Island Innovation Awards

Alexander J. Diaz leads Crisis Response and Humanitarian Aid at Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm. Through this role, Alex manages Google’s philanthropic efforts in response to global crises, such as natural disasters and public health emergencies, providing innovative nonprofits on the frontlines with funding and volunteers. As part of his role, Alex helped lead Google.org’s $100 million and 50K+ pro bono hours commitment to COVID-19 response globally across health and science, distance learning, and economic relief and recovery. More recently, Alex is managing the company’s philanthropic effort to advance COVID-19 vaccine equity and anticipatory action. Previously, Alex was Chief of Staff to the global head of public policy and government relations at YouTube, and was a core member of Google’s global policy strategy team.
Alex is the winner of both the Marshall and the Rhodes Scholarship awards. As a Rhodes Scholar, Alex received a Master’s of Public Policy and a Master’s of Financial Economics at the University of Oxford. Alex graduated from Harvard College Phi Beta Kappa and with highest honors in psychology where he focused his studies and research on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie unconscious race, ethnic, and gender bias, and the effects of these biases on courtroom procedures. Alex has been named to Forbes’ List of 30 Under 30 for Law & Policy. The son of Dominican and Cuban immigrants, Alex was raised in Union City, NJ.

A Rhodes scholar who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, Diaz manages Google’s philanthropic efforts in response to global crises, providing funding and volunteers to innovative nonprofits on the frontlines.

Founder of Ecologic Institute, is currently Senior Fellow at Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS Potsdam) and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Canada, non-executive Director of the Fundação Oceano Azul, Portugal, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of German Studies at Duke University. In 2015, he was Visiting Scholar at the MIT. His research focuses on the theory and practice of think tanks and how they function in different political systems, the interactions among policy domains and international relations, and global governance on environment, resources, climate and energy.

Anote Tong was President of the Republic of Kiribati having served the maximum three term limit between 2003 to 2016. During his terms in office he was responsible for drawing international focus of attention tothe human dimension of climate change by highlighting the existential threat faced by his people and those of other vulnerable countries on the frontline of the impacts of climate change, many of which are in the Pacific Region.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) projections ofsea level rise will render these island nations uninhabitable even submerged well within the century and President Tong has been campaigning for credible options for securing the future of thesecommunities. He was responsible for declaring what was then the largest marine protected area when he closed off more than 400 thousand sq. km of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) in 2008 from any extractiveindustries. PIPA has since been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. For his advocacy work on climate change and ocean conservation during his terms in office and since retiring from office, Anote Tong has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, was awarded the Sun HakPeace Prize in 2015, the Peter Benchley Award, the Edmund Hilary Award and a number of other acknowledgements of his work.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Canterbury, NZ, his Masters in Economic from the London School of Economics and an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering from The National Pukyong University, South Korea and an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji.

Celeste Connors has twenty years of experience working at the intersection of economic, environment, energy, and international development policy. Before joining Hawai‘i Green Growth, she was CEO and co-founder of cdots development LLC, and served as the Director for Environment and Climate Change at the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the White House where she helped shape the Administration’s climate and energy policies, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Celeste also served as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia, Greece, Germany, and U.S. Mission to the UN. Celeste is a Senior Adjunct Fellow at the East-West Center. Celeste has served on numerous boards including her current service on Hawaiian Electric Industries, the Global Island Partnership (GLISPA), the Institute for Sustainability and Resilience at the University of Hawaii and Icebreaker One. Celeste grew up in Kailua, O‘ahu.

Christine Milne was the Leader of the Australian Greens from 2012 to 2015 in the Australian Parliament. She was elected to represent Tasmania in the federal parliament in 2004 after a distinguished career in the Tasmanian state parliament (1989-98). She was instrumental in developing the Clean Energy Package, which was the core legislation responsible for addressing global warming. Christine also served on the Global Council of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2000-2008 with four years as one of the four global Vice Presidents. She represented the organization at the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention.

