Focus: NGO/Social Activism
Enrique Betancourt
Enrique Betancourt is Director of the Violence and Crime Prevention Initiative for Chemonics International based in Washington, D.C. He is a trained architect and urban planner who once served as Executive Director at the National Center for Crime Prevention and Citizen Participation in Mexico. As an expert in urban innovation, Enrique co-founded CONTEXTUAL, an agency developing creative solutions to complex urban problems through collaborative and participatory design. CONTEXTUAL works to bridge the gap between research, policy design, and successful implementation. Previously, Enrique served as Deputy General Director of Social Policy for the Presidency of the Republic of Mexico. He holds a Masters of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard.
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Emilia Sičáková Beblavá
Emilia Sičáková Beblavá is Professor at the Institute of Public Policy and Economics at Comenius University in Bratislava where she conducts research and teaches courses on anti-corruption strategies and multilevel governance. Emilia also works with The World Bank, the Open Society Institute, the European Commission, and the British Department for International Development and many other international institutions to help them understand corruption in formerly communist countries. As President and a board member of Transparency International Slovakia, Emilia created publicity campaigns and led fundraising and lobbying efforts to fight institutional corruption.
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Sylvia Aguilera GarcĂa
Sylvia Aguilera GarcĂa has more than two decades of experience working in human rights and peace-building in Mexico. During the past 14 years she has focused her work on developing new ways to approach public conflicts in Mexico, mainly those related to land and natural resource management, as well as those associated with the advancement of human rights, the justice system and victims’ rights. Part of her work has been focused on strengthening civil society coalitions and in developing collaborative and negotiation capabilities. During the last several years she has been working with the national Movement of Relatives of Disappeared Persons in Mexico. She is a former Director of the…
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Janah Ncube
Janah Ncube is Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Crisis Action, a global organization working on the protection of civilians in conflict. Previously Janah was the Pan Africa Director at Oxfam. Her work as a global development strategist has informed systems and structural changes to multilateral institutions such as SADC, AU, AfDB and the UN on regional integration, governance, gender, peace and security, and has saved lives in the over 15 crisis situations across the world she has worked on. Janah serves as a board member and advisor of several local and international boards, governmental, and church bodies. She founded Inspiring Africa, a platform that mentors women and youth and inspires…
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Ann Iyonu
Ann Iyonu is Executive Director of the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation. At the heart of the Foundation’s mandate is the protection of democratic integrity, the prevention of violent conflicts, and the promotion of the peaceful resolution of disputes across Africa. In her role she is involved in high-level mediation and conflict resolution in democratic emergencies and political transitions. Ann is also the coordinator of the West African Elders Forum (WAEF), a platform of former heads of state that draws on the experience and standing of its members to bring non-partisan insights and skills for defusing tension and reconciling positions for the sake of the sustenance and advancement of democracy in West…
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Amira Yahyaoui
Amira Yahyaoui is a Tunisian human rights advocate and founder of the award-winning Al Bawsala, a public policy and accountability NGO. Al Baswala monitors the work of the Tunisian Parliament, the Constitutional Assembly, and Tunisian city halls, using technology to make information accessible to citizens. When she was a teenager, Amira was banned from her homeland for her human rights activism and fled to Paris as a refugee. After the Arab Spring, Amira returned to Tunisia for the political transition and writing of the new Tunisian constitution. She won a Vital Voices Global Trailblazer award in 2012 for women transforming the Middle East and was named top 100 most powerful…
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Denis Mizne
Denis Mizne heads the private foundation established by global entrepreneur Jorge Paulo Lemann to increase the quality of public education in Brazil. He is also chairman of the board of Instituto Sou da Paz and serves on other boards in the areas of education, human rights and public safety. Before joining the Foundation, Denis was founder and Executive Director of Instituto Sou da Paz, a leading Brazilian NGOs focused on violence prevention. He has contributed to the approval of the "Disarmament Statute," one of the most modern pieces of legislation to control the use of guns. After being enacted, the law helped reduce homicides for the first time in decades…
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Nicolas "Nico" Ducoté
Nicolas "Nico" DucotĂ© has dedicated the last 20 years to strengthening civil society and democratic institutions in Argentina. After participating in and leading several NGOs, he co-founded CIPPEC (the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth) in 2000 and turned it into Argentina’s premier independent public policy research organization and one of Latin America's top think tanks. His professional contributions have spearheaded national initiatives to improve access to education, healthcare, and justice. Working with the Ministry of Education, Nico helped pass landmark education reform laws in 2005-06 and facilitated state-level education reform in several districts. He later became involved in politics, serving as Mayor of the…
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Guy Disney
Guy Disney is a military veteran, disability advocate, explorer, and horse jockey. In command on his first tour in Afghanistan, an ambush resulted in the amputation of Guy’s right leg. This has given him a passion for challenging perceptions about disability. He skied to the North Pole as part of a team of war wounded veterans and led an expedition to the South Pole; both expeditions were world firsts. After completing his second and final tour in Afghanistan as an amputee, Guy now works in Africa dividing his time between conservation, veteran’s rehabilitation, and supporting marginalized youth. In each area he seeks to use his experience overcoming adversity to respectively…
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Korto Reeves
Korto Reeves is currently the global Head of Women's Rights in ActionAid International, a social justice federation in 43 countries. Over the last 13 years, she has worked with the organization in several positions, including Country Director in Liberia from 2010 to 2016. She has 20 years of professional experience working across Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and with USAID and UNDP. She is an African feminist and strategic civil society leader in Liberia and on the continent. A significant contributor to shaping feminist discourse on multiple and intersecting issues in the region, she is a member of the Urgent Action Fund-Africa and Sustainable Development Institute boards. As a…
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