MEM Summer Summit 2018
Overview
Between 16 and 26 August, young change-makers, leaders from the public and private sector, artists, and intellectuals gathered in the south of Switzerland to address recent developments and persisting problems in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries.
The MEM Summer Summit:
- Offers a platform for young change-makers to lay out a vision for their common future
- Stimulates intellectual and human exchange across borders, cultures and languages
- Allows for spontaneous face-to-face meetings in a relaxed environment
- Facilitates friendships, enduring networks, and innovative ideas
The two-phased programme offered a Seminar (16 – 24 August) for young change-makers from the region and a high-level Forum (25 – 26 August), bringing together top-tier speakers with the leaders of tomorrow. This heterogeneous and trans-generational model of exchange is innovative and promotes dialogue between people who do not usually have the opportunity to be in contact.
Accompanying cultural events provided an informal framework to address existing assumptions and develop mutual perspectives through art.
Achievements
- Participation of 150 young change-makers, 100 speakers and 400 attendants
- 84 grants awarded to the young change-makers
- 31 sessions, workshops, and panels; 3 concerts, 2 film screenings, 3 public conferences, 1 photography exhibition
- Creation of a network of young change-makers, leaders, decision-makers, political authorities, experts, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs of the MEM region
- Space available for transgenerational encounters for young change-makers, sponsors, entrepreneurs and politicians
- Bilateral and multilateral meetings of politicians and entrepreneurs
- The Lugano Initiative. Proposals for the Middle East Mediterranean region: a document that collects concrete proposals for development and growth in the MEM region, developed and drawn up during the MEM Summer Summit 2018
- Further developments of projects in the field proposed by the young change-makers
- Collaboration and cooperation with diverse players and institutions in Switzerland and in the MEM region
- Collaboration with several universities such as Graduate Institute, Université de Genève, PLS Paris Sciences et Lettres – ENS École normale supérieure, Université de Tunis (Manouba)
Seminar 2018
The programme consisted of a series of plenary session and workshops, thematically separated into three streams – “New Dynamics of the Middle East Mediterranean Region”, “Middle East Mediterranean Region Governance, Administration, and Policy Making”, “Middle East Mediterranean Region: Narratives, Representations, Images”.
Full programme of the Seminar 2018: MEM Summer Summit 2018 Seminar – Programme
MOUNA ATASSI
Founder, Atassi Foundation, Abu Dhabi
MOUNA ATASSI
Mouna Atassi has over 30 years’ experience as a culture professional, curator, gallerist and publisher. Mouna has a BA in French Literature and has been a pillar of Syria’s art scene since the eighties.
Mouna set up the first private art gallery in Homs in the 1980s. In 1990 she moved to Damascus where she set up another art gallery whose work continued until 2012. During this time Mouna was instrumental in the creation of a vibrant art scene in Damascus. She curated and organised world-class exhibitions in Damascus and in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the UAE. Mouna also published and edited a number of art books on Syrian art, organised panel discussions and promoted cultural exchanges.
In 2015 Mouna founded the Atassi Foundation for Art and Culture, an independent non-profit family initiative, whose aim is to preserve and promote Syrian art and increase its global visibility, recognition and appreciation. Mouna serves as the Foundation’s Chairwoman and she steers the strategic direction of the Foundation. The formation of the Foundation comes from her strong belief in the vital role that art and culture have in building societies and overcoming the ravages of war and destruction.
Mouna currently lives with her family in Dubai and Paris.
SHIREEN ATASSI
Director, Atassi Foundation, Abu Dhabi
SHIREEN ATASSI
Shireen Atassi has over 20 years’ experience in working in a variety of companies and industries, from management consulting (at Ernst & Young), to FMCG (at Mars Inc), Banking (at Citi Group) and arts and culture (at Atassi Gallery).
Shireen is now the Director of Atassi Foundation for Art and Culture, a non-profit initiative that was set up to preserve and promote the artistic heritage of Syria and to supportits young talents.
