State of Europe – the festival of politics and ideas: a new Renaissance

Samir Abdelkrim is a French entrepreneur, author and tech reporter. Passionate about all things digital, he founded EMERGING Valley as an international summit on African innovation to connect tech start-ups with investors, thinkers and decision-makers across continents. He also leads StartupBRICS, a company that provides insights on entrepreneurship in emerging economies. Abdelkrim is a former chronicler on African tech entrepreneurs for Le Monde and has also featured in Huffington Post, Le Point and Les Echos. His book, “Startup Lions”, chronicles his experience travelling the African continent in search of the most interesting and innovative tech start-ups. With French President Emmanuel Macron’s ‘Summit of the Two Shores of the Mediterranean’ initiative, Abdelkrim was amongst 10 selected to make proposals to relaunch European and Mediterranean cooperation.

Susan Aitken is a Scottish politician and currently serves as Leader of Glasgow City Council. Under her leadership, Glasgow will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which she has described this as a defining moment in the city’s history that could lead to a new international agreement. Championing the role of cities in the green transition, her ambition is to make Glasgow the United Kingdom’s first zero-carbon city. She also serves as councillor for her home area of Langside and leads the Council’s Scottish National Party group.

Sacha Alanoca manages projects and research centred on the governance, policy and ethics of AI systems. Her research topics range from national AI national strategies, AI for development, algorithmic bias and existential risks, to international initiatives for trustworthy AI adoption including AI ethical guidelines with a focus on privacy and algorithmic fairness, the use of independent audits for AI systems, and civic empowerment platforms such as the AI Civic Forum. Her past work also focused on the impact of social and ecological trends in Latin America and the responsible use of AI in pandemic response. Previously, Alanoca worked at the OECD Development Center in Paris.

Anna Ascani is the Undersecretary of State at the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, since 1st March 2021. Being responsible for digital transition, ICT technologies and cooperatives, Ascani is one of the main actors of the Italian recovery. She has been a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies since 2013 and she has served as Deputy Minister of Education between 2019 and 2021. After several years of political activity, she is currently the Vice-President of the Democratic Party (PD), where she has also been the coordinator of the Culture Department.

Thirty years ago, Josef Aschbacher began his career at the European Space Agency (ESA) where he was seconded as the ESA Representative to Southeast Asia at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok. Later, he joined the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, where he served as scientific assistant to the Director of the Space Applications Institute. Upon his return to ESA headquarters in Paris, he was tasked with advancing Copernicus activities within ESA, going on to become head of the Copernicus Space Office, where he led all activities for Copernicus within the Agency and with external partners, in particular the European Commission. Before taking office as the ESA’s Director General, Aschbacher was entrusted with planning the ESA’s Earth Observation Programme, as well as formulating and implementing programmatic and strategic decisions across the Directorate.

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the IEA since 2015, taking up his current position after rising through the ranks of the IEA over two decades. He has been named in TIME’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people and by Forbes as one of the most influential people in the world of energy. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and is the recipient of numerous state decorations, including the French Legion of Honour and the Japanese Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun.

Previously serving as Senior Foresight Expert in the European Commission Joint Research Centre’s Competence Centre for Foresight, Laurent Bontoux plays a role in bringing future-oriented systemic thinking into EU policymaking, while striving to be as inclusive as possible and to apply participative approaches. Starting his career off as a food technology engineer and an environmental engineer, he went on to spend three years ensuring the environmental safety of household products at Procter & Gamble in Brussels. Since joining the European Commission in 1993, Bontoux has spent most of his career working at the nexus of science and policy on a wide range of issues, including health and environmental risk assessment, research, environmental technologies, sustainability issues and long-term thinking.

A Dutch machine learning scientist turned entrepreneur, Loubna Bouarfa currently holds the position of Chairwoman of the Innovation Board at Envision Pharma Group (ESG). In this role, she focuses on emphasising the broader mission of embedding and excelling AI across EPG. Bouarfa is also the Founder and former CEO of OKRA Technologies, a leading artificial intelligence analytics company in the life sciences sector. With OKRA.ai transitioning to a horizontal function within EPG, her expertise will now focus on shaping EPG’s AI strategy and championing EPG’s position as a thought leader in this space. Bouarfa was awarded the CEO of the Year Award at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards. As a former member of the European Union High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, she supported the implementation of the Union’s strategy on AI within the digital single market.

