Better World Strategist

In 2007, I was in the middle of my university degree, and I went on a volunteering mission to Mozambique that changed my life: I discovered my deep purpose, that is to dream, plan and implement impact-driven projects that make the World better.

That experience influenced my entire career…

For 5 years I worked on social innovation, mapping the Portuguese ecosystem, training, and mentoring dozens of social entrepreneurs, collaborating with IES Social Business School.

After that, I dedicated almost 7 years to a beautiful small Portuguese city named Amarante. In here I had the role to create and manage a municipality development agency, named InvestAmarante, that works on investment attraction, entrepreneurship, economic development, tourism management and talent attraction! That’s where I met Urbact!

I participated in four Urbact Networks:

- City Centre Doctor as partner city

- Change! as partner city

- Beepathnet as partner city

- iPlace - Finding Niches for Sustainable Local Economic Development as lead partner

At iPlace, Amarante was the Lead Partner, and I was the project manager working with an amazing team, being responsible since the network concept creation, until the project final event. IPlace was a high impact project to Amarante, that created the cluster Amarante Tech Hub, today with more than 15 tech companies and several jobs.

Urbact also gave me the opportunity to participate on The Urbact University at Rotterdam, and The Urbact City Festival of Lisbon, Tallin and Paris.

=> Know more about iPlace and Local Economic Development at the iPlace mooc HERE! 

Besides these main experiences, I teach at Porto Business School and ESEP and I have my own wine, named “The Wine of the Disquiet”.

Nowadays I am the executive director of Aliados, that is a boutique innovation consulting firm that works with economic development, sustainability, and social innovation.

At Mozambique, I learned the sentence “We Are Together”, that is something that I am looking for at a lead expert role.

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CHANGEMAKER - INNOVATOR  - FACILITATOR

 

I am an experienced policymaker with over 12 years of dedicated work alongside local communities, particularly those most vulnerable, to drive positive change in urban areas, promoting equity and sustainability.

Recognizing the power of art and culture in fostering economic development, social cohesion, and well-being, I spearheaded the transformation of the Arts District in Buenos Aires, resulting in a revitalized area that significantly bolstered the local economy. This accomplishment led to my appointment to lead the Creative Neighborhoods initiative for the Ministry of Culture of Buenos Aires Government, which successfully fostered collaborative efforts among stakeholders, generating impactful activities benefiting local communities.

I had the privilege of joining the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). During my time there, I contributed as a Researcher to the pioneering pilot program titled Real Talk for Change, aimed at cultivating a healthier society in Boston, aiding the Sensemaking team in designing tools and systems to address societal fragmentation and improve participatory governance mechanisms.

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Cassilda Mariza Queiroz has more than 30 years of experience in the public transportation sector. During her professional life, she assumed different roles such as Knowledge Management Director, Strategy and Corporate Development Director, and Human Resources Director, among others. She has a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems at CERIS, in the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon. Her thesis relates to Urban Mobility, in particular, travel behavior analysis, transportation modeling, and strategic marketing in public transportation. She has a degree in Management, a Post-graduation in Human Resources, and an MSc in Transportation Systems. Presently, she is an Invited Assistant Professor at ISCTE- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, and a member of U-Shift Lab (Transportation Lab/ IST - Instituto Superior Técnico) member. She has publications as an author and she is a reviewer of Journals publications. Certified Project Management (PMP) and was the Vice President of PMI(Project Management Institute). Certified Product Owner (CSPO). She is also on the UITP Research in Mobility Committee (RIMC), UITP Business and Human Resources Management Committee (BHRM), and a member of the Supervisory Board of INDEG- Executive Education. Internationally she also represented the Lisbon Metro in the Metro Benchmarking Group (NOVA/COMET), and Bus Benchmarking Group (IBBG). Her experience in the industry and academic perspective grant her the profile for the scope of the URBACT experts.

