Peter is an experienced evaluator and assessor of complex projects in the fields of environment and energy. He has undertaken environmental due diligences for major deals by the venture capital sector. Peter is involved in renewable energy studies in emerging and developing countries since 2004.

He is the bio-energy topic leader of Partners for Innovation and is carrying out sustainability assessments of Jatropha plantations in Mozambique and Madagascar.

Peter obtained a degree in international environmental policy (MSc) and in chemical engineering (MSc).

David has a Msc. Agricultural management Projects, he has 20 years experience in development and management of agricultural projects.

He is the general manager of Agroipsa (Agroindustrias Piñón S.A). Agroipsa startedoperations in October 2006, and they have planted 1250 hectares of Jatropha curcas.

David is also a Biofuel Adviser for the:

Government of Honduras and The Salvador,

Adviser for jatropha enterprices in México, Guatemala and Ecuador

Brian Brokowski is vice president of marketing and communications for SG Biofuels, a bioenergy crop company using breeding and biotechnology to develop and produce elite seeds of Jatropha.   In this role, Mr. Brokowski oversees global marketing, media relations and public affairs activities. 

He has more than 15 years experience in communications and marketing working with corporate, consumer, government and non-profit organizations.  He most recently worked with Sempra Energy where he managed media efforts surrounding several high profile renewable energy projects.

He spent ten years with Fleishman-Hillard, one of the largest public relations agencies in the world, where he led programs for some of the nation’s most recognized brands, as well as emerging companies.

Mr. Brokowski graduated magna cum laude from the University of San Diego with a degree in communications and political science.  He is a regular speaker on Jatropha, presenting at conferences around the world including the Pacific Rim Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Andean Energy Conference in Bogota, Colombia.

Bart Rosendaal has more than 10 years’ experience in the petrochemical industry. Bart is in charge of sourcing & logistics at SkyNRG.

He is currently senior project manager at the Biofuels division of North Sea Petroleum Holding.

Bart is the founder of Rosendaal Energy, a Dutch bio-diesel refinery, as well as Laura Algae Technology. He previously worked as process engineer at Kuwait Petroleum Europoort and as a trader at Sabic and DSM.

Bart holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Eindhoven University of Technology.

Mrs Myllymaki graduated from Helsinki University of Technology with a Master of Sciences Degree in Chemical Engineering. She has also made Executive studies in London Business School.  

She has over 15  years experience in chemical industry where she has held several managerial positions including production, strategic planning and Mergers and Acqusitions operations. She has spent 8 years in financing business mainly as investor focusing on renewable energy and forestry projects in emerging markets. 

In Neste Oil she is now heading the feedstock development of Renewable Fuels business.

Alessandro Berti has more than 7 years experience in the renewable energy field. He is currently the head of bioenergy and biofuel in the Business Development Division of api nòva energia. Alessandro previously worked in the bioenergy sector in various italian consultancy firms.

He currently also holds the position of business development manager of SAB s.r.l. Joint Venture between api group and maccaferri group, created to jointly invest in to the biomass-to-energy business.

With economic background, Alessandro holds an MSc in Engineering for renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development.

Bart Dehue is a Managing Consultant at Ecofys, an international Consultancy on Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. He coordinates Ecofys’ work regarding the Sustainable Supply of Biomass for Bioenergy.

Bart assisted the UK in setting up the world’s first operational Biofuel Sustainability Scheme, the UK RTFO, and currently assists the EC with the practical implementation of the sustainability scheme of the RED. Next to policy developments, Bart assists companies in both the biofuel sector and electricity sector in credibly and practically managing their sustainability risks.

With respect to Jatropha he analysed the GHG performance of Jatropha for D1 and assists companies in the responsible land selection for their Jatropha projects.

In his speech, Bart will talk about the practical challenges that the sustainability requirements of the RED will pose for the biofuel industry.

Helge Zieler is Senior Director of Plant Genomics at Synthetic Genomics Inc., a biotechnology company in La Jolla CA. The company works on a number of different projects in the biofuel space. In his 4 years at the company, Helge worked primarily on the genomics of oil palm and jatropha, two high-yielding perennial tropical oilseed plants.

Helge received his scientific training in molecular genetics in Paul Berg’s laboratory at Stanford University. Following his PhD he spent several years in malaria research, including extensive field work in West Africa and the Brazilian Amazon. He started working with plants after his post-doc, heading a plant gene targeting effort at Akkadix, a small biotech company in the San Diego area. From there he moved on to Chromatin, Inc. in Chicago, where he worked as a member of a team that successfully built and tested plant artificial chromosomes in four crop species. He has over 10 years experience in plant biotechnology.

Helge believes that plants are our future, that genetics has no limits, that good products come from happy people, and that new and creative approaches, coupled with breeding and with the natural biological tendencies of a plant, will allow us to achieve great progress in plant improvement and the sustainability of agriculture within our lifetimes.

Dr. Miranda van de Rhee obtained a PhD degree from Leiden University in The Netherlands. She specialized in Plant Molecular Biology. She was a post-doc researcher in several universities and research institutions.

She has worked for Genetwister Technologies in Wageningen for 8 years. The company focusses on using molecular biology and biotechnology to improve and measure quality of plant products.

Professor Dr Ashwani Kumar Ph.D., Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (Germany), Department of Botany, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur India has worked on developing agro-technology  for bio-fuel  production and Jatropha  curcas for the last 30 years.

