Dr. ir. Nico Tillie holds a PhD in synergetic urban landscape planning from Delft University of Technology (TUDelft) in the Netherlands where he is a research fellow Urban Ecology and a professor in the section of Landscape Architecture. He leads the Urban Ecology & Ecocities joint graduation lab (UECL) between Landscape Architecture, Urbanism & Architecture. In recent years, he has worked on a combination of issues ranging from energy transition, low carbon cities, climate change, urban agriculture to biodiversity. He has two master degrees from Wageningen University, in Landscape Architecture as well as in plant breeding & plant taxonomy which he finished in the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He has worked for over 14 years for the city of Rotterdam where he was among other things responsible for the Museum Park planting design, the Rotterdam energy approach planning 2009 (REAP), public space & urban green plan, the EU projects (MUSIC) and two entries of the International Architecture Biennale – people make the inner city 2012 and the urban metabolism vision 2014. Till recently he was in the advisory board of the sustainable development site of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and is currently in the scientific Board of NL Greenlabel. He is also vice president of the World Council on City Data and Senior Fellow of the Global Cities Institute of the University of Toronto in Canada. He has written numerous scientific publications, book chapters and is author of several books. In the past years, he has lectured in over 30 countries and advised, local and national governments, the World Bank, African Development Bank and UN bodies. He will be the conference chair of the 2021 Ecocities World Summit in Rotterdam on sustainable cities.