Christopher Clouder FRSA is a freelance speaker, writer and consultant on questions of childhood, innovation in education, cultural evolution and creativity. He was the founding director of the Botin Platform for Innovation in Education and has led international research into Social Emotional Education and Creativity and the Arts. He is a co-founder of the Alliance for Childhood, a member of the Learning for Well-being Community and the International Forum for Steiner Education. From 1991 to 2012 he was the founding CEO of the European Council for Steiner Waldorf Education.

As an educational psychologist and family therapist I presently work as a supervisor for various schools and a kindergarten , including two special institutions for children with psycho-social problems. In addition I offer counselling and therapy to couples and families. As always my work focuses on relational competence, and the parents´ and educators´ responsibility for the relations; emotional and social education must precede academic learning and its  predominant emphasis on competitive result-orientation.  In order to create robust individuals education must aim at creating internalized structures in each individual and not rely solely on external demands.

Professor Carmel Cefai, Phd (Lond), FBPS, is the Director of the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health at the University of Malta.  He is Joint Honorary Chair of the European Network for Social and Emotional Competence and joint founding editor of the International Journal of Emotional Education. His research interests are focused on how to create healthy spaces which promote the resilience, wellbeing and psychological wellbeing of children and young people. He has led various research projects in mental health in schools, risk and resilience in children and young people, children’s wellbeing, and the development of a resilience curriculum for early years and primary schools in Europe. Recent publications include RESCUR Surfing the Waves, A Resilience Curriculum for Early Years and Primary Schools (2015) published in 7 languages and Social and Emotional Education Primary School. Integrating Theory and Research into Practice (Springer Publications USA, 2014).

Claudia Madrazo is founder and member of several educational, artistic, ecological and community development associations, both in Mexico and around the world.

In 1992, Ms. Madrazo founded La Vaca Independiente, a social enterprise focused on the principle of integrating art into daily life. She created “dia”, Development of Intelligence through Art, a method that has successfully trained more than 50,000 teachers as pedagogic mediators and learning facilitators.

In 2012, she founded Transformation through Art and Education, a non-for-profit organization with the vision to expand the boundaries of art.

She is also committed to and engaged in conservation and sustainability initiatives and sits on the boards of The Nature Conservancy, the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and the National Geographical Society’s International Council of Advisors.

She has a degree in Communications and Mass Media from Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and a Master in Museums Studies from Essex University in the U.K. She is the author of nine books as well as numerous essays and articles.

Neil Boland. Neil originally trained as a musician and has a life-long interest in the arts in education, especially with primary-aged children. He has taught from early childhood to post-graduate level in a range of cultural and educational settings. His current research projects look at music education in early childhood, Steiner Waldorf education, and education for social justice. Since the 1990s, he has been active in teacher education on five continents. He lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand where he is senior lecturer in education at AUT University.

Davide Antognazza, pedagogist, Ed.M., lecturer and researcher at University of Applied Science and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Department of Education and Learning. Educator and educational program coordinator, Davide likes cooperating in international project, he designs education games and teaches social and emotional learning courses to under graduated and graduated students, future teachers and social workers.