November 10th

Rhiannon Bramer joined the United States Department of State as an economic coned Foreign Service Officer in 2015. Ms. Bramer completed her consular assignment in Lagos, Nigeria and served as the Environment, Science, Technology, and Health (ESTH) Officer in Islamabad, Pakistan. Ms. Bramer is currently assigned as the ESTH Officer at AIT Taipei, and recently graduated from AIT’s Chinese Language and Area Studies School. Before joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Bramer worked as a Program Specialist for the United States Agency for International Development, Office of Sudan and South Sudan Programs and in the non-profit sector programming and implementing wildlife conservation policy in Mongolia and South Sudan. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies from Marylhurst University and a Master of Arts in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Ms. Bramer’s languages French, Mongolian, and Chinese. She is a native of California and former United States Marine.

Dr. Julia Hsiang-Wen Huang is the Director-General of Ocean Conservation Administration, Ocean Affairs Council. She was born in Taipei, Taiwan. After receiving her master‘s degree from the Institute of Fisheries Science, National Taiwan University, she became a government officer. She worked in Fisheries Section, Bureau of Agriculture, Taipei County Government for five years. The major tasks included coastal fisheries resources conservation and fisheries statistics. Then she transferred to Fisheries Agency, Council of Agriculture for another eight years. She was responsible for distant water fisheries management and hence attended many international meetings, including staying three months in NMFS, and joining bilateral consultation with Japan Fisheries Agency. During that time, she got her Ph. D. from the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University. After that, she started to teach and research in National Taiwan Ocean University since 2008. Her major researches are fisheries bycatch of Taiwanese distant water tuna longline fisheries and fisheries dynamics of Taiwan coastal and offshore fisheries. Meanwhile, she has conducted many interesting projects with her students, such as Tuvalu, Indonesia and Vietnam fisheries management. With her Taiwanese students, they work for marine awareness, marine debris, diving motivation, analysis of voyage data recorder database, Taiwan fisheries management strategy, etc. It is a great job to work for marine affairs with young people in the University. In 2018, a new agency, Ocean Conservation Administration, is established for conservation of ocean around Taiwan. She was invited to be the Director-General till now. She hopes to apply her experience on marine affairs and lead the team to do their best to achieve the purposes of “Clean Water,” “Healthy Habitat,” and “Sustainable Resources” for Taiwan.

As the founder of Circular Taiwan Network, Charles is dedicated to promote Taiwan’s economic transition toward Circular Economy, an economic model that decouples economic growth from resource depletion and environmental impacts. Also, as the founder of Association of Food Waste Compost Promotion, Charles champions Circular Agriculture by advocating a clean and safe environment by producing fertilisers and bio-energy from local waste. Additionally, Charles was on the boards of New Frontier Foundation, a public policy think tank and Hao-Ran Foundation, a leading philanthropic institution dedicated to harnessing human rights, protecting environment, supporting development of healthy farming.

Charles has had diverse business background, as he served as the chairman of Taiwan Sugar Corp., a state-owned enterprise. Previously, he was the Chairman and CEO of TSRC Corp., a leading synthetic rubber manufacturer and marketer.Earlier in his professional career, Charles worked for Exxon Corporation, and Booz.Allen and Hamilton.

Charles Huang received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and earned his MBA from the Wharton School also at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nate Maynard is a Senior Consultant at Reset Carbon. We are on a mission to help businesses do their part in solving the environmental crisis by making meaningful reductions in their carbon, water, and waste footprint. Previously he was a research associate at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research and a Fulbright Fellow. He hosts a sustainability science podcast called "Waste Not Why Not".

FENC is the leading Polyester manufacturer of the world, and celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2019. FENC’s long- term effort on sustainable development is recognized worldwide - Global Corporate Sustainability Award, 2019 MSCI ESG Leaders Indexes A Level, FTSE4Good Emerging Index, etc.

We are working closely with our colleagues, PET industries, consumers and brands to develop different kinds of green and eco-friendly products, and create circular economy value chain. We hope to have more people are engaged and participate this green journey to circularity and empower possibility to protect our planet.

Damon joined Plastics Industry Development Center (PIDC) as a sustainable development consultant years ago, started from providing comprehensive consulting services to enterprises on CSR, material flow, carbon footprint management and many others. He also put a lot of efforts helping PIDC to establish the Ocean Plastic Coalition (OPC), a voluntary local circular economy cluster united by industrial up and downstream private sectors, aiming to turn ocean plastics into consumer products utilizing their knowledge and manufacturing capabilities. The coalition has many successful practices making products out of ocean plastic waste. Besides common ocean plastics, both PIDC and the OPC has been working on building waste fishing gears recycling business model recent years.

－Super Dragon Technology - Spokesperson & Strategic Adviser (2015 to Present)

－American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei - Board of Governors, Treasurer (2014-2015); Co-Chair of Sustainable Development Goals Committee (2016 - Present)

Cosmos worked in various investment banks including Barclays, Citigroup and The First Boston Corp (now Credit Swiss) in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taipei from 1988 to 2015. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School with Bachelor's degree in Economics in 1988; and St. Mary's International School in Tokyo in 1984.

