DAVID KOROWICZ

David is working on understanding large-scale systemic risk and supporting policy and sociatial responses. Up until the beginning of 2020, he was director of Risk and Response at the Geneva Global Initiative. Here his work was aimed at encouraging and supporting large-scale preparedness and contingency planning for intensifying large-scale systemic risks. This included engagement with governments, contingency agencies, militaries, intergovernmental and civil society organisations. He is a fellow of The Institute for Integrated Economic Research-Australia.

He is a systems thinker, physicist and human systems ecologist, interested in the challenges to our societies arising from the transformation of risk. This fits into his broader interests into the evolution, stability, and collapse of complex socio-economic systems. He is an advocate for a re-appraisal of risk and the need for societal resilience, instability preparedness, and catastrophic shock planning.

David draws upon ideas from fields such as ecology, complexity and systems science to shed light on emergent risks, vulnerabilities and uncertainties. He has written influential studies on the financial and socio-economic implications of a peak in global oil production; the propagation of catastrophic financial and monetary shocks through trade networks and critical infrastructures. He has also worked on pandemic shocks and integrated approaches to systemic risk.

He has given briefings, lectures and delivered workshops world-wide to governmental and non-governmental organisations, critical institutions, critical infrastructure companies and the general public. He taught a masters course Human Systems Ecology & Systemic Risk at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. David was a ministerial appointment to the council of Comhar, Ireland’s sustainable development commission. He spent a number of years on the executive committee of Feasta, The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability – a think-tank. David also made a significant contribution to the Foresight Analysis Nexus.

David studied physics at Trinity College Dublin, the University of London and the Tyndall National Institute.

RÓISÍN MARKHAM

Director of Innovation Services at BDT Consultancy, Róisín Markham is a systems expert and design thinking pioneer. An innovator, founder, and future-thinker, she has worked for more than twenty years helping clients align process to purpose by drawing a path from strategy to sustainable action.

Róisín uses participatory design processes to help organisations co-create clean, simple solutions. Her clients are curious about and ready to discover new ways of working. As Director of Innovation Services at BDT Consultancy, she has delivered regenerative solutions for Aer Lingus, VHI, BoI, PTSB, the HSE, ESRI, Vodafone, Bord Bia, The Dock, Accenture, DCCOI, GEAI, Corporate Wellness Ireland, Failte Ireland, The Irish Mental Health Commission, and more.

A specialist in design strategy, service design and emergent systems change, Róisín brings joyful, interdisciplinary practices into the room. She asks questions and supports clients exploring areas of potential risk with integrity and collective ownership for all stakeholders. 

As a workshop facilitator, she introduces clients to new ways of looking, listening and thinking. Róisín knows that innovation thrives in environments where disruption can be truly transformative. 

Located in Ireland, with a global perspective, she is founder and network steward of the Irish Doughnut Economics Network #IDEN, a Scale Ireland advisor on sustainability, and a global patent holder.

A generous skills-sharer and ideas connector, Róisín is a visiting lecturer on design thinking and rapid prototyping at NUI Galway, and on product design and digital facilitation practice at NCAD. 

MELLA OBROLCHAIN

Mella is a graphic designer, a lock-keeper and an activist. Her main design projects in recent years have concentrated on raising awareness around waste management – food waste, recycling and Reuse Month.

She has designed and run outdoor team-building events, believing that games are a particularly good way of focusing the mind and activating creativity. She is hoping to help develop a team game based around Community Resilience as part of her work with RASDA.

She is currently a member of the Environmental Pillar of the Leitrim PPN secretariat.