Speakers

Bio

Loit started her career in public policy in 2005 with the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines as government liaison and coordinator for the legislative, trade and investments, taxes and tariffs, and industrial relations committees. She worked with Chevron in its geothermal energy assets in the Philippines from 2011 to 2021, where she engaged government stakeholders, industry associations, and host communities to advocate for policies that support the renewable energy sector. Before joining AWS, Loit was a senior officer with the Global Green Growth Institute, where she managed capacity development activities on climate-resilient agriculture and led the policy advisory on scaling rooftop solar energy systems in public buildings. She obtained a master's degree in public policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, and a bachelor's degree in Broadcast Communication from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.

Bio

Loretta Foran is a Senior Operations Officer with IFC’s Disruptive Technologies & Funds team. She designs and manages innovative programs to help accelerate the adoption of new technologies in emerging markets in high impact areas. Her work includes initiatives to support the digital economy agenda in areas such as health, cooling technologies, skills and entrepreneurship. She helped launch IFC’s TechEmerge program, which brings together top tech companies from around the world with leading corporates in select markets to pilot new technologies, spur innovation, and unlock new markets to deliver sustainable impact. IFC currently has active TechEmerge Sustainable Cooling programs in Mexico, Colombia, India and Nigeria. Energy-efficient, cost-effective and climate-smart cooling technologies are being piloted across sectors related to space cooling, transport and logistics, and industrial and commercial applications.

Loretta has over 20 years of global experience working with multinational corporations, SMEs and governments in various sectors. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, she worked with other multilateral organizations, as well as in management consulting and auditing services.

She holds an MBA from INSEAD, a Micro Masters of Supply Chain Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Chartered Accountant designation (inactive), and a Bachelor of Commerce from Queens University in Canada.

Bio

"Lorraine H. Akiba is President/CEO of LHA Ventures. She is a recognized thought leader with technical expertise and knowledge in the development of Hawaii’s renewable and clean energy policy and both state and federal regulatory frameworks. Given her diverse professional experience she provides senior policy advisor services in other regulated industry sectors and expertise for development of corporate environmental, social and governance goals and metrics for publicly traded companies. Ms. Akiba works with international agencies and ministries including the Government of Barbados Ministry of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship; the Inter-American Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on energy and economic development policy activities and engagements. She served from 2012-2018 as a commissioner on the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission which presides over all regulated public utility matters including electric, gas, private water and wastewater, telecommunications, water transportation and motor carrier transportation utilities. She continues to remain active with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners International Committee in peer to peer regulatory review programs sponsored by USAID and the U.S. State Department. Prior to this appointment, she worked in private practice as a law partner at McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP and Cades Schutte LLP. She headed the Environmental Practice Groups at both law firms with an emphasis in environmental and natural resources law in addition to her commercial and business litigation practice. She holds many leadership roles in various national and international organizations including the Interstate Renewable Energy Council Board of Directors and the US-Japan Council. Ms. Akiba previously served as member of the Advisory Council to the Board of Directors of the Electric Power Research Institute; the Board of Directors of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and its Energy Resources and Environment Committee; the U.S. DOE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Future Electric Utility Regulation Advisory Group and the State and Local Efficiency Action Network (SEE Network) Financial Solutions Working Group. Ms. Akiba holds a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in political science."

Bio

"Lorraine H. Akiba is President/CEO of LHA Ventures. She is a recognized thought leader with technical expertise and knowledge in the development of renewable and clean energy policy and both state and federal regulatory frameworks. Given her diverse professional experience she provides senior policy advisor services in other regulated industry sectors and expertise for development of corporate environmental, social and governance goals and metrics for organizations. Ms. Akiba has worked with international agencies and ministries including the Government of Barbados Ministry of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship; the Inter-American Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank (ADB); and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on energy and economic development policy activities and engagements. Most recently she served as Team Leader for the ADB Technical Assistance Consultant Team for the Office of Pacific Energy Regulators’ Alliance. She served from 2012-2018 as a commissioner on the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission which presides over all regulated public utility matters including electric, gas, private water and wastewater, telecommunications, water transportation and motor carrier transportation utilities. She continues to remain active with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners International Committee in peer to peer regulatory review programs sponsored by USAID and the U.S. State Department. She holds many leadership roles in various national and international organizations including the Interstate Renewable Energy Council Board of Directors and the US-Japan Council. She also is a member of the O-Power Industry Council and the U.S. DOE Research Advisory Council for the LIFT Solar project. Ms. Akiba holds a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in political science."

Bio

Lorraine H. Akiba is President/CEO of LHA Ventures. She is a recognized thought leader with technical expertise and knowledge in the development of Hawaii’s renewable and clean energy policy and both state and federal regulatory frameworks. Given her diverse professional experience she provides senior policy advisor services in other regulated industry sectors and expertise for development of corporate environmental, social and governance goals and metrics for publicly traded companies.