Christine was the first woman to lead a political party in Tasmania and is a leader in the environment movement in Australia and overseas. She was appointed to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global 500 Roll of Honour in 1990 and has received many awards during her distinguished career. She has also been awarded the Inaugural Women in Leadership Award for Tasmania in 2015. She is currently a Patron of the Australian Solar Council, an advisory board member of the Climate Accountability Institute in the USA , an Ambassador of the 100% Renewable Energy Campaign of the World Future Council and the Global Greens Ambassador.

Dr. Daniel M. Kammen holds the James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Chair in Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group where he serves as Chair, the Goldman School of Public Policy where he directs the Center for Environmental Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. Kammenis the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory(RAEL; http://rael.berkeley.edu). He was the director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center from 2007 – 2015.
Kammen was appointed by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April 2010 as the first energy fellow of the Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) initiative. He began service as the Science Envoy for U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2016, but resigned over President Trump’s policies in August, 2017. He has served the State of California and US federal government in expert and advisory capacities, including time at the US Environmental Protection Agency, US Department of Energy, the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dr. Kammen was educated in physics at Cornell (BA 1984) and Harvard (MA 1986; PhD 1988), and held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology and Harvard. He was an Assistant Professor and Chair of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University before moving to the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Kammen has served as a contributing or coordinating lead author on various reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1999.The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

In 2020 Kammen was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences..

Kammen helped found over 10 companies, including Enphase that went public in 2012, Renewable Funding (Renew Financial) a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) implementing company that went public in 2014. Kammen played a core role in developing the successful bid for the $500 million energy biosciences institute funded by BP.

During 2010-2011 Kammen served as the World Bank Group’s first Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. While there Kammen worked on the Kenya-Ethiopia “green corridor” transmission project, Morocco’s green transformation, the 10-year energy strategy for the World Bank, and on investing in household energy and gender equity. He was appointed to this newly-created position in October 2010, in which he provided strategic leadership on policy, technical, and operational fronts. The aim is to enhance the operational impact of the Bank’s renewable energy and energy efficiency activities while expanding the institution’s role as an enabler of global dialogue on moving energy development to a cleaner and more sustainable pathway. Kammen’s work at the World Bank included funding electrified personal and municipal vehicles in China, and the $1.24 billion transmission project linking renewable energy assets in Kenya and Ethiopia.

He has authored or co-authored 12 books, written more than 400 peer-reviewed journal publications, and has testified more than 40 times to U.S. state and federal congressional briefings, and has provided various governments with more than 50 technical reports. For details see http;//rael.berkeley.edu/publications. Dr. Kammen also served for many years on the Technical Review Board of the Global Environment Facility. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Environmental Research Letters since its founding in 2006.

Kammen is a frequent contributor and commentator in the international news media, including Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Financial Times. Kammen has appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ (twice), NOVA, Frontline, and hosted the six-part Discovery Channel series Ecopolis. Dr. Kammen is a Permanent Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and the American Physical Society. In the US, has served on several National Academy of Sciences boards and panels.

Dr. Nunez-Smith is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, Public Health, and Management; Inaugural Associate Dean for Health Equity Research; Founding Director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center (ERIC); Director of the Center for Research Engagement (CRE); Associate Cancer Center Director for Community Outreach and Engagement at Yale Cancer Center; Chief Health Equity Officer at Smilow Cancer Hospital; Deputy Director for Health Equity Research and Workforce Development at the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation; Core Faculty in the National Clinician Scholars Program; Research Faculty in the Global Health Leadership Initiative; Director of the Pozen-Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Health Equity Leadership; and Co-Director of the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship.
Dr. Nunez-Smith’s research focuses on promoting health and healthcare equity for structurally marginalized populations with an emphasis on centering community engagement, supporting healthcare workforce diversity and development, developing patient reported measurements of healthcare quality, and identifying regional strategies to reduce the global burden of non-communicable diseases. Dr. Nunez-Smith has extensive expertise in examining the effects of social and structural determinants of health, systemic influences contributing to health disparities, health equity improvement, and community-academic partnered scholarship. In addition to this extensive experience in primary data collection, management, and analysis, ERIC has institutional expertise in qualitative and mixed methods, population health, and medical informatics.

