Focus: Democracy
Ashraf Swelam
Ashraf Swelam is the Director General of the Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA) and the Founding Director of the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development. He is the former President of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centers (IAPTC) (2017-2018) and the African Peace Support Trainers Association (APSTA). He is also the former co-Chairman of the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Training Group (IDDRTG) (2017-2019). Before joining the Cairo Center in 2013, Ashraf served as the Lead Counsel to the Constitutional Committee (the Committee of 50) that drafted the Egyptian Constitution. On leave from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) from 2008-2013, Ashraf was…
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Mara Redlich Revkin
Mara Redlich Revkin is a political scientist and legal scholar conducting empirical research on legal systems during and after conflict with a regional focus on the Middle East. Currently, she is the National Security Law Fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of criminal law and procedure, international law, human rights, and transitional justice. She has conducted fieldwork in Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Oman using qualitative and quantitative research methods including large-scale household surveys, interviews, and event data based on newspapers and social media posts. Her current research aims to contribute to the development of evidence-based strategies for strengthening rule…
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Fares Mabrouk
Fares Mabrouk is Country Director and Fund Manager for Yunus Social Business (YSB) in Tunisia. Founded and led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, YSB helps create social businesses around the world by setting up incubator funds and providing services to companies, governments, foundations, and NGOs. Previously, Fares founded a number of for-profit and nonprofit organizations in North Africa focused on mobile banking and oil logistics. He is a co-founder of and advisor to HuffingtonPost Maghreb, a French language edition of the Huffington Post covering Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Fares has degrees from Pierre and Marie Curie University, ENSAE Paris, and Havard's Kennedy School of Government.
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Nikita Lalwani
Nikita Lalwani is a law clerk on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. She previously served as a law clerk on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. At Yale Law School, from which she graduated in 2020, she was the Yale Law Journal's Executive Editor for Articles & Essays and helped advocate for a fairer census as a team leader in the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic. She was also the co-president of the Yale Law National Security Group, co-director of the Yale chapter of the International Refugee Assistance Project, and a Kerry Fellow at the Jackson…
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Feng Gao
Feng Gao is the co-founder and managing director of Open Data China, the first civic group and social enterprise in China working on data transparency and digital rights. Under Feng’s leadership, Open Data China actively advises governments and other data holders on how to build an open and transparent data agenda. Open Data China also sets up a community for data users to make their voices heard. In 2015, Open Data China co-launched Shanghai Open Data Apps (SODA), a competition-based open data innovation model. Since then, Feng leads the daily operation of SODA and its sister programs in Chongqing, Shenyang, and other cities in China. The SODA model unlocks more…
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Hakan Altinay
Hakan Altinay is a distinguished intellectual and promotor of global civics. In April 2022, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a Turkish court, accused of planning to overthrow the government, in Turkey’s crackdown on dissent and freedom of assembly. Amnesty International classified him as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison after 18 months by a decision of the Court of Appeals. Hakan is the founding Director of the European School of Politics and the President of the Global Civics Academy. His book, Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights In an Interdependent World, reflects work done while at Yale and was published in 2011 by Brookings Institution, later…
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Udo Jude Ilo
Udo Jude Ilo is the Senior Director for Advocacy at the Centre for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC). In this role Udo sets and drives the global advocacy goal of the organization aimed at amplifying the voices of communities caught in conflict and promoting global norms and practices to ensure optimal protection of civilians. Udo Jude Ilo has close to two decades experience working in the democracy space, driving social innovation and influencing change. Udo’s focus has been about creativity and finding new tools for democracy promotion. As the Nigerian representative for the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), Udo provided strategic leadership in opening the frontier of governance and…
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Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram
Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram is an attorney-at-law and social activist, working with NGOs on developing a democratic civil society and protecting the rule of law in the Polish justice system. She is Co-Founder of the Justice Defense Committee and the Free Courts Foundation, both of which monitor and archive political pressure on judges and lawyers, giving them legal aid. She regularly participates in legislative processes in Poland's Parliament as an expert in parliamentary Constitutional Governance and Reform of the Justice System groups. She also presents on the state of the Polish justice system to the European Commission. Since 2017, Sylwia has led the organization of many demonstrations and protests in defense of the…
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Mohammad “Musa” Mahmodi
Mohammad “Musa” Mahmodi is a human rights lawyer and defender based in Kabul, Afghanistan. He served as Executive Director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for ten years, providing strategic direction for programs and activities to monitor, protect, and promote human rights in a conflict-affected country. As part of his work, he focused on transitional justice, women rights, children rights, human rights education, and investigations of human rights violations and abuses by all parties to the conflict. Musa also advocated for reviews of laws and policies of Afghanistan to comply with the international human rights instruments. He previously worked with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, whereby he…
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Katrin Hett
Katrin Hett is a Senior Political Affairs Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General at the United Nations. She joined the UN in January 2010 in the Department of Political Affairs as Political Affairs Officer, first in the Europe Division and then in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. She has also served in the Secretary-General’s transition team from October to December 2016. Previously, Katrin worked as Regional Coordinator for the Western Balkans in Public Diplomacy at NATO HQ, Senior Democratisation and Public Administration Reform Advisor at OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was Deputy Project Manager for Conflict Management at GTZ in South Africa. Born in…
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