Presenters' Bios

 

Eco-innovations for Green Economic Change and Shared Prosperity

Presenters' Bios

 

 

 

Dimitar Sabev, freelance blogger and economist, Bulgaria

Dimitar Sabev is an economist and journalist who is interested in the "economy" - the interaction between economy, nature, and culture. He has worked as economic editor, chief editor, columnist, and investigative journalist at different Bulgarian media - Tema weekly magazine, DarikFinance.bg, webcafe.bg, money.bg, evromegdan.bg, among others. He also develops a kind of "terrain economics", doing research and preparing reports for different projects concerning the social and environmental impacts of mining, monetary assessment of ecosystem services, fiscal justice issues of foreign investments, development of quantitative indices for regional development, sustainable forest management, feasibility of trans-border biosphere reserves, etc. His work could be also found on his Blog for ‘Economics‘ - mittag.wordpress.com.

 

Dirk Holemans, Director, Oikos Foundation

Dirk Holemans is director of Oikos - a Brussels based green Think Thank aiming for Social-Ecological Change, and Board Member of the Green European Foundation. Before, he worked as researcher and lecturer at different universities; he was a Member of Parliament of President of the Green Party and advisor for the Flemish Government. Dirk Holemans holds degrees in Bio-engineering, Philosophy and Business Economics. He is also member of the City Council in Ghent. Contact: dirk [dot] holemans [at] telenet [dot] be, www.oikos.be.

 

Evgeni Dainov, prof., New Bulgarian University

Evgeni Dainov was born on 11 May 1958 in Plovdiv and later lived in Sofia. He earns his secondary education at the Forest Hill School in London. He began his studies in Oxford in 1976, and later received a bachelor's degree from Corps Christie College at Oxford University. In 1984, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in History of Sciences after defending a dissertation on the French Communist Party and the Political Unions Issue (1972-1981). He taught at Oxford for some time, was an assistant at the Sofia University. Editor-in-chief of The Insider magazine since 1993 and director of the Center for Social Practices in Sofia. Associate Professor (1999) and Professor of Political Science at the New Bulgarian University where he currently holds courses in political science.

 

Ilian Iliev, Director, Public Center for Environment and Sustainable Development, Varna

Iliyan Iliev is the chair of the board of Public Environmental Center for Sustainable Development, Varna and coordinator of the project “Sunny roof and my home". The aim of the project is to investigate the process of installing and managing small photo-voltaic systems to meet household electricity needs. The research has done in real time. The processes are described in the publication "Roof Energy - The Diary of the Construction and Installation of a Small Photo-voltaic Plant", 2016.

 

Martin Zaimov, Chair, Association for Electric Vehicles, Bulgaria

Martin is an EV user and has been advocate for electric mobility since 2010. He believes that the present model of the world development is unsustainable and potentially fatal for the people. We need radical changes in the big world industries, consumers’ behavior, urban planning and the addiction to the constant growth and indebtness. Electric mobility is a rational and viable cause. Its success would demonstrate a possibility for radical change in one of the biggest industries and would contribute for cleaner air in the cities, lower levels of noise, aggression and greenhouse gases.

 

Ozgecаn Kara, Green Thought Association, Turkey

Özgecan Kara works as a project coordinator at Green Thought Association in Istanbul. Her main focus is climate change and green economy. She was the coordinator of Climate Friendly Green Economy project. She produces and co-hosts weekly radio shows on climate change for broadcast radio and writes weekly columns for Green Newspaper. She coordinated pre-COP21/G20 climate campaign and climate social forum in Turkey. She co-authored a book called “Turkey’s Coal Stories”, published in 2016.

 

Pavel Antonov, PhD, Green Economy Methodological Research Coordinator, BlueLink

Dr. Pavel P Antonov is the Executive Editor and Co-founder of the BlueLink Foundation in Bulgaria and its online publications: Evromegdan.bg and BlueLink Stories for CEE. His research focuses on the normative, occupational and social changes in post-socialist media, politics and civil society that suppress citizens’ and journalists' abilities to safeguard democracy and the public interest.  His work relies upon Bourdieu’s (1998) definition of a journalistic 'field', and on Couldry's (2010) conceptualisation of 'voice'.  Antonov studies the expansion of market relationships over various forms of social, political and economic interaction, including civil society, mass media and environment protection.  Antonov applies participant observation and other qualitative social research methods to understand the conflicting practices, routines, trends and norms that prevent journalism and civil society from operating as public interest watchdogs. His recent analyses focus on the engagement of social movements with journalists and business over issues of collective interest, such as environmental and climate change and tobacco smoking. Antonov explores political and industry interferences with democratic mechanisms and freedom of speech, and is the scientific coordinator of the anti-corruption expert group at the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum and the Revision of the Economy in the Balkans: Change Policy not Climate! – project of BlueLink and the Green European Foundation. Antonov is a trustee of Greenpeace International. Contacts: pavelan @ bluelink.net; skype pavelan; +359 888 704661.

 

Ruslan Žechkov, Consultant, Technopolis Group, France

Ruslan is the Principal Consultant Green Economy for Technopolis Group. Ruslan is an economist who has gained 15 years of experience in different areas of the green economy. Ruslan has conducted research and provided advice in a number of fields at the crossroad of environment and economy such as transition to a low-carbon economy; environmental infrastructure investments; economic and fiscal aspects of waste, water and climate policy. Ruslan has consulted governments in strategic policy approach in the fields of eco-innovation and Sustainable Consumption and Production. He has worked extensively on the issue of integration of sustainability in different funding mechanisms including Cohesion policy, EBRD and EIB funding. Ruslan has worked for and in cooperation with important and demanding clients such as the DG Environment, DG Clima, DG Regio, the European Environmental Agency, UNEP, the World Bank, OECD and the Dutch, German, US and Norwegian governments.
Recently Ruslan has consulted the government of Belarus on strategies and policies for green economy transition as well as the government of Sri Lanka on the drafting of a national SCP policy. He has also finalized a study on financing energy efficiency in CEE and Ukraine and a study on Industrial Symbiosis in Europe.

 

Yva Alexandrova, freelance researcher, Great Britain

Yva Alexandrova is a researcher, activist and policy analyst working in the areas of development, social inclusion and migration. She has worked for a range of think tanks and NGOs in the UK, India, Bulgaria and Austria and has been involved in the development of national and EU level policy related to the inclusion of Roma, migrants and refugees. Her most recent publications include: Step Up: How to get refugees into work quickly, 2017, published by the UK think tank OPEN and Supporting vulnerable groups (migrants and refugees) before the state, published by CSD in 2015. She has an MSc degree in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; and has also studied at the Central European University, Budapest and the University of National and World Economy, Sofia. Yva is also an elected member of the National Council of the Greens in Bulgaria.

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