-Tara has worked in the public, private, and non-profit sectors on sustainable urban and regional planning and policy, with a focus on social equity and climate change. While working at Metro, the regional government for the Portland metropolitan area, she led the development of Metro’s first regional equity program. She was also involved in a number of regional climate mitigation planning efforts, including the state mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emission from the transportation sector.

Nuin-Tara has a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University and a background in political science. Nuin-Tara Key is also a National Audubon Society and Toyota 2010 TogetherGreen Fellow, through which she led the Climate Justice Initiative, an effort to bridge the climate and equity gap in the Portland region by raising awareness of the policy implications of climate change through an equity lens.

Local Co-Rapporteur: Mark Oranje

Mark Oranje is Professor and Head of the Department of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Pretoria. His key areas of research and consulting are planning policy, regional development, intergovernmental development planning and the interface between mining and settlement development. Over the last twenty-two years, Mark has authored and co-authored numerous academic papers, articles, chapters in books and technical reports and acted as a consultant to a number of national and provincial departments, municipalities, NGOs, planning commissions, science councils and private companies on a wide range of issue related to his above areas of interest.