Lígia Lopes is a Portuguese designer and design activist. An industrial design graduate with a PhD in Design from the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon, she is currently invited professor at the Department of Communication and Arts at the University of Aveiro and at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.
For the past few years, she has been working on participatory design approaches that place value on processes and people by actively involving them, thereby giving voice to less visible or marginalised groups. In this way, she affirms the activist stance in design and through a conscious choice of process and attention to the product cycle, ensures that it is more human and transparent. Her personal project, CANHOTA, responds to the need for projects rooted in and sustained by design ethics that are committed to developing products, services and strategies through Conscious Design.

José Manuel Moller is the CEO & Founder of Algramo. His undergraduate studies were in Business Administration, additionally he also holds a Master of Advanced Design. Since 2013, José has been dedicated to creating and developing Algramo. In few years, with limited investment, he has established Algramo across a network of 2,500 stores which has made Algramo operationally profitable. With a vision of transforming the way people consume products, he is disrupting the packaging & consumer goods supply chain industries by adding new technologies & now global brands are incorporating Algramo’s technology into their distribution systems. In the past 4 years, José has brought reusable packaging to 350,000 bottom of the pyramid (BoP) customers and has instilled a reuse culture in the BoP communities Algramo serves-where reuse rates have increased from less than 10% to 85%.
José’s vision, leadership & deep network of advisors have led Algramo to a scalable, financially viable high-impact business model that produces world-class social, environmental and economic benefits for its stakeholders. Recently he has spoken at United Nations Environmental Assembly 4 & at high profile circular economy conferences in Europe. José is currently working with global brands like Unilever and Nestlé to help them use packaging in a more circular manner, helping catalyze reusable packaging systems on a globally significant scale.

Mark Wood is trained professionally as an architect, holding a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tecnologico de Monterrey (1990) and a Master of Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin (1994). He has practiced in the fields of architectural and urban design.
He initiated in 1994 an academic career in the Tecnologico de Monterrey, a multi-campus university system in Mexico. He has held various academic and administrative positions: Professor, Department of Architecture (Campus Monterrey, 1994-1995); Director, Department of Architecture (Campus Guadalajara, 1996-1999); Campus President (Campus Mazatlan, Campus Hermosillo, and Campus Leon, 1999-2008).In August 2008, he began his PhD studies in the School of Sustainability

at Arizona State University. He completed his degree with the dissertation, “Addressing Sustainability in an Entrepreneurship Ecosystem: A Case Study of a Social Incubator in Mexico.”
In August 2013, he returned to Tecnologico de Monterrey as Director of the Center for Sustainability at Campus Ciudad de Mexico. There, he developed research and academic projects related to sustainability, including its cross-disciplinary introduction across the curriculum (architecture, entrepreneurship, business, etc.).
He returned to Campus Guadalajara in February 2015 as Academic Dean and Director of Institutional Strategies. In this function, he supervised all academic support activities and facilities, including faculty development, research resources, life and career services, and international programs. He became a Changeleader for the campus, promoting social innovation and support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Since March 2017 he is the Dean of the Western Region for the School of Architecture, Art, and Design, which includes operations in Guadalajara and six other campuses.

GENERAL PROFESSIONAL AND RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Sustainability in business, entrepreneurship, and innovation
• Sustainable education / Sustainability in educational organizations
• Sustainable cities / Sustainable urban and regional development
• Design and Design Thinking in organizations
• University-Business-Government collaboration