This social leader has dedicated her life to helping others, for example, in her role as President of the Neighborhood Board for over 25 years. La Gloria, the community where she lives, suffered a fire that consumed almost all of the homes and community spaces. It is here that, along with other neighbors, they had to transform in order to overcome the trauma and start over, which was supported by a team from the Social Solidarity and Innovation Fund of the Ministry of Social Development, Transformas Chile Consultores Limitada (TRANSMEDIA) and the University of Chile (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXbH5RsAu5Q&t=1s). She is an example of courage, endurance and dedication to others.

Ms. Sonia, was born in La Gloria of Pumanque in 1946, and learned craft skills, which were passed down through her family from generation to generation, with her mother being a fundamental part of this. In addition to social work and crafts, Sonia is active in ecclesiastical and cultural participation.

Susi's work focuses on adaptation to climate change, vulnerability, resilience, climate change communication, social change, decision support and the interaction between scientists, policy-makers and the public. She is a geographer by training (Ph.D. 1997, Clark University) with an interest in how social science can inform society's responses to this global challenge. She has worked in coastal areas, urban and rural communities, with forest-reliant communities, and on human health issues.

Susi contributed to Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports, served as Review Editor on the IPCC’s Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,” and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the IPCC's Special Report on the "Impacts of 1.5 Degree C and Associated Emissions Pathways." She was also a Convening Lead Author for the coastal chapter of the Third US National Climate Assessment (NCA), and a member of the federal advisory committee to that assessment. Over the years, she has advised federal, state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, professional societies, and foundations on various aspects of climate change.

Diego Galafassi is a transdisciplinary artist with a practice grounded at the Art/Science interface and co-creative processes in experimental cinema, augmented reality storytelling and participatory performance. During his PhD in Sustainability Science at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Diego blended systems approaches and artistic practice within co-creative spaces in East Africa and Europe to explore how imagination may be a source of transformative action. Currently Diego is artist-in-residency at Sundance New Frontier at Johns Hopkins (USA) and post-doc researcher at LUCSUS. Diego leads the project www.artsfortransformations.earth. 

Karen O'Brien is an internationally recognized expert on climate change and society, focusing on themes such as climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation including how climate change interacts with globalization processes and the implications for human security. She is interested in how transdisciplinary and integral approaches to global change research can contribute to a better understanding of how societies both create and respond to change, and particularly the role of beliefs, values and worldview in transformations to sustainability. She has been heavily involved in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Global Change Programmes and the transition to Future Earth, a 10-year global change research initiative. She is the co-founder and partner in cCHANGE, an Oslo-based company, that is a beacon for individuals and organizations seeking a new perspective, inspiration, knowledge, and tools on climate change and sustainability transformations.

Mariana Walter is an ecological economist and scholar activist based at the Sciences and Technologies Institute (ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona). Her research addresses extractive conflicts, environmental justice movements and their role fostering just transformations towards sustainability. Her work has been published in International journals and books such as Ecological Economics, Global Environmental Change, Geoforum and Sustainability Science, among others. She was the scientific coordinator of the ACKnowl-EJ project (Activist-academic Co-production of Knowledge for Environmental Justice, www.acknowlej.org 2016-2019).

Ioan Fazey is Professor of Social Dimensions of Environment and Change with a focus on understanding how to achieve fundamental and significant shifts in society towards more regenerative and sustainable futures. He is a transdisciplinary researcher, using a variety of action-oriented science and social science methods working at the interface of academia and practice. This includes collaborations with economists, ecologists, educationalists, modelers, social sciences, humanities and the arts and with those from policy, practice, local communities and government and non-government organizations.

Mark Howden is the Director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University. He has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles. Issues he has addressed include agriculture and food security, the natural resource base, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy, water and urban systems. Mark has over 420 publications of different types. He helped develop both the national and international greenhouse gas inventories that are a fundamental part of the Paris Agreement and has assessed sustainable ways to reduce emissions. He has been a major contributor to the IPCC since 1991, with roles in the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and now Sixth Assessment Reports, sharing the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC participants and Al Gore.

Music TRANSFORMED her and inspired her to transform others. The grief and longing of a girl were transformed 20 years later in a labor of love, in union with other young Rapa Nui dreamers, they founded the NGO Toki.

Mahani lived a deep personal transformation to follow her dream inspired by music and to develop her piano talent. The transformation began when she left her beloved island, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), at 9 years of age, and moved to “another world”, to live on “El Conti” (the name given by native Rapa Nui people to refer to Chile, as part of the American continent), in the city of Valdivia in southern Chile. This change was beautiful because of art but painful for having to live in a culture diametrically different from her own. The result of living so far away and her nostalgia created a deep desire to change the existing reality on the Island. From this, the dream of creating a Music and Arts school was born to give opportunities, that were previously non-existent for the children of the Island, so that, through the transformative power of music they could be free from drugs and alcohol, improving society through music.

