At the request of Kate White, Deputy Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (and the Global Climate Action Summit coordinator on behalf of then California Governor Jerry Brown), JD Beltran, serving at the time as Director of the Center for Impact at CCA, initiated, oversaw, planned, produced, and hosted at CCA "Superheroes for Sustainable and 100% Renewable Energy: Global Strategies for Decision-Makers," the international Global Climate Action Summit Affiliate conference. The conference involved inviting, coordinating, and organizing a panel of 20 international partners from 12 different countries speaking about topics and solutions for renewable energy and carbon neutrality. Participants included:

 

RANA ADIB, REN21 Executive Secretary of REN21, an international non-profit association based at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Paris, France. REN21 brings together governments, nongovernmental organizations, research and academic institutions, international organizations and industry to learn from one another and build on successes that advance renewable energy.

 

MONICA ARAYA, COSTA RICA LIMPIA Founder & Director of Nivela (a think tank) and Costa Rica Limpia (a citizen observatory) and adviser on clean development and politics of climate change in Latin America. She is co-chair of the Low Emissions Development Strategies (LEDS) Platform for Latin America and the Caribbean and a Member of the Steering Committee of the UNEP Gap Emissions Report.

 

OR. JACK BROUWER, NFC RC Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Associate Director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC) and Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Dr. Brouwer is a highly recognized researcher in the area of alternative energy with his primary research focus on high-temperature electrochemical dynamics and integrated energy systems research that includes fuel cells, gas turbines, electrolyzers, and solar and wind power.

 

LASSE BRUUN, CAN lntl & GLOBAL 100% RE Global Head of Energy Transition at Climate Action Network (CAN) International, based in Lebanon. Working across sectors and continents, Bruun's work includes being a Global Project Leader at Greenpeace and an adviser in the Danish Parliament. He currently is Head of Global Campaigns at CAN, coordinating campaign efforts on behalf of a worldwide network of more than 1200 NGOs in 120 countries. He also leads a global energy taskforce which includes environmental, faith and development NGOs-as well as labor unions, megacities administrators, foundations and Fortune 500 businesses.

 

KRISTEN DISTEFANO, ATELIER TEN Associate Director at Atelier Ten, first founded in London, England almost thirty years ago, and now with offices in New York, San Francisco, Bangkok, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, New Haven, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Atelier Ten is one of the preeminent firms in the world creating, designing, and building state-of-the-art systems in sustainability and renewable energy. DiStefano has managed many of the firm's most ambitious projects, including the San Francisco Giants' Mission Rock Development and the 2020 Project, the largest public private project in US history at the University of California Merced.

 

IRENE GARCIA, GERMAN MARSHALL FUND OF THE UNITED STATES Program officer, Urban and Regional Policy Program, GMF's Berlin Office. Garcia leads the Sustainable & Livable Cities programming, which focuses on the development of sites, systems, and processes that promote integrated and sustainable urban development while stimulating local and regional economies. Through technical assistance workshops, study tours, conferences and initiatives such as Dialogues for Change and BUILD, Garda facilitates peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing between U.S. and European urban policy and change-makers.

 

SANORA GOTTSCHALL, R20 Advisor to R20-Regions of Climate Action, a not-for-profit international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland that collaborates with a number of leading Regions, the United Nations, Development Banks, Clean-Tech companies, Academia and a number of NGO's, to support sub-national governments around the world to develop and finance green infrastructure projects. R20 has created a unique value chain and financial ecosystem that facilitates the identification, structuring, development, and financing of sub-national green infrastructure projects.

 

KATRIN HARVEY, REEEP Senior Business Development Manager at REEEP, an international multilateral partnership based in Vienna, Austria that works to accelerate market-based deployment of renewable energy and energy efficient systems in developing countries. REEEP invests in clean energy markets to help developing countries expand modern energy services and improve lives; increase prosperity and economic dynamism; and keep CO2 emissions in check: a paradigm commonly known as green growth.

 

DR. JORGE ELIZONDO MARTINEZ, HEILA TECHNOLOGIES Co-Founder of Heila Technologies, founded at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 201S, which designed and invented the Heila IQ optimization system, enabling simple and intelligent microgrids. Heila develops the distributed control systems at the Stone Edge Farm Microgrid, based in Sonoma, California, one of the leading world-class test beds for microgrid development, efficient solar energy collection and storage, and energy metering and data capture technology.

