Technologies for Sustainable Development (PDF)

Jean-Claude Bolay was appointed Director of Cooperation at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2001 and has headed what recently became the Cooperation & Development Center (CODEV) since 2005. A sociologist by training, he specialized in urban issues in Latin America, Asia and West Africa. He prepared his PhD in Political Sciences at El Colegio de Mexico, then at UC Berkeley, USA. Before joining EPFL in 1989, he worked for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) both in Switzerland and in Cameroon. He has carried out many international research projects in Vietnam and Latin American countries in particular, looking at social practices in urban societies, sustainable urban development and poverty reduction in developing countries. He was a scientific advisor and evaluator for the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research, the Belgian Universities' Commission for Development and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among other institutions. At EPFL, he has directed postgraduate courses on development in Africa and India. In parallel to his position as Director of CODEV, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in 2005 in the Laboratory of Urban Sociology of the Natural, Architectural and Built Environment School.

 

Silvia Hostettler studied Tropical Environmental Science at the University of Aberdeen followed by a postgraduate course on development studies with the EPFL which took her to Burkina Faso for six months. Upon returning from Africa, she started working with IUCN - The World Conservation Union at IUCN headquarters in Gland. In 2001, she was recruited as Research Programme Coordinator at EPFL in the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North-South. At the same time, she fulfilled a mandate for backstopping regional workshops in Ethiopia, Kenya, Cuba, Bolivia, Nepal and Vietnam. In 2007, she obtained her PhD on land use change and international migration in western Mexico.