She is the principal investigator on many NIH and foundation-funded research projects, including an NIH/NCI-funded project to develop a tool to assess patient reported experiences of discrimination in healthcare. She has conducted an investigation of the promotion and retention of diversity in academic medical school faculty and has published numerous articles on the experiences of minority students and faculty. Funded by NIH/NIMHD, she established the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network (ECHORN), a research collaborative across four Eastern Caribbean islands, supporting several chronic disease research projects and enhancing health outcomes research and leadership capacity in the region; the flagship ECHORN Cohort Study recruited and is following a community-dwelling adult cohort (n=3000) to examine novel chronic disease risk and protective factors. She recently received NIH/NHLBI funding to build upon this work by recruiting children into an expanded intergenerational ECHORN cohort, inclusive of a biorepository. She is also PI on one of five NIH/NIMHD-funded Transdisciplinary Collaborative Centers on Health Disparities focused on Precision Medicine, which leverages the ECHORN infrastructure to conduct collaborative research on hypertension and diabetes.

Most recently, as the COVID-19 pandemic has shed national attention on the health and healthcare disparities of marginalized populations, she was called upon to serve on the Governor’s ReOpen CT Advisory Group and to chair its Community Committee. She served as an Advisor to the Biden-Harris campaign, and subsequently named co-chair of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board and will serve as chair of the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force in the administration. She also received NIH funding to leverage ECHORN to improve the COVID-19 testing cascade in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Dr. Nunez-Smith has mentored dozens of trainees since completing fellowship and has received numerous awards for teaching and mentoring. She is board certified in internal medicine, having completed residency training at Harvard University’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and fellowship at the Yale Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, where she also received a Masters in Health Sciences. Originally from the US Virgin Islands, she attended Jefferson Medical College, where she was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, and she earned a BA in Biological Anthropology and Psychology at Swarthmore College.

Ms. Fekitamoeloa Katoa ‘Utoikamanu is the Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. She assumed her role in May 2017.
Ms. ‘Utoikamanu is responsible for monitoring and following up on the implementation of all three Programmes of Action under the purview of UN-OHRLLS. She is also called on to advocate for the issues and concerns of these vulnerable countries as well as to ensure their integration into and coherence with global processes, including those related to the 2030 Agenda and other global development frameworks. Ms. ‘Utoikamanu also coordinates advocacy work related to the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in forums and platforms outside the United Nations.

Prior to joining the United Nations, Ms. ‘Utoikamanu was Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Tourism, Tonga; Acting Pro-Chancellor and Chair of the Council of the University of the South Pacific (2015); Deputy Pro-Chancellor and Deputy Chair of the Council of the University of the South Pacific (2009-2016); Deputy Director General and Director of Education, Training and Human Development of the Secretariat of Pacific Community (2009-2015); Permanent Representative and Ambassador of the Government of Tonga to the United Nations, United States of America, Cuba and Venezuela and High Commissioner to Canada (2005-2009); and Secretary for Foreign Affairs and European Commission’s National Authorizing Officer for Tonga (2002-2005).

A Tongan national, Ms. ‘Utoikamanu speaks Tongan and English. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics (1980) and a Masters in Commerce in Economics (1983) from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Henk Rogers is a Dutch-born entrepreneur and clean energy visionary who has dedicated the past decade of his career to the research, development, advocacy and implementation of renewable energy sources in his adopted home of Hawaii. As the principal and visionary philanthropist of Blue Planet Foundation, Rogers’ efforts led to Hawaii becoming the first state in the nation with a policy requiring that 100% of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2045.