David Yow is a policy communicator, and serves as Legislative Policy Administrator for the Port of San Diego. In that role, he comes alongside internal and external stakeholders, aligns legislative and regulatory interests, and translates Port District policy priorities into legislative action based on the belief that good politics is about addition, not subtraction.

At the Port, David is delighted to serve on a brilliant team of people who love San Diego Bay. Currently, he works with various Port District departments on pursuing public policy priorities at the state and federal level, and is proud to direct the strategic advocacy of maritime industry, tourism, water and land recreation, environmental stewardship and public safety. Engaging the Legislature and Congress – and multiple agencies in both Sacramento and Washington – is an ever-changing challenge, whether it’s building support for solutions to cross-border pollution or evangelizing the promise that blue technology holds for the environment and precious natural resources, such as San Diego Bay. He also enjoys investing time with his family and connecting people to the joy of professional-caliber live choral music in the San Diego Master Chorale.

Port of San Diego Bio:

As part of the Port of San Diego’s efforts to continue leading and accelerating the Blue Economy, in 2016 it established an Aquaculture and Blue Tech Program to assist in the creation, early development, and initial scaling of new Blue Economy business ventures along San Diego Bay. Under the program, the Port is building a Blue Economy Incubator to support entrepreneurship, foster sustainable aquaculture, and help drive blue tech innovation. Water dependent business is a long and proud tradition at the Port and its sustainable future is critical to our region’s long term success of water dependent fisheries and technologies. To this end, the Port will accept proposals for new business plans from potential partners whose core purpose is to share in this mission. Specifically, the Port has established a business incubator and investment program to assist in the creation, early development, and initial scaling of new business ventures targeted at key specific segment of the Blue Economy: Aquaculture & Blue Tech.

Freek van Eijk is CEO of Holland Circular Hotspot, a public-private initiative, that wants to make Circular Economy happen by sharing Dutch knowledge and innovation and stimulate international partnerships by connecting governments, knowledge institutions and businesses.

Freek van Eijk is also vice-chair of the Circular Biobased Delta, an alliance of Dutch provinces, businesses and knowledge centres that is pioneering a sustainable circular and biobased economy.

He is one of the most senior Dutch experts in the field of Waste Management and Circular Economy. He also serves as Managing Director of Acceleratio.

Previously, he served for over a decade as Director of strategy and PA at multinational SUEZ and served as a board member at the Dutch Waste Management Association, the Society and Enterprise Foundation and acted as a Sherpa of the EU Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials.

He is an MSc. Eng. (Delft University of Technology)

Dr. Alex Peng is Executive Vice President of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). His fields of focus include Circular Economy, Energy & Electronic Materials, and Strategy and R&D Planning. He has accomplished R&D, technology transfer and commercialization. , is the inventor of 26 patents, winner of R&D 100 Award in 2009、2017 for high safety Lithium ion battery, establishment of 5 successful startup companies. Dr. Peng leads the Advanced R&D Programs and Circular Economy in ITRI. He also actively promotes Open Innovation System Platform (OISP) enabling global collaboration among academia, R&D institutes and industry. Dr. Peng was former President of Material Research Society-Taiwan and Past Presidents of Taiwan Corrosion & Protection Association & President of Taiwan Battery Association.

Academic Background

1982~1987

Material Science, Manchester University, UK, M.Sc. & Ph.D

1973~1978

Chemical Engineering, Taipei Institute of Technology

Professional Experiences

2018~

Executive Vice President of Industrial Technology Research Institute

2015~2018

Vice President & General Director of Material and Chemical Research Laboratories, ITRI

2011~2015

General Director, Office of Strategy and R&D Planning, ITRI

Awards & Others

－Fellow, Chinese society for management of technology (2015)

－Material Research Society-Taiwan -Fellow (2015)

－Material Technology Outstanding Contribution Award (2012)

－R&D 100 Award by US R&D Magazine for highly safe STOBA Lithium battery (2009,2017)

－The excellent project achivement award of MOEA (2004,2006,2008)

－Published 76 papers and owned 26 patents

Chris leads the Asia Program at Closed Loop Partners. She has 14 years of cross-sector experience in financial service and philanthropy sectors in Asia, Europe and the U.S. She has gained extensive investing experience focusing on investment themes from education to sustainability. Chris played an active role in the impact investing community in the U.S. where she served as advisor for various accelerator programs: Braintrust- Climate NYC by the World Economic Forum Global Shapers, Echoing Green’ Climate Fellow program. Chris earned her Executive MBA from the global joint program with Columbia Business School, London Business School and HK University.

Kathleen Salyer is the Deputy Director of the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), a position she has held since January 2015. The Office is responsible for promoting resource conservation through sustainable materials management, ensuring safe management of solid and hazardous waste and cleaning up environmental contamination at hazardous waste management facilities. Kathleen leads efforts on Sustainable Materials Management, including wasted food, life cycle analysis, built environment, and sustainable packaging. She is actively engaged in the G7 Alliance on Resource Efficiency, G20 Resource Efficiency Dialogue, UNEP International Resource Panel and collaborations with other international partners. Prior to her current position, Kathleen was an Assistant Director of the Superfund Program in U.S. EPA Region 9 in San Francisco, California. She has over 30 years’ experience in environmental management. Kathleen has a BA in Geology from Whitman College and a Masters in Environmental Public Policy from University of Maryland, College Park.