Keynote Speakers

Maya Goburdhun is head of the Navdanya foundation which is a network of seed keepers and organic producers in India.
The foundation has created awareness on the hazards of genetic engineering, defended people's knowledge from biopiracy and food rights in the face of globalization. The foundation was created by Vandana Shiva-a philosopher, environmental activist, eco feminist.
Dr. Shiva is based in Delhi and is author of over 300 papers in leading scientific and technical journals. In 1993, Vandana received the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize') for placing women and ecology at the heart of modern development discourse. She is one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization and has fought for changes in the practice and paradigms of agriculture and food. She has assisted grassroots organizations of the Green movement in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Ireland, Switzerland and Austria with campaigns against genetic engineering. In 1982, she founded the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, which led to the creation of Navdanya.

Jean Louis Esteves is the COO and co-founder of TCE solar company based in the South of France.
He is the exclusive sustainable development advisor for the French Federation of Building in Paris and the exclusive advisor for the “Grenelle de l’environnement 2” concerning eco-building and HQE Aménagement.

Dr. Nils Ferrand is senior researcher at Cemagref, the french public research institute for environmental engineering, within the Water Management & Actors lab in Montpellier.
His research themes are group decision support, public participation, participatory modeling, games and multi-agent systems. He is currently leading a major project on electronic public debate for coastal area management, and developing a new multi-scale gaming apparatus for resources sharing.
He has designed or participated in 10 European projects and more than 25 national projects, and has started one R&D company. He has more than 50 publications and book chapters. He graduated from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in applied physics, and also as Water and Forest Engineer. He has a MSC in math of Ecole Polytechnique and Univ. Paris Dauphine, and a PhD in Computer Sciences from Université Joseph Fourier (Grenoble).