Rogers is now focusing beyond Hawaii to help others enact mandates for 100% renewable energy in their regions. He has spoken at three Inter-Parliamentary Union assemblies, where he collaborated with the 178 member countries to draft an emergency climate change resolution.

His newest initiative, Blue Planet Alliance, takes a “mandate first” approach to initiate global climate change action by creating measurable and scalable results among individuals, organizations, cities, states, countries and eventually, the world. The Alliance’s mission is to regenerate the environment and become 100% sustainable by 2045. The vision is to create a world in which humanity and nature live in harmony.

He is also the founder of Blue Planet Energy, one of the leading providers of energy storage systems that power homes, business and critical infrastructure. The company’s innovative Blue Ion technology has allowed Henk to take his own residences off-grid.

Rogers is also renowned as a global leader in the gaming industry, when he created Japan’s first Role-Playing Game. One of his software companies holds the exclusive intellectual property rights to Tetris, the world’s most popular video game (over 125 million units sold). Rogers revolutionized the industry when he brought the now legendary game to U.S. and world markets more than three decades ago.

James Alix Michel was the third President of the Republic of Seychelles between April 2004 and October 2016. Prior to this he was the Vice-President and the longest serving Cabinet minister in Seychelles, serving a total of 39 years in the Cabinet. He is the patron of the James Michel Blue Economy Research Institute and also patron of the Jj Spirit Foundation. He is the Chancellor of the University of Seychelles.

Honorary Mayor of Saint-Pierre and former Senator of the Republic of France

Karine Claireaux is a recipient of the French Customs Service Medal of honour. She has worked as a government official with the French Customs Service since 1981 and was seconded for elective duties from April 2000 to August 2020.

Karine has served as a Town Councillor of Saint-Pierre since 1983. She became the Deputy Mayor of Saint-Pierre from 1989 to 2001 and was in charge of social and maritime and port issues. She was elected Mayor of Saint-Pierre in 2001, reelected in 2008 and then again in 2014. During the successive mandates, between 2014 and 2020, a voluntary waste management policy was set up. The ‘Zero Waste’ policy has earned the town of Saint-Pierre three Eco-Mayors awards, in recognition of the voluntarism and originality of the project.

Karine served as Vice-President of the General Council from 2000 to 2006. From 2011 to 2017 she was a Senator of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. She was a member of the Local Finance Committee, from 2009 to 2016.

Karine has been a member of the Overseas Maritime Committee, in charge of developing a sustainable local maritime policy, since its creation in 2010, up to 2021. She has been a member of the monitoring committee for the Ocean Round Table since 2009. She has been a member of the French Agency for Biodiversity (now the French Office for Biodiversity) since its creation.

Since 2012, Karine has been a member of ANEL, the National Association of Elected Officials of the Coast, an association bringing together elected officials of coastline municipalities. From 2013 to 2021, she has been a member of the CNML, the National Council of the Sea and Coastal Zone. She served as President of the Board of the CNML from November 2014 to February 2021. Karine is a member of the France Maritime Committee, which brings together the maritime economic sectors and the public authorities.

She has been a member of the Compost plus Network since 2014 and was the Network President from November 2019 to February 2021. The aim of this Network is to increase the separate collection of bio-waste, as well as to promote the sector and the production of quality compost.

Karine was the Vice-President of the CNPEOM, the National Commission for the Evaluation of Overseas State Policies, from May 2013 to September 2017. She was Secretary-General of the Executive Board of the IGPOM, the Parliamentary Intergroup on Overseas territories from May 2013 to September 2017, and the Vice-President of the Senate Overseas Delegation from September 2014 to September 2017. She is a founding member (1992) of the Lions Club International.

María O. Concepción Díaz is an experienced program manager with a demonstrated history of working in program, policy, and advocacy spaces of large international non-profits and the public sector. She is a passionate advocate for inclusive energy solutions who thrives developing civic engagement strategies for under-served communities. She has held leadership positions in a variety of US-based NGOs, governments and coalitions. She has managed several large solar energy pipeline projects and has a deep understanding of the strategic and operational requirements for mobilizing citizens towards renewable energy projects.