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André Cester Costa is Head of Unit for National Policies of INOVA+, a leading firm in innovation studies in Europe. He provides technical and strategic support to municipalities, associations of municipalities and other public administration entities in the execution of policies for the development and economic attractiveness, transformation and innovation of territories. 

Before, as Head Office for Economic Development in the City of Aveiro [Portugal], he was project coordinator of four URBACT projects focused on Jobs and Skills and Knowledge Economy.

He was also the project manager of Aveiro Steam City [co-financed by Urban Innovation Actions] and of the Aveiro Tech City Initiative, that granted the Portuguese city of Aveiro the title of 3rd Rising Innovative City in Europe in 2022, awarded by the European Innovation Council.

For over 20 years he has been working in different projects under European Programmes such as, URBACT, INTERREG Atlantic, INTERREG SUDOE, HORIZON 2020 or UIA.

He was also the coordinator for the development of the Sustainable Urban Development Strategy for Aveiro [PEDUCA] and a member of the Executive Commission of the bid of Aveiro to become European Capital of Culture 2027.

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30-year career fully devoted to place-based economic development and innovative urban policies, with a special focus on the growing role of cities as key actors for change. In 2007, I start as international expert through my own advisory boutique TASO. Since then, and in parallel to numerous technical assistances and assignments, I´ve regularly been appointed (four times so far) as Lead Expert for URBACT  —in URBACT Kairos, the ambition was to fully realize the potential of heritage as a driver for sustainable urban development through an ad-hoc integrated approach; in URBACT InFocus, we addressed smart specialisation as an overarching approach capable to re-invigorate the local economic agendas; in the pioneering URBACT CityLogo, the ambition was re-learning city branding from an integrated and participatory urban development perspective; URBACT Creative Clusters was a systematic exploration on how to promote local creative ecosystems in small and medium-sized cities.

Thus, needless to say I enjoy a lot the ever challenging work of designing and conducting large-scale, transnational peer learning and capacity building projects leading to concrete action planning. In this framework (also including Interreg and H2020) I have supported over 40 cities, including Dublin, Oslo, Liverpool, Bologna, Vilnius, Frankfurt or Skopje. Further to Lead Expert, I have been engaged in other URBACT short-term missions, such as Ad-Hoc Expert or facilitator in past editions of the URBACT City Festival and the URBACT Summer University. It´s worth mentioning that, previous to my work as international expert, I was hired as CEO to launch Seville´s brand new Local Development Agency, where I promoted a renovated local economic agenda and had the opportunity to introduce a number of innovations on how Development Agencies are governed in Spain.

Thematic expertise:

• Communication > city branding

• Culture > urban heritage, cultural and creative industries

• Knowledge economy > innovation ecosystems, innovation spaces, smart specialisation

• Local economy > entrepreneurship and SMEs, cluster development, creative economy

• Strategic urban planning > urban agenda, urban regeneration, multi-level governance, small/medium-sized cities

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To be completed by the Expert.

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Is an diplom-Engineer that worked for the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity in Portugal (where she has an unpaid leave) and now is registered as an independent consultant in Munich – Germany. She is a qualified programs and projects evaluator with more than 20 years of experience as well as a local development expert working on a perspective of integrated socio-economic development. In this field has special relevance the labour market and the social policies. She gained her vast experience in this field through her extensive work on international projects, on IPA technical assistance projects to countries in pre accession phase (Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Turkey) as well as during her employment at the Portuguese public employment service and at the city of Munich Department for Labour Market and economy.  During her employment at the Portuguese PES she was Director of Studies and Organisation at the headquarters and part of the group that designed and elaborated the ESF Operational Programs (in the first and the second Programming periods 1989 to 1993 and 1994 to 1999). In the city of Munich she was for seven years the project coordinator of two projects that were the main pillars of the Labour market policy especially addressing the integration of disadvantaged groups in the labour market. Another important dimension was Gender for which she has elaborated a concept and a plan for implementation of this dimension in all the 15 sub-projects. For the last 3 years she has worked 2 as policy advisor of the Minister of Family and Social Solidarity in Malta and 1 year as consultant for International Relations and CSR of the President of Malta.

