ADEL Bios

Salem Afeworki is a seasoned sustainability leader who is passionate about making a positive impact locally and globally. Salem is the first Energy and Sustainability Manager for the City of Costa Mesa and is responsible for developing and implementing sustainability programs citywide. Prior to joining the City, she founded Value Sustainability, a boutique consultancy that specializes in climate change and community engagement services based in Southern California.

Samira K. Azzam is a manager of global government relations at Accenture, a Fortune Global 500 consulting and technology company. 

Jessica Berlin is the founder and managing director of CoStruct, a strategy consultancy working at the intersection of business, technology, and economic development. CoStruct consults public, private, and nonprofit organizations on innovation strategy, program design for tech and entrepreneurship initiatives, and market entry in emerging and frontier markets.

Nicola Bilotta is currently researcher at IAI where he works on international political economy, digital economy and geo-finance. 

Cristian Botan is a digital entrepreneur and open government activist. After two years working on anti-corruption for Transparency International, Cristian launched an innovative, award-winning digital initiative aimed at combating nepotism in public sector recruitment in Romania.

Anabella C Ron graduated as both an economist and industrial engineer, since then her professional and academic career have been focused on International Development. 

Chiara Cocchiara is a System Operations Engineer at EUMETSAT, preparing future Earth Observation Space Missions to monitor weather and climate. She was awarded the MIT Innovator Under35 and the ESNC Prizes for a new drone technology design to help saving human lives, especially the immigrants in the Mediterranean Sea.

Cosmin Buteică has 12+ years of professional experience in international development and International Financial Institutions and is currently Senior Environmental Specialist in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia region of the Environment, Natural Resources, and Blue Economy Global Practice.

Jerome Cowans is a Project Manager and Strategist working as Jamaica House Fellow in the Office of the Prime Minister - Jamaica. He manages the Government's flagship youth employment programme - HOPE, which engages thousands of young people in training and employment opportunities.

Rachid Dahbi is the co-founder of Averty Market Research and Intelligence. He began his career with Hewlett-Packard as an HP.com country manager for Africa, where he was responsible for online lead generation and regional marketing campaigns.