In 2017, the United Nations Secretary-General Guterres appointed Ambassador Peter Thomson of Fiji as his Special Envoy for the Ocean, aiming at galvanizing concerted efforts to follow up on the outcomes of the 2017 United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference, maintaining the momentum for action to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Mr. Thomson leads UN’s advocacy and public outreach efforts inside and outside of the UN system, ensuring that the many positive outcomes of The 2017 Ocean Conference, including the over 1500 voluntary commitments, are analysed and implemented. He also works with civil society, the scientific community, the private sector, and other relevant stakeholders, to coalesce and encourage their activities in support of the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14.

Mr. Thomson brings a distinguished experience in diplomatic services and is familiar with the work of the United Nations, including as Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN and President of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly, during which he provided visionary leadership in guiding the preparation of The 2017 Ocean Conference.

Elected President of the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority’s 2011-2012 session and President of the Council of the Authority’s 2015-2016 session, Mr. Thomson chaired the Group of 77 and China (2013) and served as President of the Executive Board of UN Development Programme/UN Population Fund/UN Office for Programme Support (UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS) from 2014 to 2015. As a civil servant in the Government of Fiji, he devoted many years of his life to working in the fields of rural development and then foreign affairs.

Godfrey Baldacchino PhD (Warwick), BA (Gen.) (Malta), PGCE (Malta), MA (The Hague) is Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology at the University of Malta, Malta. He served as an Island Studies Teaching Fellow, UNESCO co-Chair and Canada Research Chair in Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Canada, between 2003 and 2020. He is founding Executive Editor of Island Studies Journal (ISSN:1715-2593), and since 2018 founding Executive Editor of Small States & Territories journal (ISSN:2616-8006). He served as Visiting Professor of Island Tourism at the Universita’ di Corsica Pascal Paoli, France (2012-2015). He was Member and Chair of the Malta Board of Cooperatives (1994-2003) and core member of the Malta-European Union Steering & Action Committee (MEUSAC). In 2008-2010, he was Vice-President of the Prince Edward Island Association for Newcomers to Canada. In 2014, he was elected President of the International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA). In June 2015, he was elected Chair of the Scientific Board of RETI, the global excellence network of island universities. In 2021, he was appointed (thematic) Malta Ambassador for islands and small states. He served as Pro-Rector for International Development and Quality Assurance (2016-2021) during the first Rectorate of Professor Alfred Vella at the University of Malta.
His research interests include: island studies, small state studies, political geography, sociology of work, international relations, island tourism, entrepreneurship, brain rotation, immigration, labour relations, human resource management, adult education, worker empowerment and the development of cooperatives.

Prof. Baldacchino has (co-)authored or (co-)edited some 50 books, reports and monographs; and has authored, since 1993, some 160 peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters.

Prof. Baldacchino`s work has appeared in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Swedish (and apart from English and Maltese).

Racquel Moses is a dynamic leader with a track record of driving transformative growth and change worldwide. With an impressive portfolio of leadership roles, Racquel has consistently pushed boundaries and spearheaded impactful initiatives in various industries. Currently serving as the CEO and a Director for the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator, Racquel leads 11/3/2023 4:45 PM Island of Hope Speaker Form 17 / 30 the charge in driving climate-smart solutions and sustainable development across the Caribbean region. Her visionary guidance and strategic leadership have positioned the organization at the forefront of climate action. Her versatility enables her contributions which span many disciplines including currently serving as a Global Web3 Board member for Salesforce.com, as a Trustee for the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee, and as a UNFCCC Global Ambassador. As a champion for global climate action, she actively advocates for change and promotes sustainability at a global level. With a wealth of experience and expertise, Racquel has made significant contributions in previous leadership positions, including her roles as the Head of Microsoft Trinidad and Tobago, President of InvesTT, and Regional Vice President for Fujitsu. Her strategic vision and ability to drive innovation have propelled organizations to achieve remarkable success. Racquel’s passion for collaboration and coalition-building has played a pivotal role in shaping regional consensus on critical issues such as climate change, sustainability, and building resilience. Her ability to inspire minds and drive impactful change has made her an influential force in shaping the global agenda.

