The future is here: unlocking the next generation's vision

Amro is a Political Sociologist at the American University in Cairo, a member of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities, an associate of the Sydney Democracy Network, and a former fellow at the Berlin Social Science Centre. His research interests mainly engage with Egyptian and Arab civil society, Alexandria’s urban politics, Arab public spheres, social movements, Middle Eastern geopolitics, and political philosophy. Lately, he has been focused on how human condition has come under assault from the forces of global consumption and material culture, and the effects this has on identity, city meaning, modernity, and citizenship. Amro writes for Open Democracy, Mada Masr, TIME, the Guardian, Jadalliya, Atlantic Council, and the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

Luc Bas is the Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) European Regional Office in Brussels, serving as its representative in EU institutions and providing leadership and guidance for all activities undertaken by the IUCN, government and NGO members within the European context. This includes informing decision-making through the IUCN’s knowledge on topics such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Red Lists, Protected Area management, Natural Capital and promoting the use of nature-based solutions across different sectors. Prior to this role, Luc was European Director of The Climate Group in Brussels as well as an advisor on international sustainable development policies for both the Belgian Federal and Flemish governments.

Andrea Boccuni is Head of Partnership and Education at The Good Lobby, a start-up committed to mobilising and empowering European citizens. Their aim is to foster assertive citizenship so as to create more accountable, cohesive and happier societies. At The Good Lobby, Andrea develops and implements strategic partnership strategies together with the Funders and Secretariat. He engages with companies, foundations, NGOs, professionals and institutions to deepen the outreach of The Good Lobby. Prior to joining The Good Lobby, Andrea worked as a Parliamentary Assistant at the European Parliament and as an external consultant for the European Commission in the Food Frauds Unit.

Yostina Boules, dubbed “the magic machine” by farm owners, is Founder and Managing Director of Taqa Solutions, an Egyptian based organisation aiming to provide a clean and independent energy source to farmers by producing energy from poultry waste. By doing this, the Taqa solutions simultaneously addresses the problem of waste management from one of Egypt’s main agricultural industries, while maximising clean energy production. Yostina was selected as a Pioneer of Egypt after becoming a finalist on El Mashrou3, an entrepreneurship reality television competition.

Hala Bugaighis is a lawyer and co-founder of Jusoor, a non-governmental organisation committed to independent policy research and human development projects for women with focus on the economic and social empowerment. As a lawyer with 15 years of experience, Hala focuses on commercial, banking, civil and investment laws, and has a sound understanding of law practice in an international context. Through her private companies, Hala has worked as a consultant to many international companies as well as Libyan private and public entities, focusing on development and capacity building. In 2015, Hala was nominated a UN Women Champion for Women Economic Empowerment – an initiative that aims to improve women’s economic standing and potential around the world.

Geert Cami co-founded Friends of Europe, the action-oriented think tank, which in 2011 launched both its citizen’s platform, Debating Europe and its European Young Leaders Programme. In 2015, Friends of Europe integrated the Security and Defence agenda thinktank. As Secretary General, Geert mainly deals with the strategic development of Friends of Europe, coordinating the work of the high-level Boards involved in the governance of the organisation and chairing the Leadership meetings. He oversees both the financial health and the successful running of the organisation and its flagship initiatives and focuses on the expansion and the activation of Friends of Europe’s vast network of trustees, European young leaders and other senior political, corporate, media and societal contacts and partners throughout the world.

 In 2019, Geert founded TownHall Europe (the Davignon Centre for New Leadership) and in 2020, he co-founded the Africa-Europe Foundation (AEF) in partnership with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF).

 Geert headed the European conference organising, press relations and publishing company Forum Europe for more than ten years, and managed the revival of one of Belgium’s finest architectural examples of Art Nouveau, after creating La Maison de l’Europe in the prestigious 100-year-old Bibliothèque Solvay.

 At the outset of his career, Geert worked for a few years in the Humanitarian Office of the European Commission as a deputy in the newly set-up information and communications unit. His focus was mainly on raising the profile of the EU’s humanitarian efforts throughout the world, through publications and media initiatives such as exhibitions, television debates or Humanitarian Days in Member States.

 He also worked briefly as a teacher and TV journalist for two music programmes at Belgian public Radio 1.