Mathew Burrows is a leading expert in strategic foresight and global trend analysis. Burrows is the former councillor at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) and worked as an analyst for the Directorate of Intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), covering western Europe and the development of European institutions, including the European Union. He has also served as a special assistant to the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, as well as deputy national security advisor to former US treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill. Burrows was the first holder of the Intelligence Community Fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Francesca Cavallo is a bestselling author of children’s books, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Undercats Media. She is the co-creator of ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’, a collection of 100 tales of extraordinary women that has become a publishing sensation. Cavallo’s career began in theatre, where she worked as both a manager for a theatre company and as a playwright. In 2012, she moved to California to co-found a children’s media start-up called Timbuktu Labs, Inc. Since then, she has authored nine picture books that have been translated into more than 47 languages. Her most recent international bestseller is the children’s book ‘Doctor Li and the Crown-wearing Virus’.

As Chief Energy Modeller, Laura Cozzi oversees the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) outlooks and forecasts. She is in charge of ensuring the consistency of the modelling work and the resulting messages. Cozzi is also Head of the Demand Outlook Division, responsible for producing the annual World Energy Outlook: the IEA flagship publication that is regarded as the gold standard in energy analysis. The Division produces medium- to long-term energy demand, efficiency, power generation, renewables and environmental analysis for this report and other publications.

Etienne (Stevy) Davignon is one of the few statesmen in Europe who has been actively involved in EU affairs from the beginning, from his early role as Chief of Staff to Paul-Henri Spaak to today. He has held high-level positions in both the public and private sectors, including as Vice-President of the European Commission, President of the Société Générale de Belgique, first President of the International Energy Agency and through various board mandates.

Under Philippe Donnet’s leadership, the Generali Group signed the European green recovery alliance, committing the Italy-based insurance and asset management company to an active role in the green recovery of the European economy through sustainable investments and social responsibility. Further, Donnet is a strong proponent of public-private partnerships as a key to Europe’s future success. In his previous role as Country Manager Italy at Generali, Donnet spearheaded the initiative to merge the five Generali brands operating in Italy, one of Europe’s most complex integration and simplification projects in the industry. Prior to joining Generali, Donnet held several management positions within the AXA Group working across several continents. In addition, he was Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Wendel Investissements in Singapore and co-founded the investment management company HLD in Paris.

Salvador Estevan currently leads the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, developing a policy framework to unleash the potential of AI in the economy and society. He played a crucial role in the Spanish Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and in the definition of the Digital Spain 2025 agenda. In his former role as the deputy head of communications of the General Secretariat for Digital Administration, he managed natural language projects and AI applications to improve the digital services of the administration and reinvent public services that are fit for the digital age.

In addition to her role at the Greek Ministry of Health, Mina Gaga is an advisor to the WHO and serves on the European Diploma Examination Committee HERMES. She is the Director of the 7th Respiratory Medicine Department and Asthma Centre at Athens Chest Hospital Sotiria, the largest lung cancer centre in Greece. A clinician by trade, Gaga also undertakes clinical research with a focus on lung cancer and asthma. Having served as president of the Central Health Council of Greece, she has also held several roles at the European Respiratory Society School and the European Board of Accreditation in Pneumology, contributing to the development of international guidelines and requirements for asthma and lung cancer care.

To tackle the COVID-19 recovery, Céline Gauer was appointed as the first Head of RECOVER. Her strong negotiation and leadership skills enable her to take on the challenging role of implementing the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Her mission is to rebuild a more resilient Europe that is well prepared for the digital and green transitions. During her fruitful career at the European institutions, she has worked as the former deputy secretary-general in charge of the Smart Regulation and Work Programme and Policy Co-ordination, deputy director-general of the Directorate-General Health and Food Safety and held various positions at the Directorate-General for Competition.

Zarifa Ghafari is an Afghan human rights activist, politician and entrepreneur. Appointed mayor of Maidan Shahr at the age of 26, she became the youngest mayor and one of the first female mayors in Afghan history. Known for her efforts to advance women’s rights in Afghanistan, Ghafari is regarded as a role model to women in her country. When the Taliban took over the Afghanistan government in August 2021, she fled with her family to Germany. Today, Ghafari hopes to raise the unspoken voice of Afghan women throughout the international community to fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

During the pandemic, Sylvie Goulard was appointed by the World Health Organization to serve as a member of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development in order to ensure that health tops the political agenda. Goulard is the former French minister of the armed forces, the second woman ever to hold the head position and has previously served as member of the European Parliament, where she addressed issues related to fighting poverty and advocating for gender equality in European institutions. Goulard began her career as a diplomat in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Fabienne Goux-Baudiment is a French futurist and the founder of ProGective, an independent organisation, entirely devoted to prospective and foresight. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Foresight, Entrepreneurship & Intangible Capital at the University of Angers, Fellow at the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), and sits on the editorial boards of Futures, Foresight and Journal of Future Studies. Goux-Baudiment is the former president of the WFSF and has also served as the vice-president of the Center for Transcultural Foresight. She is currently a member of both the Association of Professional Futurists and the World Future Society.