 

PAULETTE MIDDLETON, ISES Secretary of the Board of Directors of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) with headquarters in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. For over 60 years ISES has promoted the product research that fostered the growth of the solar energy industry. Today, as solar energy technologies are being deployed in significant quantities around the world, ISES focuses on continued technology innovation as well as information-sharing through webinars, conferences, global outreach, and its renowned Solar Energy Journal.

 

ANTONIO MOZQUEIRA, AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY Senior Manager, Australia Climate Change Policy of the Australian Capital Territory Government, which supports science-based institutions dealing with issues in climate change/marine/environmental resources. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is a self-governing territory in the south east of Australia.

 

JENS NIELSEN, WORLD CLIMATE LTD Founder and CEO, World Climate LTD. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and with offices in London and Geneva, Nielsen's World Climate LTD brings together key decision makers in the environmental arena. Nielsen founded World Climate LTD in 2010 and has worked in more than 20 countries, achieving a unique model of global, business driven solutions for climate challenges, and developing into one of the world's leading strategic platforms for climate change solutions.

 

KARL PEET, SLOCAT Research Director for the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), a global organization with headquarters in Shanghai, China and staff around the world. SLoCaT is a multi-stakeholder partnership of over 90 organizations that promotes the integration of sustainable transport in global policies on sustainable development and climate change and leveraging action in support of the implementation of the global policies.

 

BETH REID, OLIVINE, INC. CEO of Olivine, Inc., based in Berkeley, California, which provides infrastructure and services that enable distributed and aggregated resources-such as solar, demand response, electric vehicles and battery storage-to effectively and efficiently offer grid services. Designing first-of-a-kind, proof-of-concept projects, Olivine has developed unique approaches, especially relating to behind-the-meter challenges, and is the first third-party to integrate battery storage and other demand-side technologies into California's wholesale markets.

 

DR. VERA RODENHOFF, BMU Head of Division of International Cooperation on Environment, Energy and Cities; OECD and OECD Countries in the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Prior to this, she held positions as the Head of Division of International Affairs and Protocol in the Minister's staff, as the Head of Cabinet to the Federal Minister of Environment and as Personal Secretary to the Federal Minister of Environment.

 

KASSIE ROHRBACH, SIERRA CLUB & GLOBAL 100% RE Deputy Director of the Sierra Club's Ready for 100 Campaign, who is leading work to accelerate a transition to 100% clean, renewable energy in cities and towns across the United States. Rohrbach has over ten years of experience in climate and energy advocacy, event planning, coalition building, policy development and fundraising. She co-founded and built the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50+ environmental and social justice organizations.

 

DR. VINCENT SCHACTER, EMOTORWERKS Senior Vice President, Energy Services. Led by a team from Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Google, McKinsey, BMW, and Tesla, the company eMotorWerks, based in San Carlos, California, has a strong set of technologies and IP in the areas of predictive modeling and control of highly variable distributed loads. Dr. Schachter drives the grid-facing business and products of eMotorWerks, including development of the algorithms that power JuiceNet.

 

JEFF TURNER, DSM Vice President, Sustainability. Royal DSM is a purpose-led global science-based company in Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Living based in Heerlen, The Netherlands. DSM began as a Dutch coal mining company but, over the course of over a century, evolved into the global, science-based company it is today. With competencies in both materials sciences and life sciences, the company is uniquely positioned to improve and scale three major areas where the shift to renewables is occurring: solar, wind and bio-based energy. DSM and its associated companies deliver annual net sales of about 10 billion Euros with approximately 23,000 employees.

 

MARYKE VAN STAOEN, ICLEI & GLOBAL 100% RE Director of the Bonn Center for Local Climate Action and Reporting (carbonn Center) in Bonn, Germany, and Manager of ICLEl's Low Carbon City Agenda. ICLEI has built a global sustainability network of more than 1,500 local and regional governments in 108 countries, engaging in climate action and sustainable development - jointly impacting on 25% of the urban population globally.

 

STONE EDGE FARM MICROGRID (Formerly directed by Craig Wooster, since passed away, now directed by his son Troy Wooster ) engineers, inventors, and developers of one of the leading world-class test beds for microgrid development, efficient solar energy collection and storage, and energy metering and data capture technology at the Stone Edge Farm Microgrid in Sonoma, California. Wooster spearheaded the development of a real-world advanced dispatchable Microgrid with open-source technology, and Stone Edge Farm Microgrid also is designing the renewable energy and sustainability systems for the California College of the Arts new unified campus, designed by award winning architecture firm Studio Gang.