Shireen joined Atassi Foundation since its inception in 2015 and since then she has been instrumental in drawing the strategic direction of the Foundation and in positioning it as the leading thought leader on the arts and culture of Syria.
Shireen has a BSc in Economics and an MBA in Management from Imperial College, London. She currently lives and works in Dubai.
CLAUDIA BAEZ-CAMARGO
Basel Institute for Governance, Switzerland
CLAUDIA BAEZ-CAMARGO
Dr. Baez Camargo holds a PhD in political science from the University of Notre Dame, USA and a degree in economics from the University of Cambridge, England. Originally from Mexico, she initiated her professional career working with the Ministry for Social Development, Federal Government of Mexico. There, Baez Camargo was involved in developing demand-driven poverty reduction programmes to ensure access to public services for low-income rural communities.
She is currently Head of Governance Research at the Basel Institute on Governance where she is responsible for the development, oversight and management of the Institute’s research activities in the areas of public and global governance. Baez Camargo also works with a broad range of interested stakeholders on consultancy projects aimed at developing context sensitive strategies to prevent corruption in the public sector. She also teaches courses on corruption and development, health systems governance and has developed a special curriculum on research methods focusing on corruption studies.
FABRICE BALANCHE
Professor, Hoover Institution, The Washington Institute, USA-France
FABRICE BALANCHE
Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a political geographer who specialises in the Middle East. He was previously the director of the Urban Observatory at the French Institute in Beirut from 2003 to 2007, the director of GREMMO (Research Group on the Mediterranean and the Middle East) at the University of Lyon from 2010 to 2015, and a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy from 2015 to 2017. He is also an associate professor at the University of Lyon in his native France. Balanche received a doctorate in political geography from the University of Tours in 2000 and accreditation to supervise research from the University of Lyon in 2013.
He spent ten years in Lebanon and Syria, his main areas of study, since first engaging in fieldwork in the region in 1990. Fabrice Balanche tries to understand political power by studying territory through a multidisciplinary approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods, GIS, and direct field surveys. Mapping is an important part of his research.
His publications includeSectarianism in the Syrian Civil War (2018, in English), Geopolitics of the Middle East (2014, in French), Atlas of the Near East (2012, in English, French, and Arabic), the book version of his thesis, The Alawite Region and Syrian Power (2006, in French), and many articles on Syria and Middle East.
Fabrice Balanche speaks French, English, Arabic, and Spanish. He is frequently called on as an expert consultant on Middle East development issues and the Syrian crisis.
JASMIN BASIC
Head of Fiction Programme, FIFDH – International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights, Switzerland
JASMIN BASIC
Ms Jasmin Basic is a film historian and curator. She has collaborated as coordinator and programmer with several festivals in Switzerland and abroad, including: Visions du Réel in Nyon, Cinema Tous Ecrans in Geneva, Split International Film Festival in Croatia, NIFFF in Neuchâtel, Animafest Zagreb in Croatia, International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights – FIFDH in Geneva, Solothurn Film Festival, and International Animation Festival Fantoche in Baden.
She has curated retrospectives on Michael Mann, Charles Burnett, David Cronenberg, Michael Snow, Harun Farocki, Atom Egoyan and on the Yugoslav Black Wave. She has developed programmes and events focused on international TV series.
She has also collaborated with the Geneva University of Arts & Design, HEAD, the Cinemathèque of Tangier in Morocco, the Centre for the Image La Virreina in Barcelona, the Croatian Audiovisual Center – HAVC, the French Cinémathèque, Centre Pompidou, the Cahiers du Cinéma, and the Forum des Images in Paris.
She was an appointed expert for the Swiss Federal Office of Culture for TV drama and series and a Board Member of the Geneva Film Commission.
