Ulrika Modéer is director of the U.N. Development Programme’s Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy and also represents the U.N. Sustainable Development Group on the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership.

Ms. Ulrika Modéer began her role as UNDP's assistant administrator and director of the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy in August 2018. In this role she leads the organization in nurturing and growing key relationships with member states and new and emerging partners. She steers UNDP's communications and advocacy, as it works to realize the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals. She previously served as Sweden's state secretary for international development cooperation and climate and has been instrumental in reshaping the country's international development cooperation to support the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.

His Excellency Umaro Sissoco Embaló is the president of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. He also serves as the chair of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance, a coalition of African heads of state and government working to eliminate malaria on the continent. He has been a strong advocate for increased investment in health care, malaria prevention, and control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases in Africa, and has worked to mobilize resources and partnerships to support these efforts.

Ümit Kartoğlu is a medical doctor and has a doctorate in public health. He is a co-founder and CEO at Extensio et Progressio SARL, based in Geneva. Ümit began his career in Turkey — where he served at all levels of the national health system — before joining UNICEF and later serving at the headquarters of the World Health Organization. Ümit brought to life the Effective Vaccine Management initiative; the Global Training Network for Vaccine Management; the Performance, Quality and Safety initiative; and the Global Learning Opportunities network.

U.N. Women is the United Nations organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

Dr. Unni Krishnan is Plan International's head of disaster response and preparedness and a leading expert in the humanitarian sector. Over the past 20 years, he has worked on the front lines of various humanitarian situations, where people are faced with disasters, terror, epidemics and extreme weather events.

Upendo Mwingira is a leading expert in health systems and neglected tropical diseases. At RTI International, she serves as technical director of USAID’s Act to End NTDs | East program, a global flagship initiative to support governments in ending NTDs. A medical doctor by training, Mwingira has dedicated her career in public health to NTD research and implementation. Previously, she served in Tanzania’s Ministry of Health, where she led the national NTD control program.

Urmi Sengupta is a senior lecturer in spatial planning who is affiliated with Queen’s University Belfast. She has extensively researched and published about architectural, urban, and housing issues for cities in the global south, with a focus on Asia. She sits on the editorial boards of various academic journals and received her Ph.D. from Newcastle University.

Urvashi Aneja is an interdisciplinary researcher, policy analyst, and social entrepreneur from India. Her current work examines the ethics, social impacts, and governance of artificial intelligence in the global south. She is the founder and executive director of Digital Futures Lab, an associate fellow at Chatham House, and a nonresident fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Urvashi holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Her research has been cited in leading national and global media publications and she has served on expert government committees on artificial intelligence and frontier technologies.

Uyi Stewart is the chief data and technology officer at data.org, where he oversees the delivery of programmatic initiatives to accelerate the power of data and AI to solve some of our pressing global challenges. He holds a doctorate in Linguistics, with about 25 years’ experience advancing data for social impact in both public and private sectors.