Raijeli Drodrolagi Nicole joined the international development NGO Oxfam in September 2015 as the Regional Director Pacific. Her main task has been to establish the organisation and steer its strategic role in and outside the Pacific region.
Today, Oxfam in the Pacific working alongside its partners is one of the few independant NGOs in the North Pacific.

Prior to joining Oxfam, she was the CEO of Save the Children Fiji (2013 – 2015) where her focus was organisational change as well.

Raijeli is a community development specialist and her leadership roles have been informed by her experience working as a secondary school teacher, development banking (Fiji), women’s movement (Fiji, Pacific, NZ, S.E Asia and global levels), and government (DIA, NZ).

Raijeli is a Fiji islander and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of the Pacific (History/Politics & Economics) and a Masters in Internal Law and Politics from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch (2011). Her Masters thesis looked at the framework of how civil society could have critical engagement with the military.

Selina Neirok Leem is an activist from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and took on the role of a climate change advocate for her country. She credits her grandfather for her deep awareness of the increasing fate of her island home through his stories about how the ice in the North Pole and South Pole were melting and would soon flood the Marshall Islands. Representing her home, Selina was the youngest delegate at the COP21 in Paris. During the closing remarks, then Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony deBrum gave her the opportunity to give the final statement on behalf of her country. She told the world that Paris agreement, “should be the turning point in our story; a turning point for all of us.”

Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, 8th Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) is a distinguished academic, international thought leader, United Nations committee official, and global public activist in the field of social justice and minority empowerment.
Sir Hilary has had widespread Caribbean and global recognition for his academic achievements and leadership expertise. He was called upon by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to serve as an inaugural member of his Science Advisory Board on Sustainable Development. He also served as an advisor to UNESCO’s Cities for Peace Global Program, and was an advisor to the UN World Culture Report. He is also a consultant for the UNESCO Cities for Peace Global Programme.

Tavish Scott is Chief Executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers Association. He previously was Head of External Affairs for Scottish Rugby (2019-20) and MSP for Shetland (1999-2019).
He served as a government minister in various portfolios, held various parliamentary positions and is a former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Tavish is non-executive director of Shetland Space Centre and is on the board of Castle Rock Edinvar Housing Association, part of the UK Wide People for Places Group, and a visiting Professor for the Aberdeen Business School at Robert Gordon University.

Tavish has an honours degree in Business Management from Napier Edinburgh University

Donnya (also Zi) is the CEO and Co-Founder of Pink Coconuts – a new LGBTQ+ travel startup focused on creating spaces for queer travellers to thrive. Zi was given the prestigious Queen’s Young Leader Award by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for their work as an LGBTQ Caribbean Advocate and the co-founder of B-GLAD, an LGBTQ organisation focussed on advancing the social, political and economic environment for LGBTQ people to live, work and play. Zi has spoken at forums like TEDx Bridgetown, Heineken’s National Conference, UK Black Pride, One Young World, Human Rights Campaign, Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta & London, The Economist in New York, International Gay and Lesbian Association Conference in New Zealand. In 2017 Zi became a Watson University Scholar focused on Social Entrepreneurship in Boulder, Colorado. In 2019, Zi was named the winner of the Sustainable Development Goal 10 Challenge by One Young World – a world wide organization and competition which saw thousands of entries from all around the world. Zi received the award at the annual conference in London that year. Zi now lives and works between Bridgetown, Nairobi and Los Angeles with her partner and Co-Founder Thogori Karago.