Hans Diels is a future thinker and geopolitics expert at entrepreneurial platform ETION. He takes you through the major trends that are changing the world, and elaborates on the impact they will have on us as entrepreneurs and the solar shading industry. He explains how geopolitics and economics have become intertwined, what that means for countries and companies and how they can deal with it. With striking examples, he shows the need to adapt to this new reality. With great fervour, he guides you through a world in full change and gives companies tools to navigate their way through this uncertain world.

Prof. Deborah Andrews has 20+ years' experience in sustainable design and manufacture, the Circular Economy and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment. She adopts a whole systems approach to the challenges of sustainability and circularity that include consideration of all life cycle stages from design, through use and end-of-life. She is engaged in related research and enterprise activities with various sectors including the solar shading industry. Deborah has led and collaborated on several significant EU-funded projects including with CEDaCI, which generated ground-breaking research to develop a Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry. 

Prof. Shady Attia is an architectural engineer and professor in sustainable architecture & building technology at the University of Liège, Belgium. He has expertise in building physics, performance simulation/optimisation & post-occupancy evaluation. His research is focused on informed decision support for a range of domains from the design of user-centered and carbon-neutral buildings to the evaluation of the indoor-outdoor environmental quality. 

Andrew Chalk saw the light after a marketing career with IBM and Black & Decker and started in the solar shading industry in 1998 as a Director, then Managing Director, of a trade supplier of specialist blinds. He started working for the British Blind and Shutter Association (BBSA) in 2008 as Director of Operations and one of his first priorities was to help the BBSA to join ES-SO. In his role with the BBSA he is involved in all aspects of the association. He has a particular interest in helping members understand and promote the proven performance benefits of solar shading products – and in helping those outside the industry understand the true benefits dynamic solar shading can bring to buildings and those who live and work in them.             It's a never-ending journey, but a fun one!