Syrine Chaalala is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of nextProtein. She co-founded nextProtein in 2015 after working as an Emergency Operations Officer and Coordinator for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for a decade and seeing the devastating results of climate change first-hand. nextProtein produces insect-based protein for animal feedstocks in a quest to accelerate sustainable agriculture and tackle resource scarcity. The start-up is able to match the nutritional value of traditionally-produced protein at reduced cost and with significantly less resources. Through this pioneering and innovative process, nextProtein is able to provide a concrete solution to major societal problems: a growing population, food waste and the negative environmental impact of the agroindustries.

Kris De Meyer is a neuroscientist and director of the Climate Action Unit at University College London. He brings insights from neuroscience and psychology to how we tell stories about climate change, communicate about climate risk, and create opportunities for climate action. He trains journalists and communicators in how to tell stories of action, rather than stories of concern. With storytelling studio Fast Familiar and NESTA, he developed The Strategy Room, an interactive story scenario showing the positive future we can create by acting on climate change.

Mary Fitzgerald is a researcher and analyst specialising in the Mediterranean region with a particular focus on Libya. She has consulted for a number of international organisations including in the areas of peacebuilding and civil society. She has worked with the International Crisis Group (ICG), the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) among others. She is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, King’s College London and an Associate Fellow at ISPI in Milan. Mary has also worked on wider initiatives with UNESCO, the Anna Lindh Foundation, the British Council and other cultural organisations. Her writing has appeared in publications including Foreign Policy, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Financial Times and The Guardian.

Olivier de Schutter served as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from and was elected to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Olivier was awarded Belgium’s top scientific award, the Prix Francqui, for his contribution to the advancement of EU law, the theory of governance, and human rights law. Previously, he chaired the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high-level group of experts which advised the European Union institutions on fundamental rights issues, acted on a number of occasions as expert for the Council of Europe and for the European Union and served as General Secretary of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). Olivier is also a Professor at UCLouvain and at Sciences Po Paris. He has also taught at the College of Europe in Natolin, as a Member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University and as Visiting Professor at Columbia University.

Tomáš Ignác is the Vice President of the European Council of Young Farmers – the voice of Europe’s next generation of farmers towards the European institutions. He also runs a 50-ha organic fruit and wine family farm in southern Moravia and cooperates with agricultural and environmental institutions as part of his farm business. The motivation to farm in this less favoured region is a holistic approach to (re-)build the countryside. Previously, Tomáš actively engaged in the NGO Antikomplex, working on the German Czech reconciliation. In addition, he led the LGBT Christian community called Logos for four years. His ambition is to advocate for a sustainable agricultural policy and a strong bond of the European nations and between rural areas and cities.

Guido is a Belgian academic and agricultural economist who has been Director-General of the Royal Museum for Central Africa since 2001. As Director-General, he initiated a reorganisation and renovation of the museum, focusing on updating the museum’s portrayal of Belgium’s colonial era. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office and of the Fund for Scientific Research, as well as the Chair of the Jury that annually awards the Development Cooperation Prize. Guido has also been the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, based in Aleppo, Syria.

Erica Hope is a Senior Associate at the European Climate Foundation, where she leads the cross-sectoral ‘2050 Task Force’ and governance programme seeking to build knowledge, political strategies and coalitions to drive the transition to a net zero emissions society by mid-century. Erica has previously worked for the energy efficiency and UK programmes of the ECF, and before that led the policy and advocacy activities of NGO network Climate Action Network Europe on energy efficiency. She was also a researcher to Green MEP Caroline Lucas, and has worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London.

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.

Joyce is the Deputy Executive Director of UN Environment. With more than 20 years’ experience in international development strategy and operations, Joyce has held leading positions across Africa, Asia and Latin America. She recently served as Acting Executive Director, overseeing UN Environment’s portfolio in 33 countries and administering nine Multilateral Environmental Agreements on critical environment issues. Other notable positions include that of Adviser to the World Bank’s Vice-President, East Asia and Pacific Region in Washington, D.C., World Bank Institute’s East Asia and Pacific Regional Coordinator in China, Principal Strategy Officer at the International Finance Corporation and Special Adviser to Lord Nicholas Stern, World Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist.