Johannes Hahn is an Austrian politician at the forefront of Europe’s recovery and the Next Generation EU policy instrument. Under his watch, the EU will kickstart its green bond sales in October 2021, transforming the EU into the largest issuer of environmentally-friendly debt in the world. Hahn is the former European commissioner for European neighbourhood policy and enlargement negotiations and the former European commissioner for regional policy, prior to which he served as the Austrian minster for science and research. As a member of the Austrian People’s Party youth movement, he drafted the party’s first European manifesto and adopted a resolutely pro-European stance.

Solveigh Hieronimus leads the global McKinsey Center for Government (MCG) and predominantly serves clients in the public sector on topics related to digital and data strategies, sustainability, public health and public finance. She is a leader in McKinsey’s Organization Practice and a member of the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) Council, which advises on MGI research on global economic, business and technology trends. Previously, Hieronimus has held various positions at the United Nations, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan. She is passionate about all things EU and serves on the European Commission’s high-level expert panel for the Future of Work.

Prior to joining Friends of Europe, Dharmendra Kanani was director of policy at the European Foundation Centre (EFC). He was the England director at the Big Lottery Fund, the largest independent funder in the UK and fourth largest in the world. Dharmendra has held senior positions in the public and voluntary sectors and advisor to numerous ministerial policy initiatives across the UK.

*Consultant at Friends of Europe.

Gert Jan Koopman is the Director-General of the Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations. Prior to this, he served as the director-general of the European Commission’s budget department. In this role, he contributed to putting in place the European Union’s €800bn NextGenerationEU recovery plan, as well as the €18bn MFA+ for Ukraine. He has worked to enable its financing on the capital markets through a sovereign-style funding system. Having served the EU for nearly three decades, Koopman was previously in charge of state aid control at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. His earlier assignments included senior management posts in the department for economic and financial affairs, the Commission’s economic service, as well as enterprise and industry, which supervises the smooth running of the single market. 

Prior to assuming his current role at Edwards Lifesciences, the global leader in patient-focused medical innovations for structural heart disease, Jean-Luc Lemercier served as the vice-president of transcatheter heart valves of the EMEA region. Under his leadership, the company successfully launched the SAPIEN transcatheter heart valve technology and built its leadership position in Europe. Lemercier also serves as Chair of the Cardiovascular Sector Group of MedTech Europe, the association representing the medical technology industry in Europe.

Pronouns: he/him
Joe is the Editor-in-Chief of Debating Europe. He has been active in the EU blogosphere since 2008. Before starting work for Friends of Europe in 2011, he worked as a freelance journalist in the UK and Brussels, and edited BlogActiv.eu, a dedicated EU blogging platform. A part of Friends of Europe, Debating Europe is a successful online discussion platform based on a simple model: citizens ask questions, policymakers and experts respond. Since launching, it has built a 6+ million strong community of citizens and a social media following of over 271,000 people from across Europe.

André Loesekrug-Pietri is an entrepreneur and has held leadership positions in private equity, government and industry. He is currently the Chairman of JEDI, which aims to accelerate Europe’s leadership by financing and nurturing the development of breakthrough technologies. He previously served as a special advisor to the French Minister of Defence, where he was responsible for European defence policy, as well as technology and innovation, prior to which he has 15 years of experience in private equity and venture capital. Loesekrug-Pietri is a lecturer at Sciences Po and a regular columnist at several international media outlets. Having studied aerospace engineering, he is also a private pilot and Colonel with the French Air Force People’s Reserve.

Ludewig leads the healthcare division of T-Systems International and is responsible for driving the company’s development of the healthcare market. Prior to his current role, he worked to advance the digitalisation and innovative capacity of Germany’s health sector as the head of the Department of Healthcare Digitalization at the German Ministry of Health, where he was notably responsible for the introduction of the digital vaccination card. Ludewig was also instrumental in promoting the electronic patient file and establishing the FDZ research data centre. As a member of the Berlin House of Representatives, he was the deputy chairman and health policy spokesperson the Christian Democrats Union parliamentary group. In this position, Ludewig was particularly committed to strengthening research and innovation in the healthcare sector.