In 2012, the Toki Rapa Nui School of Music and Arts was opened, which today teaches more than 100 children classical and traditional instruments for free, in a 100% sustainable building, constructed with recyclable materials, solar panels and rainwater collectors.

Mark Pelling is a professor in the Department of Geography and the Programme Director of the Disasters, Adaptation and Development (DAD) Programme.

His research interests are in the institutions and social relationships that shape vulnerability and adaptation to natural disasters, including those associated with climate change, and the ways in which conflicting values and practices of development inform resilience and transformation in the face of environmental change.

Mark has served as a Coordinating Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) and its Fifth Assessment Report. He also sits on the Scientific Steering Committees for the IGBP-IHDP core project Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) and the ICSU core project Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR).

Mark convenes an MA in Disasters Adaptation and Development which includes the student managed blog Masters of Disaster.

Paty Romero-Lankao has a joint appoint as a Senior Research Scientist at the Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center of NREL and the University of Chicago's Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation. She has several research grants, and some 120 peer-reviewed publications.

Her work primarily focuses on three broad areas of research: (1) The dynamics of urbanisation and urban systems that shape inequality in risk at multiple scales; (2) The links between risks and food, energy and water (FEW) systems in cities; and (3) Governance and institutional capacities to adapt to and mitigate environmental risks in cities. Paty has extensive experience as a sociologist working across disciplines, and at the science-policy interface in the US and internationally. She was a co-leading author to Working Group II of the Nobel prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007). Paty cares deeply about her family and friends, but she is also passionately engaged in finding options to move humankind toward a more sustainable and fair future.

Co-founder of the award-winning TriCiclos recycling company, he was converted: he was heading on the traditional business path, but changed to the environmental side, thus generating multiple spaces and transformative actions, both in the private sector and in society, with impacts at the national and international levels.

Given the context in which Gonzalo finds himself with his role as champion of the COP25, he seeks to mobilize climate action from non-state actors to achieve a low carbon economy, and today, this means measures and transition actions are being taken to achieve the transformation of all sectors to address climate change and the challenges of the 2030 agenda.

Co-founder and CEO of TriCiclos, the first B Certified Company in South America. National prize for environmental innovation (AVONNI) 2011; Environmental figure of Chile (MMA) 2012; Social entrepreneur of Chile (Schwab Foundation) 2013; World Economic Forum Social entrepreneur of the year 2015; Global Responsible Leader (BMW Foundation) 2016. Ashoka Fellow since 2011. Endeavor entrepreneur since 2014.

Co-founder of SistemaB; BLab board member; co-founder and chairman of the board of Viña Polkura. Member of the global advisory board of the New Plastics Economy at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Ursula Oswald Spring is a Research Professor at the Regional Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and coordinates the Department of Gender and Equity. Her research interests are in social relations, human, gender and environmental security, adaptation and resilience to disasters associated with climate change, and social and environmental vulnerability, including the ways in which official development programmes and practices conflict with sustainable development and gender values for peaceful negotiation of environmental and social conflicts. By applying a bottom-up approach, she has helped to transform traditional adaptation and resilience practices in Mexico, a country that is highly exposed to extreme events related to global environmental change.

Ursula has served as an author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters (SREX) and its Fifth Assessment Report. She belongs to the Scientific Steering Committee for RIOCC, an Ibero-American programme for adaption to climate change. She was the first chair on social vulnerability at the United Nations University in Bonn (UNU-EHS), she is currently on the IIASA Task Force and the President of the Advising Committee of Campesino University. She has worked together with women, indigenous groups, rural communities, and urban communities to improve their resilience to climate-related disasters.

My path has taken me from the category of female to male, understanding that this process has had its ups and downs, highs and lows, reproaches and praise. This is also how my transformation has also had a hint of adventure. Given the impending discrimination, my option was to study, to leave the country in search of new horizons, where I accumulated experiences and knowledge that made me able to face academic and work life. But there was an emptiness, escape was not the solution. The transformation had to be greater, it was not enough to just modify my body, we had to transform society. TRANSformation always implies a challenge, from the micro to the macro; in the case of transsexuality, this modification is evident, and socially observed, from this prism, my position before the world is that the change experienced can grant tools that help, propose, move, and channel those necessary transformations worldwide, starting from the micro, the body, and increasing towards everyday spaces, until reaching the city, country, and why not, planetary levels.

Steve is currently the Lead Steward of Financing Transformations and the Lead Staff for the SDG Transformations Forum, as well as being the head of Networking Action.

For over 30 years Steve has focused on multi-stakeholder large systems change and transformation to address critical issues. He does this as a researcher, consultant, educator, and through personal leadership with a range of clients and partners globally. He is currently Lead Staff of the SDG Transformations Forum.

Steve’s work is associated with three key concepts on transformations: “societal learning and change,” which is a deep collaborative change strategy to address chronic and complex issues; “global action networks”, which is an emerging form of global governance that addresses issues requiring deep change; and “large systems change” which deals with profound shifts in individual orientations, organisational structures and societal institutions.