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Sandra Breka
Sandra Breka is Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation Group at Open Society Foundations. Previously she was a member of the Board of Management of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, one of the major charitable foundations in Europe. There, she spearheaded the foundation’s strategic realignment. Her portfolio included the foundation’s work on Global Issues with a focus on Climate Change, Democracy, Immigration Society, Inequality, Migration, and Peace as well as Strategic Partnerships and the Robert Bosch Academy. Before joining the foundation in 2001, Sandra served as Program Director at the Aspen Institute Berlin after an assignment with the American Council on Germany in New York. After studies in…
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Alisha Bjerregaard
Alisha Bjerregaard is a Schell Center Visiting Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School and human rights consultant. Her work focuses on advocating for women's rights and reproductive rights. Prior to working as a consultant, Alisha was a Clinical Lecturer in Law and the clinical teaching fellow in the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, where she supervised law students on a wide variety of human rights projects and co-taught the Lowenstein Clinic seminar. Previously, Alisha was a Legal Adviser in the Africa Program at the Center for Reproductive Rights. She was based in Nairobi, Kenya and worked on advocacy and litigation strategies to advance…
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Saleh Barakat
Saleh Barakat is an expert in contemporary Arab art and founded the Agial Art Gallery in 1991 and Saleh Barakat Gallery in 2016, both in Beirut. As the executive manager of the two galleries, he has participated in building major collections of modern and contemporary Arab art. With a strong business background with decades of experience in the art sector, Saleh is deeply engaged in developing a healthy market environment for creative expression in the Arab world. He has curated several pan-Arab exhibitions including the IXth Francophone Summit in Beirut, the 2003 World Bank Summit in Dubai, and "The Road to Peace: Painting in Times of War 1975-1991" at the…
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Mohamed Baba
Mohamed Baba is Chairman of the Board of Haag Wonen, an Amsterdam-based non-profit organization helping to provide safe and affordable housing for vulnerable populations in the city. He previously worked as the Director of Strategy and Policymaking for the city of Amsterdam where he focused on the nexus between multiculturalism and economic expansion in the greater city area. Prior to working for the city of Amsterdam, in 2000, Mohamed co-founded Mexit Intercultural Management, a consultancy working to overcome cultural barriers and promote successful integration of immigrant communities in Europe with a specialization in intercultural change management. From 2011 to 2015, Mohamed served as Vice-Chairman of the international supervisory board of Rutgers…
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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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Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi
Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi is a United Arab Emirates-based columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. Sultan rose in prominence during the Arab Spring when his tweets became a major news source, rivaling news networks at the time, until TIME magazine listed him in the “140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2011.” In 2018 Sultan ranked 19th on the "Arabic Thought Leader Index" by Swiss think tank Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. Sultan was an MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow from 2014-2016, and in the spring of 2017 he was a practitioner in residence at the Hagop Kevorkian Center of Near East Studies at New York…
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Fauziya Ali
Fauziya Ali is the Founder and President of Women in International Security (WIIS) Horn of Africa (HoA). She is an expert in governance, gender and human security. She is currently serving as the steering committee member for the inaugural Paris Peace forum under the leadership of President Emanuel Macron of France and an evaluating Judge for the Larsen Lam Iconiq impact awards under MacArthur Foundation. She also chairs a regional network of women peace builders in the Horn of Africa. She is currently working on a e-photo book dubbed “faces of resilience” as part of the 20th commemoration of women peace and security agenda. Prior to establishing WIIS-HoA, Fauziya served as…
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Srikumar Misra
Sri Misra is a serial entrepreneur shaping the future of decentralized finance through aarnâ protocol, an AI-crypto platform creating the next generation web3 asset management stack to democratize access to the rapidly evolving world of digital assets. As the founder of Milk Mantra, India’s first VC-funded agri-food startup, Sri championed a new-age ethically sourced premium dairy products, gaining recognition as a practitioner of conscious capitalism. His innovative work has earned global media attention and features in top business school case studies. Previously a key member of the Tata Group’s elite TAS, Sri gained international experience in London and Johannesburg and spearheaded M&A in the consumer food & beverage sector. He…
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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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