Ms. Akiba works with international agencies and ministries including the Government of Barbados Ministry of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship; the Inter-American Development Bank; the Asian Development Bank; and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency on energy and economic development policy activities and engagements.

She served from 2012-2018 as a commissioner on the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission which presides over all regulated public utility matters including electric, gas, private water and wastewater, telecommunications, water transportation and motor carrier transportation utilities. She continues to remain active with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners International Committee in peer to peer regulatory review programs sponsored by USAID and the U.S. State Department.

Prior to this appointment, she worked in private practice as a law partner at McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon LLP and Cades Schutte LLP. She headed the Environmental Practice Groups at both law firms with an emphasis in environmental and natural resources law in addition to her commercial and business litigation practice.

She holds many leadership roles in various national and international organizations including the City and County of Honolulu Resilience Strategy Steering Committee, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council Board of Directors and the US-Japan Council. She also is a member of the O-Power Industry Council, the Linux Foundation Energy Advisor Group, and the U.S. DOE Research Advisory Council for the LIFT Solar project.

Ms. Akiba previously served as member of the Advisory Council to the Board of Directors of the Electric Power Research Institute; the Board of Directors of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and its Energy Resources and Environment Committee; the U.S. DOE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Future Electric Utility Regulation Advisory Group and the State and Local Efficiency Action Network (SEE Network) Financial Solutions Working Group.

Ms. Akiba holds a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and graduated with honors from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in political science.

Bio

Louis Vakaran is currently the Officer In Charge (Interim) of the Vanuatu Utilities Regulatory Authority. His primary role in the URA is Legal Advisor and Secretary to the Commission. He has eight years of experience working in URA with the URA engineers, economist and auditors in regulating utilities throughout Vanuatu. He has assisted the URA in putting in place the assessment fee through amendments to the URA Act to allow for URA to assess fees on utilities for its budget purposes. Outside of his regulatory job, Louis is also a part time Teaching Consultant for the School of Law of the University of the South Pacific (USP) teaching Courts and Disputes Resolutions, Contract Law, Legal Drafting.

Bio

Lourdes is Senior Policy Advisor and Lead, Indonesia, working in IISD's Energy program. Her research focuses on the analysis and production of data of energy subsidies (electricity and fossil fuels), the evaluation and design of sustainable energy policies and on developing communication strategies for energy subsidy reforms. She has worked in projects in Mexico, Guinea, Indonesia, China and India.

Prior to arriving at IISD, Lourdes with energy utilities developing pricing and supply-side support mechanisms for renewables and energy efficiency. She also has international consulting experience, working toward the definition of support mechanisms for renewable energy.

Lourdes holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, complemented by a specialized Master's in Energy Management.

Bio

Luis Gonzalez is an industrial digital expert with 25 years of experience in AI, data science, and digital transformation, in the power industry. At Aboitiz Data Innovation (ADI) and Aboitiz Power, he leads initiatives to enhance operational efficiency, revenue generation, and ESG. Luis heads the AI Center of Excellence and collaborates on data science and applied engineering projects within the Aboitiz Group. As a co-founder of the AI Asia Pacific Institute and a guest lecturer at Nanyang Technological University, he champions ethical AI deployment. Previously, Luis held significant roles at Element AI Asia (co-founded with Yoshua Bengio) and GE Power Digital. He has a background in Computer Science along with postgraduate diplomas from MIT.

Bio

Lyndree is an Energy Economics Consultant at the Asian Development Bank. She has been doing research work on power sector reforms, country diagnostic studies focusing on the energy sector, clean energy finance, and distributed renewable energy systems. She has a master’s degree in Business Administration and a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from the University of the Philippines.

Bio

Lyndree has over 20 years of experience in research and analysis on power sector reform, diagnostic studies of countries’ energy sector, clean energy development, energy system planning, and regional cooperation. Currently, she’s a consultant with the ADB Energy Sector Office providing support on knowledge products, capacity building, and fund management.

Bio

Ms.Ma Dingling is the Director of Regional Planning Department of Ningbo Development Planning Research Institute .She holds a Doctor's degree of the history of science from ShangHai JiaoTong University. She joined Ningbo Development Planning Research Institute in 2009 after graduation.She was appointed as the Director of the Regional and Planning Research Department in 2019 with main focus on urban development strategy and policy recommendations, climate change response (carbon reduction), environmental protection and resource conservation, development planning and research as well as strategic planning and study on significant issues.

Bio

Ms.Ma Dingling, the department director of Ningbo Development Planning Research Institute, China. Graduated in 2009 with Doctor's degree of the history of science from ShangHai JiaoTong University. In 2019, appointed as the Director of the Regional and Planning Research Department. Main research fields: urban development strategy and policy recommendations, climate change response (carbon reduction), environmental protection and resource conservation, development planning and research as well as strategic planning.