Speakers

Career history:

Dr. Kenji Yamaji, Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo, is Director-General of the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) since April 1, 2010. He is President of the Japan Institute of Energy and former President of the Japan Society of Energy and Resources. Dr. Yamaji’s immediate past position was a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems at the University of Tokyo. He obtained B.S., M.S., and Dr. of Engineering degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1972, 1974, 1977 respectively. During the earlier part of his career, Dr. Yamaji had been extensively involved in the analysis of energy technology assessment, mainly at the Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) in Japan. He has published more than 80 books as well as many research papers on energy systems, and he is also serving in many advisory bodies on energy and environmental policy for Japanese government. Dr. Yamaji contributed to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a lead author for 3rd and 4th Assessment Reports of WG3.

Areas of expertise:

Energy Systems Engineering

Topic of Presentation:

Energy Transition and Role of Gas

Career history:

After economics and legal studies in Australia and Japan, Chris joined Shell in 1981 and worked in Australia, before undertaking a series of overseas assignments in Tokyo, London, and Kuala Lumpur.
He returned to Shell Australia as head of Corporate Planning & Economics, and in 1996 became its National Retail Manager responsible for the service station and related businesses. In 1998 he was appointed Shell Australia’s General Manager - Natural Gas. He was then assigned to London as Vice President - North Asia for Shell International Gas, and in 2000 he was appointed President of Shell Gas & Power Japan.
From 2003 to 2009 Chris had responsibility for the development and management of Shell Australia’s integrated Exploration & Production and Gas & Power business as its Chief Operating Officer.
He returned to Tokyo in April 2009 as Country Chairman and President of Shell Japan, and in 2013 he was appointed Country Chairman and President of Shell Korea.
In 2015 he resumed the role of Country Chairman and President of Shell Japan Limited, and is President of Shell Chemicals Japan Ltd. and a non-executive director of Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. Chris is also an Executive Committee Member of International Gas Union (IGU).

Areas of expertise:

Upstream oil and gas development, Liquefied Natural Gas, energy policies, Downstream oil business, corporate management

Topic of Presentation:

High Efficiency Fossil Power Plants

Career history:

Graduated from Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo in 1966. Entered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and worked as a design engineer for thermal power plants. Also engaged in R&D area as Low NOx Burners, Fuel Cells, and Coal gasification. Left MHI in 2001 as a Director and Chief Engineer. In September, 2008 appointed as a project professor for advanced energy conversion engineering in Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo. Awarded distinguished award three times from the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME).

Areas of expertise:

High efficiency thermal power plants. Fuel cells. Air pollution prevention equipment. Coal gasification.

Topic of Presentation:

Design and implementation of smart Building, campus and city using advanced Internet technology and based on the Internet architecture framework

Career history:

He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees from Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, in 1985 and 1987, respectively. And, he received Ph.D from University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1998. In 1987, he joined Research and Development Center, Toshiba Corporation. From 1990 to 1991, he has been at Bellcore Inc., New Jersey (USA),and from 1994 to 1996, he has been at Columbia University in New York (USA). He is a BoT(Board of Trustee) for ISOC (Internet Society), a director of WIDE Project and director of Green University of Tokyo Project since 2008.

Areas of expertise:

Smart Building, campus and city using advanced Internet technology and based on the Internet architecture framework.
Global and ubiquitous sensor networking for IoT(Internet of Things) using TCP/IP and IEEE1888

Topic of Presentation:

Urban development and energy system

Career history:

Professor of Practice at Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (graduate university created and operated in collaboration with MIT) since 2011. Previous assignments: head of Masdar City’s Energy Department (UAE, 4 years), International Energy Group (UAE, 2 years), University of Québec (Canada, 4 years), Silicon Energy (USA, 4 years), Raab Karcher Energy Services (Germany, 3 years) and Schlumberger Research (France, 5 years). Dr Afshari holds an Engineering Diploma in Energy Engineering from INSA (France), an MSc in Control & Signal Processing and a PhD in Physics from the University of Paris XI (France) as well as an MBA from INSEAD (France).

Areas of expertise:

25 years of experience in Buildings Energy Efficiency and Demand-Side Management (DSM). Current research interests include urban energy modeling, load forecasting, fault detection & diagnosis, decision support for DSM and renewable energies.

Topic of Presentation:

Energy efficiency in the built environment DSM
Research tracks in the UAE

Career history:

Michael Obersteiner is Program Director of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. He joined IIASA's Forestry Program (FOR) in 1993 and has been leading the Group on Global Land-Use Modeling and Environmental Economics since 2001.

Dr. Obersteiner completed graduate studies both in Austria (BOKU University and Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and abroad (Columbia University, New York and Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk).

Since 2004 he substantially contributed to the developing, establishing and managing of the IIASA-ESM integrated modeling cluster which includes widely recognized global biophysical and economic models in the area of agriculture, forestry and land use (G4M, EPIC, GLOBIOM)

From 2008 to 2009, Dr. Obersteiner served as a seconded Staff Expert for the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland. During the past decade, Dr. Obersteiner has been the principle investigator at IIASA of more than 30 international projects covering diverse fields of different scales and numerous funding organizations. He has been the coordinator of three EU FP6/7 Projects (http://www.insea-eu.info, http://www.geo-bene.eu, http://www.cctame.eu) and 1 ICI project covering the REDD countries such as Brazil, Congo Basin Countries, and various tropical countries in Asia.

Dr. Obersteiner has been a consultant to a number of national and international organizations, including inter alia the European Commission, WWF, OECD, and other national and international institutions. He is author of over 250 scientific papers and consultancy reports in the above mentioned fields.

Areas of expertise:

His background includes the fields of global terrestrial ecosystems and economics, specializing in REDD and REDD+ modeling as well as policy assessments with particular expertise on the tropical forest zones of South America, Africa and Asia.

His research experience stretches from biophysical modeling in the areas of ecosystems, forestry and agriculture to economics, finance and integrated assessment, Climate Mitigation and Adaptation, Nutrient Management, Biodiversity Conservation, Water Management, and Food Security, as documented in his publications record.