Speakers
Speakers are listed in alphabetical order.
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Mara Brugia is the Deputy Director of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, Cedefop, since September 2014. She was the Acting Executive Director from June 2018 until August 2019. Cedefop is the tripartite EU Agency supporting the European Commission, Member States and Social Partners in promoting, developing and implementing Union policies in the field of vocational education and training as well as skills and qualifications. She has been involved in vocational education and training since 1994. As Head of Department from 2004 to 2014 in Cedefop she managed teams of experts working in European VET policy analysis, adult and work-based learning with specific focus on apprenticeship-type learning and the European tools for recognition and transparency of qualifications, such as the European qualifications framework. She holds a university degree in economics and a master in economics, politics and law of the European Union. Her mother tongue is Italian (born in Perugia) and she is fluent in English, French, Greek and Spanish. |
Counsellor Johanna Koponen holds a Master of Political Science with a degree on International Affairs and is currently working for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland as an expert in EU affairs related to Education and Training policies. She has worked over 15 years in the Ministry of Education and Culture in coordinating Ministries EU affairs, serving as a member of the Education Committee consisting of member states experts in Education and Training policies and serving many of the Finnish Ministers in EU related Affairs. Counsellor Koponen started her career as a political assistant in the Parliament of Finland. She is also a very experienced writer; her very first professional positions was to work as a Publishing Editor specialized in EU affairs. |
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Vili Lehdonvirtais an Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is an economic sociologist whose research focuses on digital technologies, such as apps, platforms, and marketplaces — how they are governed, how they shape the organization of economic activities, and with what implications to workers, consumers, businesses, and policy. His research has been published in the Journal of Management, New Media & Society, Work, Employment & Society, and other leading academic journals. Lehdonvirta is the principal investigator of iLabour, a major research project on online freelancing and the gig economy, funded by the European Research Council. He also leads research projects on online labour markets’ effects in rural areas and crowdworkers’ skill development. His other recent research takes a critical look at Bitcoin and blockchain. His previous research on virtual goods, virtual consumption and digital games is summarized in Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis, published by MIT Press and translated to Chinese by China Renmin University Press. |
Dr Anoush Margaryan is Professor in the Department of Digitalization and holds the Endowed Chair of Blended Learning as part of CBS's cross-institutional, strategic project 'Research in Blended Learning' (2019-2024). Anoush is a learning scientist specialising in workplace and organisational learning. She studies how people learn in the platform economy workplaces, individually and as part of collectives (organisations, networks) and how teaching and learning in educational institutions can be better aligned with the requirements of the world of work. Her research programme comprises two strands: (i) workplace learning practices in the platform economy, focusing on behavioural self-regulation of learning in the workplace (strategies, antecedents and factors); and (ii) implications of the emergent modes of platform work for educational institutions, focusing on principles, models and policies of instructional design to foster alignment between the worlds of education and work. Anoush works at the intersection of workplace and organisational learning, sociology, psychology, organisational studies, and platform studies drawing on mixed-method research and the Life Course perspective. Anoush has led 17 collaborative, interdisciplinary, intersectoral, international research projects, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Shell, BP, ConocoPhilips, Centrica, Energy Institute, the UK Higher Education Academy, and the European Centre for the Development pf Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). She has received international awards for research excellence such as Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellowship (2016-2018); Excellence in Research-to-Practice Award from the American Society of Training and Development (2005), and Shell Research Fellowship (2008-2010). |
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Annarosa Pesole is a scientific officer at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. Her main research interests cover innovation and technology and their impact on labour market and society at large. She has a keen interest on platform economy and is the main author of one of the first report (COLLEEM) that measures platform work in Europe. Annarosa is a member of several task-forces on measurement of platform economy with a specific focus on employment and working conditions. Before working for the JRC, she was Research Associate at Imperial College Business School working on intangible economy, growth and labour productivity. Annarosa has a background in applied economics, she holds a PhD from the University of Milan and a MSc from Queen Mary University.
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 Konstantinos Pouliakas Konstantinos Pouliakas is an Expert on Skills and Labour Markets at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop). He leads Cedefop’s projects on Digitalisation, AI and the Future of Work and Skill Mismatch. His milestones include the development of two waves of the European Skills and Jobs Survey and inception of the European Skills Index. He has been contributor to the World Economic Forum (Jobs of the Future series), advisor to several European Commission projects and author of influential policy contributions on skills anticipation/mismatch (e.g. Skills Agenda for Europe). He has represented Cedefop at high-level international conferences on skills/VET in Europe, USA, Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Before joining Cedefop he held posts at the Universities of Aberdeen and Cyprus and briefly worked for the Bank of Greece and HM Treasury. He is Honorary Lecturer at Aberdeen University Business School and IZA Research Fellow and has also been Invited Professor at the Universita Degli Studi Roma TRE and Visiting Research Scholar at the IMF. A labour economist by training, he holds an M.Phil from the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) and a D.Phil from the Scottish Graduate Program in Economics. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals (e.g. Oxford Review of Education, Economica, Journal of Economic Surveys, Research in Labor Economics, Education Economics, International Labour Review etc.). |
Mara Brugia
Johanna Koponen
Vili Lehdonvirta 
Anoush Margaryan
Annarosa Pesole