Dr. Himanshu Shekhar is an Associate Academic Officer and senior researcher at UNU-VIE in Bonn, working on the nexus between urbanization and climate change adaptation and on the science-policy interface for UN processes. He leads the Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Digitalization work stream of the PACET division, with a growing focus on AI, digitalization and green entrepreneurship as drivers of climate action. He is currently the Vice-Chair of an ITU-T task group on AI-enabled cities and UNU’s focal point for UN4NAP, with experience across South Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.
Dr. Himanshu Shekhar, an Associate Academic Officer and senior researcher at UNU-VIE in Bonn, is deeply passionate about making human settlements sustainable, resilient and inclusive. His work centres on two domains: first, the nexus between digitalization, urbanization and climate change adaptation; and second, the science-policy interface, providing scientific inputs into UN and intergovernmental policy processes. A growing part of his work focuses on digitalization and urbanization, and on innovation and entrepreneurship as drivers of climate action, in particular through frontier technologies, AI and green entrepreneurship.
Dr. Shekhar’s recent and ongoing work explores how AI and community-generated data can be leveraged to enhance resilience and adaptation to a changing climate, particularly for the most vulnerable sections of society. His work includes leveraging AI to enhance the resilience of persons with disabilities, baseline analysis of urban resilience across Africa that informs continental resilience programming, and advancing local climate action through participatory, data-driven governance. He also leads a work stream that quantifies women entrepreneurs’ contribution to climate action, examines gender gaps in climate finance and co-designs gender-just, green solutions. He also actively engages with capacity-building activities for governments and city authorities on urban resilience, digitalization and adaptation planning.
Dr. Shekhar is Vice-Chair of Task Group 5.2 on the sustainability of AI-enabled cities and communities in the ITU-T Focus Group on AI for Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities, and serves as UNU’s focal point for UN4NAP, the UNFCCC-led interagency initiative supporting the preparation and implementation of National Adaptation Plans. He has also served on the UN High-Level Committee on Programmes task team on sustainable urbanization and has represented UNU at several global platforms, including UNFCCC COPs, the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Urban Forum.
His areas of expertise include urban resilience, cascading and systemic climate risks, the application of frontier technologies to advance adaptation, participatory and data-driven decision-making, and well-being in human settlements. His experience spans South Asia (particularly India), Africa, Latin America and Europe.
Dr. Shekhar lectures in the joint MSc “Geography of Environmental Risks and Human Security” of UNU-EHS and the University of Bonn, supervises master’s theses, and reviews for journals including Habitat International, Urban Climate and Nature Cities.
He holds a doctorate in urban planning from the Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and a master’s in Regional Development Planning and Management from TU Dortmund, Germany, and the Universidad Austral de Chile. His bachelor’s education in planning is from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, India. Before joining UNU in 2018, he worked as a teaching assistant at Duisburg-Essen, and prior to that as a consultant in India on urban planning, housing and municipal finance, for five years.
