Which Innovators Are Changing Your City? Meet Our 2015 “WhatWorks” Lineup

In India, an anonymous volunteer community is leading a city street cleanup initiative. Over in Finland, a city-inspired educational system aims to educate the leaders and entrepreneurs of the future. In Peru, a university-led project is creating drinkable water from greenhouses installed under billboards.

These proactive solutions are examples of how we can tackle major urban challenges through innovation. Who is behind them?

We have invited individuals behind the above three projects, as well as six others, to be part of the “WhatWorks” short-talk series at the New Cities Summit this June.

Each WhatWorks speaker will have six minutes to inspire our global audience with the story behind their innovation.

Meet the 2015 WhatWorks Innovators

Tomi Alakoski, Founder and Executive Director, Me & MyCity, Helsinki, Finland – a city-inspired learning concept for sixth-grade students focusing on entrepreneurship, the economy and society

Emily Brooke, CEO and Founder, Blaze, London, UK – creator of Laserlight, a revolutionary safety device for urban bicyclists

Rose Broome, Co-Founder and CEO, HandUp, San Francisco, USA – a technology platform for donating directly to homeless people and neighbors in need, via personalized web profiles

Nadiem Makarim, CEO, GO-JEK, Jakarta, Indonesia – a social enterprise that brings together experienced and trustworthy ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers to deliver a one-stop convenience service for Jakartans

Prashant Mehra, Founder, I Got Garbage, Bangalore, India – an initiative that transforms ragpickers into recycling managers to create new solutions for waste management in India

Jessica Ruas Quartara, Co-Creator, AirHuerta, Lima, Peru – an advertising billboard that converts humidity in the air into clean water that can be drunk or used to irrigate crops for urban farming

Volunteer, The Ugly Indian, Bangalore, India – an anonymous citizen movement that unites people to fix, clean and beautify broken, dirty or ugly spots (footpaths, walls, public corridors, etc.) throughout the city

Etienne Turpin, Co-Principal Investigator, PetaJakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia – an open source, community-led platform to collect and disseminate information about flooding in Jakarta

Marion Waller, Lead Advisor, Reinventing Paris, Paris, France – an international contest calling upon the best architects, startups, researchers and innovators to form original teams and transform 23 Parisian municipal sites

All nine speakers are now part of our global WhatWorks community, which counts over 40 projects around the world.