Magid Magid is a Somali-British race and climate justice activist, organiser and author, who moved to the United Kingdom as a refugee at the age of five. He is the Founder and Director of Union of Justice, an independent European people of colour-led organisation dedicated to racial and climate justice. He is also the Co-Chair of the refugee charity, City of Sanctuary Sheffield. Magid served as a Green Party member of the European Parliament, representing Yorkshire and the Humber for nearly two years until the UK’s exit from the EU. He is the former lord mayor of Sheffield, the youngest person ever and the first Green Party councillor to hold the office. Squatting on a staircase in Sheffield town hall and sporting a pair of Dr Martens, Magid’s inaugural portrait became an internet sensation. Magid was named one of TIME’s 100 rising stars shaping the future of the world.

Cecilia Malmström is a renowned Swedish politician, who has held various positions at the national and European levels. As the European commissioner for trade, she was responsible for pursuing an ambitious trade agenda to the benefit of European citizens, SMEs and the broader economy, as well as negotiating key bilateral trade agreements, including a comprehensive EU-China investment agreement. Prior to her role at the Commission, Malmström was also the Swedish minister for EU affairs and served as a member of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Constitutional Affairs, among others.

Roberta is the youngest ever and third woman President of the European Parliament. Prior to this, she served as Vice-President of the European Parliament, also as a member on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, among several other parliamentary committees and delegations. A lawyer by profession, Roberta is a member of the European People’s Party Group (EPP) and among the first female members of parliament to represent Malta. She is a two-time recipient of Parliament Magazine’s MEP Award, receiving recognition for her work on justice and civil liberties, and hosted the awards ceremony in 2017.

Nicolas Moës seeks to advance the European governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. While working at The Future Society, he has co-authored a report on digitalisation and European welfare states and the 2020 advisory report for the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Responsible AI Working Group. He also co-produced the 2019 Global Governance of AI Forum and the Athens AI Roundtable on AI in the Rule of Law. Previously, he worked for the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel on EU technology, AI and innovation policy. Throughout his career, Moës has consistently sought to ensure that disruptive technologies generate the greatest benefits for society.

Prior to her current appointment, Amina J. Mohammed served as the Nigerian minister of environment, spearheading the country’s efforts on climate action and environmental protection. She first joined the United Nations as special adviser to former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to facilitate the Millennium Development Goals. She led the process that resulted in a global agreement around the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the creation of the Sustainable Development Goals, for which she was awarded the 2019 Global Citizen World Leader Prize. Mohammed has also previously worked in the public sector in Nigeria as an advisor to four successive presidents on poverty, public sector reform and sustainable development.

Susmita Mohanty is a spaceship designer and serial space entrepreneur. Mohanty is the only space entrepreneur in the world to have co-founded companies on 3 different continents: EARTH2ORBIT Bangalore, MOONFRONT, San Francisco and LIQUIFER Systems Group, Vienna. Most recently, she launched Spaceport SARABHAI – ‘India’s first dedicated space think tank’ that hopes to re-centre the global space narrative, give India an international voice, grow the body of knowledge that informs critical areas of space law and policy, and help transform India into a developed space economy by 2030.

A distinguished economist, Mario Monti has cemented his reputation as a committed supporter of the single currency and a talented negotiator leading a government of technocrats in the wake of the Italian debt crisis in late 2011. Most recently, he chaired the High-Level Group on Own Resources, a consultative committee of the European Union, aimed at proposing new forms of revenue for the European Union’s budget, which resulted in the final report “Future Financing of the EU”, arguing for new tax sources.

Lindsey Nefesh-Clarke is Founder & CEO of W4.org, a social enterprise dedicated to protecting girls’ and women’s human rights and promoting their empowerment around the world, with a focus on Sustainable Development Goal 5b: harnessing technologies. Nefesh-Clarke worked in human rights and development in Africa and Asia at Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, Enfants d’Asie, before founding W4. Named a “Women in IT Role Model” by the European Commission and one of the “Inspiring Fifty” women leaders in Europe’s technology sector, Nefesh-Clarke is a board member of the Women’s Economic Imperative (WEI), which aims to advance the work of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment. She is also a Senior Fellow for Friends of Europe’s Connect Europe initiative, and a member of the advisory board of UN Women France.

Masami Onoda is currently Director of JAXA Washington D.C. Office. Onoda has extensive experience in international affairs, satellite applications, and industry relations. She has held several international positions, including at the Group on Earth Observations Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs in Vienna, Austria.