Thomas is the Managing Director for EU Affairs and Head of Facebook’s Brussels office, where he is responsible for Facebook’s representation towards the European Institutions. Prior to returning to Brussels, Thomas spent the last few years representing Facebook in a number of member states as well as countries outside the EU as Director for Public Policy, Nordics, Central & Eastern Europe and Russia. He has also held previous positions at Microsoft and the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Thomas’ career in tech stems from a life-long passion for how tech can both improve human interactions and shape society.

Negar Mortazavi is an Iranian-American journalist and columnist, who exclusively covers stories about Iran in both English and Persian. She is also the host of the Iran Podcast and a frequent commentator on Iranian affairs at MSNBC, BBC, PRI, The New York Times, Aljazeera, HuffPost and international outlets across the world, including Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Switzerland and Japan. Mortazavi previously worked as a TV presenter at Voice of America (VOA) Persian, where she hosted a daily hour-long interactive show that discussed current affairs with Iranians across the world.

A leading voice on LGBTQ rights and politics, Una is one of Ireland’s most reputable young activists. As a journalist, broadcaster and author, she has written for prominent news outlets such as The Guardian and the Sunday Tribune, in addition to contributing a weekly column to the Irish Times. Her two books, In The Name Of Love, and her anthropology, Repeal the 8th, trace the historical developments which culminated in the two separate referenda on marriage equality and reproductive rights in Ireland. She was the Independent Chair of Ireland’s National 2018 LGBTI+ Youth Strategy, which is the first of its kind. A poet and screenwriter, she has authored the documentary, I Am Irish, co-founded a music documentary film festival, co-created the pro-choice podcast, Don’t Stop Repealin’, and co-founded the Irish Times Women’s Podcast.

Louma is the Director-General of the Boghossian Foundation. Based at the Villa Empain in Brussels, the Foundation holds a focus on the dialog between the Oriental and Western culture. As head of the Foundation, Louma has conceived several exhibitions including Frontières Imaginaires (2017), Melancholia (2018), and Flamboyant (2019). Prior to join the Foundation, Louma worked on several exhibitions and projects around the world, most notably Chemins de Traverses in 2015 and Mental Map in 2012. As well as working at Paris’ Institut du monde arabe and the Mathaf in Doha, Louma’s experience extends to Abu Dhabi’s Louvre Museum, as well as New York Guggenheim museum and Luxembourg’s Mudam.

Ana is a Women’s Rights Activist and a member of the feminist collective Fight Like a Woman, living and working in Skopje. She has also contributed to the UN Women’s ‘Not only on March 8th’ initiative, which makes the point that gender equality issues should not be in the limelight only once a year, on International Women’s Day, but should be publicly debated consistently. Together with other feminist activists, Vasileva recently kicked off a new online social movement against sexual harassment, under the hashtag #ISpeakUpNow, inspired by the global #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns.

Paul Walton is Executive Director of the Africa-Europe Foundation. He has extensive international experience in leading organisations and multi-country programmes. including more than 15 years working and living in Africa and the Middle East. Paul has been in the vanguard of inter-regional cooperation and was former director of strategy at the 43-country Mediterranean Foundation, working from its headquarters in Egypt. He was member of the steering group mandated by the UN Security Council to produce the first global study on ‘Youth, Peace and Security’ and the taskforce to create structures for dialogue among the EU, civil society and authorities following the historic events of the Arab Spring. Paul began his international career as the founding director of the landmark UK Millennium Project ‘Youth 2000’ and was CEO of the award-winning international NGO ‘Global Voice’. As an analyst of global affairs, he is a Visiting Lecturer at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies and has been interviewed in the BBC, Al Arabiya and The New York Times.

Currently, Ozan works as a researcher at the Finnish Labour Institute for Eonomic Research. Formerly, he served as green city counsellor in Helsinki and as member of the Finish Parliament. As a green politician and future economist, he is very interested in the future of work and green economic growth. At the age of 27, he was elected as a Member of the Finnish Parliament and in the past parliamentary term he advocated for social equality and the fight against discrimination. Ozan has worked at the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. Ozan has also served as the Co-Chair of the Federation of Green Youth and in 2017 he was on the 30 Under 30 list of Forbes.