During her 30 years of professional experience she proved her outstanding experience in

developing labour market and social inclusion policies.

Most relevant expertise:

• Experience URBACT Methodology (Bottom-up, integration, Participation, Co-creation)
• Experience in drafting methodologies for on-going labour market monitoring in line with recommendations laid down by the EU Employment Policy
• Experience in co-creation and implementation of employment and social inclusion policies
• Experience in identifying education and training needs and capacity building for migrants according to Labour Market needs
• Extensive experience in moderation, mobilization and capacity building for partnership work
• Experience in Programme and project Monitoring and Evaluation at European and countries’ levels.

Miguel Sousa, is the CEO of Inova+, a leading firm in innovation studies in Europe. Miguel Sousa provides innovation services to public managing authorities in their policy strategies to strength territorial cohesion in Portugal and abroad.

He develops works of Urban transformation, acting as facilitator of innovative ecosystems to cocreate the future. He is doing this for the past 20 years, being external advisor of local, regional and national Portuguese bodies and EU organizations, working for European programmes such as Urbact, Urban Innovative Actions and Horizon Europe.

In the past 20 years he act as Lead Expert and Ad-hoc expert for more than 7 Urbact projects and as Expert of the UIA OpenAgri project coordinated by the city of Milan. He is a regular speaker on Innovation, Financial instruments, EU policies, European Territorial Cooperation, sustainable urban development in conferences at national and international level.

He is the CEO of Index Talent, a Business Angel fund, specialised in yearly stage investments in new technology based firms.

André has a background in Sociology and has been working on R&I transport-related EU projects since 2008, coordinating several assignments related with the social dimension of transport as well as on innovative modes of transport and future mobility concepts, such as CCAM, urban air mobility and hyperloop.

He has a track record of experience in CIVITAS projects, as well as in a handful of other urban programmes focused on forward-looking transport solutions. His main topics of interest are also diverse. Besides the ones previously mentioned, he has been working on TEN-T policy, on the mobility pillar of the EC long-term vision for rural areas and on transport poverty. Gender equality, diversity and inclusion, both from the perspective of the users and the transport workforce, have also been a focal point for André in several assignments delivered to the European Commission and the European Investment Bank.

Apart from leading several EU-wide stakeholder consultations, he also has experience in using EU-recognised methods and techniques for shaping solid and evidence-based policies and regulations. In addition to his experience in Impact Assessment studies for the European Commission, he has expertise in evaluation and a deep knowledge of the Better Regulation Guidelines and Toolbox, including the qualitative and quantitative research tools described therein.

He is passionate about capturing the contrasting interests in urban mobility and helping local stakeholders navigate governance, policy and regulatory constraints and opportunities. In this regard, he particularly enjoys to help creating future visions and triggering a sense of ownership and mutual understanding of the envisaged strategies through creative engagement techniques.

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Daniela Patti is an Italian-British urban planner, her recent interests have been the revitalisation of local food markets, economic models for community-based urban development and strategies to tackle urban poverty. She regularly works with the URBACT, Urban innovative Actions, the International Urban Cooperation and Urban Agenda on Urban Poverty  programs. In particular, she has been lead expert on Urbact networks: Interactive Cities on digital tools for urban participation with Genoa, Paris and many other cities and Com.Unity.Lab transferring the Bip/Zip good practice from Lisbon on tackling urban poverty, and well as project manager on TUTUR on temporary use transferring the good practice from Bremen to Rome. Since 2015 she is co-founder and co-director of Eutropian, a research and action agency on collaborative urban practices based in Vienna, Rome and Budapest. She worked for the Rome Municipality in 2014-15, since 2012 she is board member of the Wonderland Platform for European Architecture and was a researcher at the Central European Institute of Technology in 2010-14. She has studied in Rome, London, Porto and holds a Ph.D. from the Technical University of  Vienna on on the food governance of peri-urban landscape. 

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