Focus: Civil Society
Thynn Thynn Hlaing
Thynn Thynn Hlaing is a development professional who has been working in humanitarian and long-term development programs for more than 15 years. Her primary focus is on womenâs rights and womenâs empowerment issues. Currently Thynn Thynn serves as Country Manager for Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) for their program in Papua New Guinea. She is leading the team and all the elements of CHAI's operations in Papua New Guinea for successful footprint to support PNG's government on their improvement of health financing and its outcomes for the most vulnerable. She previously worked as the Country Director of Oxfam International in Sierra Leone over 4 years from 2013 to 2018. She…
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Omar Mohammed
Omar Mohammed is a historian from Mosul, Iraq known until recently only as the anonymous blogger âMosul Eyeâ. Through Mosul Eye, Omar set out to inform the world about life under the Islamic State in his city. His focus has now shifted to advocacy of social initiatives for the people of Mosul including the international effort to re-supply Central Library of the University of Mosul. At the intersection of media, academia and civil society, Omar is motivated to develop new networks of collaboration and innovations in humanitarian action. As a historian and lecturer at the University of Mosul, he focuses his scholarly work on conceptual history and research dealing with…
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Felix Maradiaga
Felix Maradiaga is an academic, political activist, and former presidential candidate. In June 2021 he was arrested and held in solitary confinement in Nicaragua by Ortegaâs regime, sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for the alleged crime of âconspiracy to undermine national integrity." In February 2023, Felix was released from captivity and flown to the U.S., along with 221 other political prisoners from Nicaragua, where he was reunited with his family. After serving as the youngest-ever Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense, Felix has dedicated himself to strengthening peace, democracy, and the rule of law in Nicaragua. A recognized international expert in civil society and leadership development, he seeks to…
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Azeem Ibrahim
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a Research Professor at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College and a Director at the Centre for Global Policy in Washington DC. Over the years, Azeem has advised numerous world leaders on strategy and policy development with his most recent role being the Strategic Policy Advisor to the Chairman of Pakistanâs PTI party, Prime Minister Imran Khan. Azeem is also the author of the seminal books, Rohingya: Inside Myanmarâs Genocide (Hurst: 2016) Radical Origins: Why we are losing the battle against Islamic extremism (Pegasus: 2017). Outside academia, Azeem has been a reservist in the IV Battalion Parachute Regiment (UKâs elite airborne infantry reserve) and…
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JesĂșs "Franco" Gamboa-Rocabado
JesĂșs "Franco" Gamboa-Rocabado is a professor of political science and development studies at Universidad Mayor de San AndrĂ©s, the most important public university in Bolivia. He is also the main advisor in strategic planning at the National Service for Personal Identification, the Bolivian flagship public institution that holds and render the rights for identity in Bolivia. An influential policy maker at the national level, Franco has dedicated himself to the democratization of Boliviaâs political system through positions with the Ministry of the Presidency, the mayor of La Paz, and Boliviaâs Constitutional Assembly. He also was consultant of the High Court of Electoral Affairs, and helped negotiate political agreements for Constitutional…
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Rahimah âImaâ Abdulrahim
Rahimah "Ima" Abdulrahim is the Director of Public Policy for Southeast Asia (Established Countries) for Facebook Asia Pacific. Prior to this, she served at The Habibie Center, one of Indonesiaâs leading think tanks focusing on democracy and human rights, for 19 years, serving as their executive director for 9 years (2010-2019). She has 20 years advocating for peace and democracy in Indonesia and travels extensively to speak about good governance, democratization, and the role of civil society in Southeast Asia. In 2017, Ima co-created, with World Fellows Stephen Shashoua (2015) and Abdul-Rehman Malik (2017), CERITA (Community Empowerment for Raising Inclusivity and Trust through Technology Application), a project using the art…
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Abdul Tejan-Cole
Abdul Tejan-Cole is Executive Director of the African Studies Association (ASA), an association of scholars and professionals in the United States and Canada with an interest in the continent of Africa. Prior to joining ASA, he was Senior Campaign Director of Waxman Strategies, focused on ending deforestation in Africa across all industrial agriculture and on fighting for the rights of workers and communities. A noted human rights lawyer and activist, he has over 25 years of experience fomenting progressive development of human rights, anti-corruption, environmental and social justice, post-conflict reconstruction, transitional justice, and the rule of law. As head of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, he worked on and…
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Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko serves as a Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine since August 2020. In 2017 when he participated in YWF Program he was an activist and Co-Founder of the Reanimation Package of Reforms (RPR), a coalition of reform-oriented NGOs and experts, which began after the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Taras served as Board Co-Chairman for RPR, which brings together 73 NGOs that develop, promote, and control implementation of reforms. It has proved to be a unique coalition that has advocated more than 100 laws. Taras is also Founder and was during 15 years an Executive Director of Centre for Democracy and Rule of Law, an…
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Baljeet Sandhu
Baljeet Sandhu is a UK human rights lawyer, educator and pioneer of the global âknowledge equityâ movement. She has designed and developed successful systems-led models of practice in the UK legal, social and investment sectors and is a global thought leader on the value and power of lived experience in social impact work. As a Yale World Fellow, Baljeet supported the development of the Tsai Centre for Innovative Thinking at Yale (CITY), launched in 2017 to serve Yale students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines seeking innovative ways to solve real-world problems. In 2018, she launched the Knowledge Equity Initiative at Yale, a ground-breaking research, education and practice hub exploring the…
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Melvis M. Ndiloseh
Melvis M. Ndiloseh is CEO of the Foundation for Peace and Solidarity, a Cameroon-based non-profit, with outreach operations across Africa, which works to reconcile conflict-ridden communities through human rights and peace education. The organization also runs a pioneering flagship international training program on civilian peace support operations with the goal of building and consolidating deployable African human resource capacity for conflict management and humanitarian operations across the continent. At the international level, Melvis is a highly solicited independent consultant on human rights, democracy, and peace, with viable international consultancy experiences with supranational organizations such as the African Union, UNECA, EU, and IIDEA. She holds a PhD in Politics and Human…
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