The Team
The COCOA team is composed of a trio of seasoned professionals in the climate, sustainable development, and ICT arenas.
Gustavo ArcinIegas (Phd)
—COO
Geoscientist with 10+ years experience in collaborative GIS, Geodesign and sustainable spatial planning.
He is currently a Consortium project partner in the h2020 project REPAiR, which focuses on integrating Geodesign, Life Cycle Analysis, Sustainability Assessments and Living Labs for improving metropolitan waste management in European cities.
IVÁN S. RAZO-ZAPATA (PHD)
—CTO
Computer scientist with 10+ years of experience in public and private organizations. He has been involved in different EU research projects dealing with business informatics, artificial intelligence, value modelling, service innovation, blockchain, and smart electricity grids (SGs).
CristiÁn Retamal (MSc)
—CEO
Civil engineer with 10+ years of experience in the climate change arena. He has been involved in the formulation of developing countries’ commitments in the context of the Paris Agreement, served as advisor for the AILAC group of countries in the UNFCCC process and supports the EU cooperation for the implementation of NDCs in Latin America.
* VU Amsterdam in The Netherlands, where the founders of COCOA met during their post-graduate studies.
Our Story
In 2013 an embryo of COCOA was first pitched at an MIT Climate Colab contest. Later in 2016, an updated COCOA proposal was revitalized due to the attention received from the Initiative on Climate Change and Governance (ICCG) and its Best Climate Practices contest.
Since then, the COCOA concept has been further elaborated and presented in the book chapter ‘Crowd Collaboration for Climate Adaptation’ (COCOA) - aiming to provide an open and transparent platform to support local climate adaptation actions, as part of the book ‘Transforming Climate Finance and Green Investment with Blockchains’. It was at that point that the three partners decided to formally found COCOA B.V. with headquarters in Delft, The Netherlands.