Luca Parmitano was the first Italian to serve as the commander of the International Space Station and is the ESA astronaut who has spent the most time in space, logging a total of 366 days. Awarded the Order of the Merit of the Italian Republic in a recognition of his achievements, Parmitano is not the typical astronaut, having performed the very first DJ session in orbit and addressed world leaders at COP25. Parmitano is also a Colonel and former test pilot of the Italian Air Force.

Laura Piovesan is an Italian engineer, who currently works for the European Investment Bank, the largest multilateral lender, where her primary role is to carry out techno-economic assessments of projects requesting EIB funding. A champion of sustainability with the ambitious aim of turning the EIB into Europe’s climate bank, the EIB has changed its strategy under her leadership and set the goal of dedicating 50% of the bank’s financing to climate and environment by 2025. Piovesan has previously worked as a research scientist and industrial economist for an Italian engineering company.

Dragoș Pîslaru is a Romanian economist and politician. He served as a member of the European Parliament on behalf of USR PLUS, affiliated with the European political group, Renew Europe. He sat on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC). Pîslaru was also the co-rapporteur on the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the largest financial instrument created by the European Union for the economic recovery of the bloc after the COVID-19 pandemic.

With many years of experience in the space industry, Anna Rathsman has worked as a systems engineer, subsystem engineer, technology development manager, business developer and communications director. She was involved in the building of Sweden’s first scientific satellites as a member of the team that designed and realised the research satellite, Freja. Rathsman also led the work on the first Swedish microsatellite, Astrid-1. She has served on the boards of several Swedish space technology companies and is currently Chair of the European Space Agency (ESA) Council.

Tamsin Rose is a facilitator who was until recently a senior fellow for health at Friends of Europe. Having studied international relations, she has 25 years of experience working across the European continent from Ireland to Mongolia. A natural communicator, Tamsin has been a radio reporter, worked on press for the EU Delegation in Moscow and is currently a member of the external speaker team for the European Commission Directorate-General for Communication, describing how the EU works and key policies to visitor groups from around the world. Since 2002, she has specialised in public health and public participation issues, serving as the Secretary General of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), and providing strategic advice for health groups on how to engage successfully with the EU.

In his current position, David Sassoli champions the European Parliament as a means to strengthen European democracy. Most notably, he has led the work of the European railway reform and the Single European Sky initiative. As a member of the European Parliament, he has previously served as delegation leader of the Democratic Party, a member of the Committee for Transport and Tourism and vice-president of the European Parliament, with responsibility for Mediterranean policy, budget and buildings. Before entering the world of European politics, he worked on the editorial team of TG1 as a special correspondent and later deputy director, as well as at the Rai Uno and Rai Due news programmes.

Johannes Schildt  is a Swedish serial entrepreneur and Co-Founder of KRY/LIVI, which he plans to develop into the world’s leading healthcare provider by combining medical expertise with state-of-the-art technology. Currently available in Sweden, Norway, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, the business has pioneered the digital healthcare model by enabling people to see a medical doctor or a psychologist via remote video connection, thereby replacing the need for in-person consultations. To date, the app has delivered over two million appointments and is set to launch in more markets this year. Long part of Europe’s start-up scene, Schildt has also founded a number of other initiatives, including Tieday Group and Wowallets.

Retiring from NATO in September 2018 after 38 years at the organisation, Jamie Shea has occupied a number of senior positions at NATO across a wide range of areas, including external relations, press and media, and policy planning. As NATO’s spokesperson, he was the face of the alliance during the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts. He later worked as the director of policy planning in the private office of former secretary general Rasmussen during the preparation of NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept. Shea is also a regular lecturer and conference speaker on NATO and European security affairs.

Aleksandra Torbica is a leading expert in health policy, health economics and healthcare management. In addition to her duties at Bocconi University in Milan, she sits on the executive board of the Italian Health Economics Association, where she previously served as secretary general. Her research interests lie at the intersection of health policy, health economics and healthcare management. She is interested in exploring different methodologies to investigate decision-making processes at macro (policy) and micro (management) levels, both in high- and lower-middle-income countries. A special advisor to the Chair of the WHO Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, she is also the Co-Editor of Value in Health, one of the leading international journals in the field of health economics and health policy.

Ben Wreschner is the Chief Economist for Vodafone Group. Having been in the digital sector for 20 years, he has worked extensively in the policy and public affairs environment representing Vodafone at key meetings with various institutions. Wreschner is also the Chairman of the European Policy Group for the GSMA mobile industry association.