He participated  in micro mission project of Department of Biotechnology, Govt of India for the last 10 years and developed high yielding accessions of Jatropha which are now under multilocational trials. He has presented his results at the almost all the EU conferences on biomass starting from 1982 onwards. He has published over 150 articles related with  production and improvement of bio-fuel producing plants.

He has over 35 years association with Justus Liebig Universitat Giessen, Germany,  with Professor Dr Karl-Hermann Neumann and presently working with Professor Dr Sven Schubert.

He was the advisor to World Bank and UNDP Project granted to SCM SPRI, Jaipur 302004 on Jatropha Fences for Fuel and women empowerment.

Presently, he is a consultant to BETANIA BIOTECH, Spain.

Dr. Henk Joos is the D1 Oils Science and Technology director of D1 Oils. D1 is one the world's leading Jatropha companies and has extensive experience in many aspects of Jatropha project development.

Henk has substantial expertise in global agriculture and has been involved in product and business development of a range of agricultural crops. Henk provides leadership within D1 to develop the science basis to understand where and how to grow Jatropha curcas along with the development of an understanding which genetics of Jatropha are best adapted to which growing conditions and the development of better performing Jatropha cultivars.

The Science and Technology team within D1 Oils also has substantial expertise in downstream processing technology on oil crops in general and Jatropha specifically and developed a new method to co-produce oil and high protein meal of Jatropha."

Dr. Georg Gruber studied Economics and Natural Resource Management at the University of Erlangen/Nürnberg and the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB).

For about 25 years, he has been working on the subject of pure plant oil in internal combustion engines, since 1993 as co-owner of Vereinigte Werkstätten für Pflanzenöltechnologie Dotzer, Dr. Gruber, Kaiser GbR which holds more than 20 patents/patent applications on pure plant oil engine technology, fuel production and fuel quality.

Dr. Gruber's engine and fuel quality related experience with jatropha started with early GTZ projects in Mali, Cap Verde and nowadays in Ecuador, Galapagos, Peru. He also does jatropha consultancy for governmental and non-governmental organizations, is member of the German DIN organization for plant oil/rapeseed oil standardization and chairman of the European CEN Workshop 56 on 2nd generation pure plant oil.

Mr. Willem Prins studied Port economics, logistics, freight forwarding, storage, supervision and grain trading. He started his career in the forwarding departments of SGS, Alvat and Otterboer. He has been active in the agri commodities sector since 1969,.

Currently, he is the manager of development with an accredited superintendent for GAFTA, FOSFA, ECA and FCC. He is a board member of Amsterdam Port Consultants.

Since 2008 Mr Prins has had an active role within BFP Africa as a technical advisor and is a member of the supervisory board.

Mr Prins has a vast understanding of the commodity market in general and specific expert knowledge on commodity trading, supply chains and logistics. He participated in numerous projects, amongst others a loading terminal for cereals and biomass, biomass fuel pellets logistics and development of a cacao bulk handling terminal. He also has extensive experience setting up business on the African continent.

Willem Jan is a graduate in International Economics and Business Administration from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. 

In a 15 year career with Shell he, amongst others, lived and worked in Botswana and was responsible for the Solar Energy and Small Scale Biomass division.

He joined TNT in 2000. There he has been responsible for major M&A transactions, lived and worked in Shanghai and is currently responsible for Mail Networks outside The Netherlands.

In 2008 Willem Jan joined the Board of BERL (Bio Energy Resources Limited) in Malawi as a non executive Director.   

Mr Khoo Hock Aun leads the Ark Bio/Cosmo Biofuels Group which is actively engaged in establishing oil palm, jatropha curcas, and pongamia plantations, biodiesel downstream processing and trading activities in the Asia Pacific region.

He is presently developing markets and partnerships for an oilseed-to-biodiesel supply chain based on the Group's proprietary processing technology for all oilseed crops including use of oil palm and coconut biomass for second generation biofuel.

He is Advisor/Strategist for the International Jatropha Organisation, Vice-Chair, Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels and Secretary-General, Malaysian Bio-Industry Organisation.

Mr Khoo Hock Aun graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Agribusiness) from Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang in 1978 and was a Nuffield Foundation Study Fellow in 1988 with the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. He has managed, in a period spanning over two decades, a number of trade associations in both in Malaysia and South East Asia.

Dr. Hong got his Ph.D. in Peking Union Medical College in 1989 and MBA from National University of Singapore in 2001. He is active in both research and technology development in the area of plant biotechnology. He is the GM (research and operation) for JOil

(S) Pte Ltd, also an adjunct professor with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Koen has a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Wageningen University and master’s degree in Business Administration from Nyenrode University. He's been working with Diligent since 2006, managing innovative sustainable energy projects, mainly in developing countries. Specific focus on biofuel and biomass business concepts.

He has 10 yrs experience with consultancy and business development in the field of sustainable energy and environment. Founded Tanzanian company Umeme Jua Ltd (wholesale of rural PV products); led solar PV market development projects in Uganda for the Shell Foundation; and assisted various entrepreneurs with development of international investment plans.

Prior to that, he has 7 yrs experience in international cooperation. Worked for the Dutch government, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the British Department for International Development (DFID), and the Ministry of Environment in Poland