PRADA GROUP

Prada S.p.A. is a global leader in the luxury goods industry. The Group, which owns the Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s and Car Shoe brands, produces and distributes luxury leather goods, footwear and apparel benefitting from a supply chain which includes 22 owned industrial sites. It also operates in the food sector with Marchesi 1824 and in the eyewear and fragrance industries under licensing agreements. The Group employs nearly 14,000 people and its products are sold in 70 countries worldwide through 637 directly operated stores as of June 30, 2020, brand’s e-commerce, a selection of luxury department stores and multi-brand stores in the most prestigious locations as well as through the most important e-tailers. The Prada Group is synonymous with innovation, transformation and independence and it is committed to promote a business culture oriented towards sustainability. These principles offer its brands a shared vision in which they are able to express their essence. The company is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as 1913.HK. 

UNESCO’S INTERGOVERNMENTAL OCEANOGRAPHIC COMMISSION

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) promotes international cooperation in marine sciences to improve management of the ocean, coasts and marine resources. The IOC enables its 150 Member States to work together by coordinating programmes in capacity development, ocean observations and services, ocean science and tsunami warning. The work of the IOC contributes to the mission of UNESCO to promote the advancement of science and its applications to develop knowledge and capacity, key to economic and social progress, the basis of peace and sustainable development.

THE JURY

Lorenzo Bertelli
Lorenzo Bertelli, aged 32, has been Group Head of Marketing since 2019 and from 2020 has been appointed Group’s Head of CSR. He is responsible, on one side, for the Group’s Marketing and Communication strategy and for the development, innovation and sales analysis of the retail channel for all the Group’s brands and, on the other, for the Group’s overall approach to sustainability strategy and initiatives. He joined the Group in 2017 as Head of Digital Communication and was appointed as Head of Marketing and Communication in 2018. Mr. Bertelli has also been Director of Prada Holding S.p.A. since 2015. Lorenzo Bertelli obtained a degree in Philosophy at San Raffaele University in Milan in 2008; he is the son of Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, the Chief Executive Officers of the Prada Group. 

Vladimir Ryabinin
Dr Vladimir Ryabinin (Engineer, 1978; Ph.D., 1982; and Doctor of Sciences, 1995) is the Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and Assistant DirectorGeneral of UNESCO. Dr Ryabinin is an oceanographer, marine engineer, climatologist, and emeritus meteorologist of Russia. His research has led to a number of achievements in weather prediction, marine engineering, and in ocean and climate science. Some of his previous affiliations include the Hydrometcentre of Russia (as a researcher and head of laboratory), Moscow State University (as a lecturer), International Ocean Institute (as the director), and World Climate Research Programme (as a senior scientific officer). Dr Ryabinin’s research started from mathematical modelling of ocean currents. He is a key developer of the first Soviet model that started predicting weather for the country for 5-7 days ahead. Later he worked in the Russian Arctic studying sea-ice and leading a big project for shelf engineering. He also developed a mathematical model of wind waves on the surface of the ocean. With his knowledge of ocean and atmosphere, sea ice, in 1980s he started to act as an expert for the United Nations, in 1990s contributed to the core design of the ocean observing system, and in 2000s-2010s was coordinating international climate research. Since 2015 his focus has been on using the science for saving the ocean.

Alessandro Baricco
Alessandro Baricco is one of Italy’s most versatile contemporary writers and public intellectuals. Known for his bestselling novels “Land of Glass” (Campiello and Prix Medicis Prize winner), “Ocean Sea” (1993) and “Silk” (1996, translated into 16 languages), Baricco has also had a prolific career as television host of cultural programs, as a playwright, and essayist. His fourth non-fiction book “The Barbarians” (2006) tackled the relationship between writing and the digital cultural revolution. In his latest book “The Game” (2018), Baricco has returned to this topic enlarging his perspective to the impact of the digital revolution on humanist thought and culture at large. The book represents an intellectual preface to the principles that Baricco has applied to the Academy program of the Holden School of Contemporary Humanities that he founded in 1994 in Turin (Italy). 

Fabien Cousteau
Grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Fabien spent his early years aboard his famous grandfather’s ships, Calypso and Alcyone and learning how to scuba dive on his fourth birthday. From 2006 to 2010, Fabien was part of a multi-hour docu-series called, “Ocean Adventures” with his father, Jean-Michel Cousteau, and sister, Céline, inspired by his grandfather’s famous 1978 series, “The Cousteau Odyssey”. In the following years, and as a member of multiple cause- driven, Fabien has been working with local communities and children worldwide to help restore local water ecosystems. In June 2014, Fabien and his team of aquanauts embarked on Mission 31, the longest science expedition to take place at Aquarius, the world’s only underwater marine laboratory located in Florida. Fabien’s Mission 31 broke new ground in ocean exploration and honored the 50th anniversary of his grandfather’s original underwater living experiment (Conshelf Two) by going deeper, longer and further, while broadcasting the Mission live on multiple channels. Early in 2016, he founded the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center (“FCOLC”), to fulfill his dream of creating a vehicle to make a positive change in the world. Currently, he is working on multiple projects and dedicates much of his time to the FCOLC’s marine restoration programs and research initiatives including: Coral Reef Restoration, Mangrove Restoration, Beach Clean Ups, Sea Turtle Restoration and PROTEUS™. Recently Fabien was named an Honorary Advisor to the NGO Committee Sustainable Development-NY, whose purpose is to monitor and influence the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Anne de Carbuccia
Anne de Carbuccia is a French American artist and filmmaker who travels to the world’s most remote locations to document through her art endangered environments, species and cultures. Her images have been exhibited in museums and public institutions throughout Europe and the United States. Her debut short film, One Ocean, was presented at the 75^th Venice International Film Festival. Anne has established the Time Shrine Foundation in the USA and the One Planet One Future Association in Italy, to raise awareness on climate breakdown and human-caused threats to the planet. She is currently working on a feature a forthcoming documentary on the challenges of the “Anthropocene”.

