A graduate of City College of New York, Nripal Adhikary is currently working in Nepal for ABARI . He has been working with bamboo and earth as construction materials in more than 25 countries for over ten years. In the last three years since the Nepal earthquake, he has built and designed many government schools, homes, libraries and luxury hotels using local materials. He works with hundreds of farmers and artisans to plant bamboo along the riverbanks of Chitwan for use in bamboo-based crafts.
As Chairwoman of National Handicraft Development Corporation (Kraftangan Malaysia ), Suryani Senja Alias advocates for the re-shaping of the national craft landscape in Malaysia. She herself is active in the creative community through her artisanal brand, Senijari, and her contemporary art gallery, Cult Gallery. She serves as the board director and co-founder of Think City, an organisation that works with communities and local councils to make cities people-friendly, liveable and resilient.
Santiago Alfaro is a sociologist, author and professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) currently studying the Peruvian craft sector for the British Council Peru. His interests lie in cultural policies, contemporary craft, ethnicity and cultural and creative industries economics. He was the deputy manager of performing arts and cultural industries at the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima and general director of cultural industries and arts at the Ministry of Culture.
Gil Zaire “Butch” Carungay is the Managing Director of ZAI Design Hive and Chief Reinvention Officer of district 32 at mactan|cebu. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Marketing and Finance, he serves as Chair of the Cebu Business Council of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines. He led the Cebu UNESCO Creative City working group initiative and was the Creative Director of the first Cebu Design Week. www.maticph.wordpress.com
Kenneth Cobonpue is a multi-awarded furniture designer and manufacturer from Cebu, Philippines. His design career began in 1987, studying Industrial Design at the Pratt Institute in New York. While completing his studies, he apprenticed for a leather and wood workshop in Italy. He went on to study Furniture Marketing and Production at the Export-Akademie BadenWürttemberg in Reutlingen, Germany under a private and state scholarship program and subsequently worked in Bielefeld and Munich.
Daniel Donnelly is Programme Lead, Arts and Creative Industries, East Asia. He has worked for the British Council since 2018, having been based in Egypt, India and Morocco before being assigned in Singapore. Daniel’s primary focus is on four programmes for the British Council : Crafting Futures, Creative Hubs for Good Connections through Culture and Creative Skills and Leadership.
The Curator and Editor of Making Futures at Plymouth College of Art, Malcolm Ferris. He has developed Making Futures as an international research platform exploring the future of contemporary art, craft, design-to-make and neo artisanal maker practices as 'change agents’ in society. Malcolm also curated the flagship digital gallery for the UK’s National Media Museum He regularly presents and publishes for journals and international fora.