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Speakers

Anthony Fieldman — National Design Director for HOK Canada

Anthony is the National Design Director for HOK Canada and serves on HOK’s Board of Directors. Based in Toronto, he provides design leadership for projects across Canada and throughout the world. His work has been widely recognized, exhibited, and published, with over 50 international design awards spanning twenty-five years of professional practice.

Prior to joining HOK, Anthony founded and ran RAFT Architects, from 2012-2017; was a Principal and Design Director for Perkins+Will, from 2006-2012; and was an Associate Partner and Lead Designer for SOM, from 1994-2006 - all based in New York City. In each role, Anthony quickly built a strong reputation for thought leadership, authoring many of the practice's most critically successful commissions.

As a published and exhibited street photographer, and the creator of Nomade Civilisée - a platform for photography, global culture and travel - Anthony recently published a coffee table book, New York Through an Architect’s Lens. He is at work on sequels.

A researcher by nature, Anthony created, writes for and manages the nutritional health website Food Fit for Living as a guide for maintaining optimal health in the context of an overwhelmingly industrial food supply.

Anthony keeps a personal blog, EveryDayInSight, where he posts daily musings about the world we live in and our place in it. He also writes regularly for Medium, and for e-magazines like The Innovation, UX Collective, Co-Founders Town, The Startup and Curious.

In 2017, Anthony published a memoir - Genius Lost: A Brother's Lament. A Harvard-trained physician who died at just thirty-eight, his brother Jordan waged a twenty-year battle against chronic illness and cancer. The book is a tribute to their brotherhood, and Anthony’s catharsis in the face of loss.

Fundamentally, Anthony's innate curiosity about everything around him drives a lifelong passion for learning, exploring, creating and sharing.

He is perpetually 'just getting started'...

Josh Sirefman —Co-Founder and Senior Advisor Google Side Walk Labs

Josh Sirefman is Co-Founder and Senior Advisor, who formerly served as President of Sidewalk Labs. Josh has spent his career at the forefront of the planning, negotiation, and implementation of complex growth and development strategies across the public and private sectors. As founder and President of Sirefman Ventures, he led transformative development projects for a range of corporate, nonprofit and government entities, including Cornell University’s successful effort to build a new applied sciences campus in New York City, the University of Chicago’s transformation of Hyde Park through the redevelopment of a vibrant new mixed-use district, and the repositioning of the New York Public Library’s renovation of its flagship building.

Prior to founding Sire man Ventures, Josh was the Senior Vice President for U.S. Development at Brookfield Properties and managed a development portfolio of more than 15 million square feet across the country. Before joining Brookfield Properties, Josh held a series of high-level roles within the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, including Chief of Staff to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, and Interim President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Josh holds a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University. He has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, University of Michigan, and New York University, and sits on the boards of the Fist and Heel Dance Company, New York Restoration Project, the Lowline, and Spaceworks.

Moderators

Lebo Mahler —Sustainable Investment Professional

Lebogang is a dynamic, young professional from South Africa currently working in infrastructure finance. Her passions emanate from being musically trained, scientifically learned and culturally inquisitive; intrigued by issues pertaining to development, finance, energy and technology. She holds a Masters in Urban Infrastructure Systems Engineering from New York University where her work focused on electrification efforts, principally on commercialising mini-grid technologies for rural electrification efforts.

She has worked in an array of settings in infrastructure and power investment where her focus has been on financing renewable energy as well as clean energy tech, working on the impact of buildings in the reduction of carbon emissions in cities, all at the nexus of modern infrastructure and sustainable development.

Owing to her broaden passions to improve livelihoods, she has been named Africa’s top 20 power sector leaders by the Enel Foundation, Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans while also currently serving as the Communications Lead for the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community in New York.

In terms of leadership, she has served on various leadership bodies and structures / the first of which was as the National Executive Director of Media & Marketing for the NGO South African Women in Engineering earlier in her career. This earned her selection to the Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership (MILEAD) fellowship: A fellowship of 25 Africa’s most exceptional women leaders chosen for outstanding leadership promise, community service accomplishments, and commitment to the advancement of women in Africa. In the world she would love to live in an equitable world that leaves no one behind, and as such focus her work in this vein.

Shaaz Nasir —Director of Public Service Transformation

Shaaz Nasir is the Director of Digital Transformation for Public Service at Microsoft. He is based in New York City and with a team delivers major programs focusing on responsible AI, digital culture through change management, and smart cities. He is also the former Trade Commissioner ICT Lead in New York for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. He is a Co-founder of Mindthis Magazine, a leading online magazine for young professionals redefining success in the 21st century. With over 175 countries reading Mindthis Magazine, Shaaz speaks frequently at conferences as a subject matter expert on responsible AI and digital culture for the government. He has over 13 years of public and private sector experience working with C-level executives on citizen engagement, digital change management, and the future of trade policy across North America and the Middle East. Shaaz has a track record of working on multi-disciplinary projects spanning academia, businesses, and government. From helping build Saudi Arabia’s first crowdsourcing public policy program to currently building relationships between Canada and the USA on Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Media. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Shaaz’s work promotes free trade which ensures the middle class is not left behind in the fourth industrial revolution. Shaaz holds a Bachelor's in International Economics and Development from the University of Ottawa and is a dual citizen (America and Canada).