Kerstin Forsberg
Founder and Director of Planeta Océano, a Peruvian non-profit organization empowering coastal communities in marine conservation through research, education and sustainable development efforts. She is Board Member of the international non-profit Migramar and has served as a consultant for the private, governmental, and inter-governmental sectors, including UNESCO and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. As a public speaker, she has presented in over 16 countries, in venues including the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the United Nations Headquarters and the Royal Geographic Society. Her efforts have included pioneering giant manta ray conservation in Peru, securing legal protection for critically endangered sawfish, setting-up Northern Peru’s Marine Educators Network, among others. Forsberg has been named as one of Fortune Magazine’s “50 World’s Greatest Leaders”, a “Next Generation Leader” by TIME and a “30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur” by Forbes Magazine. She is a Rolex Award for Enterprise Laureate, Whitley Award (“Green Oscars”) Winner, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Ashoka Fellow and member of Friends of Ocean Action.

Alessia Zecchini
Alessia Zecchini (Rome, June 30, 1992) is an Italian freediver, world champion in six freediving disciplines, European indoor champion in 2019 and outdoor world champion in the same year. At the age of 13, she obtained her first federal apnea license in the A.s.d. “Apnea Blu Mare”. Since 2012, she has been part of the Italian national team of indoor and outdoor freediving, so far winning sixteen gold medals, five silver and two bronze medals at the World Championships and three golds, six silvers and one bronze at the European Championships. She is currently the “deepest woman in the world” with her -113 meter in constant weight (monofin), achieved in August 2019 during the World Championship in Roatan, Honduras. On October 18, 2019 she becomes the first woman to have touched the depth of -100 meter exclusively with the use of her arms (free immersion), during the “Nirvana Oceanquest” in Curacao.

THE MODERATOR 

Patricia Furtado de Mendonça
Patricia is a Brazilian Artist, an Inspirational Speaker, a Marine Activist and a “Water & Ocean Reconnection Experience” Facilitator. She holds a Master’s degree in Performing Arts from the University of Rio de Janeiro and a Bachelor’s degree in Drama, Arts and Music Studies from the University of Bologna, Italy. In 2017, after working for 20 years with ARTS + EDUCATION + SUSTAINABILITY interactions in artistic and academic environments, as well as in NGOs, private companies and governmental bodies, she decides to dedicate her life to what she loves the most: the Ocean. She founds ACQUA MATER, an organization that develops multidisciplinary projects to reconnect us to Ocean. In 2019 she releases “We are Water”, the first documentary produced by Acqua Mater’s “Nomadic Water School”, in which she works with children in vulnerable situation. Besides promoting the construction of a New Water Culture and the dissemination of Ocean Literacy’s principles and contents, she runs ongoing research about our Marine Memories, associating traditional knowledge, human and natural sciences. She collaborates with various international organizations directed to the Youth as a Mentor and an Advisor, such as: Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Waterlution, UNFCCC Youngo Ocean’s Voice and Mermaid Federation International. She’s also the Brazilian Coordinator of the Latin American Marine Educators Association and an “ImPact Professional” of the UN Brazilian Global Compact Network.

SOME PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS’ VOICES

PROFESSORS 

Carmen Glenn New Rochelle
High School, New York City (USA)
“Students care deeply about the ocean and want to do something to conserve natural resources”.

Jesus Fernandez
Junior High Principal, Colegio Latino, Mexico City (Mexico)
“We must encourage the new generations to create awareness of their own ecological commitment”.

Elia Martins
Agrupamento de Escolas Anselmo de Andrade, Almada (Portugal) “Ocean’s future is in the hands of next generations. They must be trained towards more ethical choices”.

Francesca Boscolo
Liceo Benedetti Tommaseo, Venice (Italy)
“It’s important to promote sustainable behaviours. Young people enthusiasm, like the sea, is boundless”.

STUDENTS

Bruno Silva
Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)
“We must create awareness within communities on marine pollution. All together we will be better”.

Leonor Castro
Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)
“Increase the responsibility and the awareness of conservation depend on you, on all of us”.

Irís Atende
Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga (Portugal)
“Thanks to SEA BEYOND, I learned how to take the right steps to help and save our planet”.

Jessica Martin and Alberta Carraro
Liceo Benedetti Tommaseo, Venice (Italy)
“Through the SEA BEYOND programme, we discovered how air pollution affects ocean’s health”.

Kayla Labuschagne
Protea Heights Academy, Cape Town (South Africa)
“Never stop trying to better our environment, because without it none of us would exist”.

Daniella Wood
Protea Heights Academy, Cape Town (South Africa)
“We need to learn to sustain and conserve the ocean. And together we can make a difference”.