ESSMA BEN HAMIDA
Founder, Enda Inter-Arabe, Tunisia
ESSMA BEN HAMIDA
Essma Ben Hamida co-founded the first microfinance institution in Tunisia with Michael Cracknell upon her return to Tunisia in 1990. With 340,000 active borrowers (65% of which are women), a €200 million outstanding portfolio, 90 branches, and 1750 employees, Enda inter-arabe is ranked among the best MFIs in Africa and the Arab region. Microrate’s latest rating gave Enda inter-arabe an ‘alpha’ rating with a “positive” outlook in terms of its financial performance, and 5 (excellent) as far as its social performance is concerned. In addition, the Smart Campaign has certified Enda inter-arabe with Client Protection Principles.
Ben Hamida holds a university degree in Geography and History from the University of Tunis and spent her post-graduate year in urban planning at Créteil University, Paris. Prior to her career in microfinance, she worked as a journalist and reporter in Tunisia, New York, Rome and Geneva; she was also a consultant for the United Nations. She is a founding member of SANABEL, the microfinance network of Arab countries, and was elected twice to Sanabel’s Board (from 2002 to 2008) and served as chairperson from 2006 to 2008.
She has received several awards, including the distinction of ‘Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in the Middle East and North Africa’by the prestigious Schwab Foundation and the World Economic Forum (Marrakech, October 2010).
ISA BLUMI
Associate Professor, Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, Sweden
ISA BLUMI
Isa Blumi received his PhD from NYU and his MA/BA from the New School for Social Research, and is a recent addition to the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.
Blumi researches and writes on a wide range of themes that link both periods and geographies. Having just finished his latest book, ‘Destroying Yemen’ (University of California Press, 2018), which accounts for the recent violence in South Arabia, he has returned to exploring transitional societies.
A visiting scholar in LMU-Munich in January 2018, he organised a two-day workshop on the long-term impact of the collapse of the Romanov, Habsburg, and Ottoman empires in relation to the movements of these polities’ subjects well beyond World War II. Pairing the organisation of this international event, his research into migrations to the Americas is an extension to his earlier work on the global dispersal of Ottoman subjects from 1878 to 1930, which are detailed in his book, ‘Ottoman Refugees’ (Bloomsbury, 2013).
In addition to producing six monographs and five edited volumes on both the Balkans and larger Middle East, covering the entire 19thcentury to present times, he has published more than two dozen peer reviewed articles and a similar number of book chapters.
A former Fullbright-Hays, SSRC, ACLS, and FOW scholar, Blumi has taught at universities in Belgium, UAE, USA, Canada, Germany, Albania, as well as the Graduate Institute in Geneva in 2013.
RICCARDO BOCCO
Professor, Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland
RICCARDO BOCCO
Professor of Political Sociology at the Anthropology and Sociology Department of the IHEID in Geneva, his main geographical area of fieldwork for the last 35 years has been the Near East with a particular focus on Jordan, Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. He has successively worked on issues of development policies and State-building; on humanitarian aid and refugees; and monitoring the impact of international aid on civilian populations. In addition to his PhD at SciencesPo (Paris), he has degrees in cultural anthropology, development studies and Arabic language. He has been director of the French Centre for Research on the Contemporary Middle East, based in Amman, and then Research Director at the Graduate Institute for Development Studies in Geneva. During the 2000s, he has led large-scale research projects on international aid in the Near East for United Nations’ agencies. His present research project titled ‘Violence, memory and cinema’ explores the role of documentary and fiction films in reconstructing collective identities during armed conflicts (Israel/Palestine) in post-civil wars (Lebanon) and in post-dictatorship contexts (Argentina and Chile).
WOLFGANG AMADEUS BRÜLHART
Assistant State Secretary and Director General, Head Middle East and North Africa Division, Swiss Foreign Ministry, Switzerland
WOLFGANG AMADEUS BRÜLHART
Ambassador Wolfgang Amadeus Bruelhart is Assistant State Secretary and Director General of the Middle East and North Africa Division at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. He also holds the role of Deputy Head of the ‘Middle and Near East Policy’ Task Force.
From 2008 to 2012, Bruelhart served the Department as Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. From 2003 to 2007, he was head of both the Human Rights Policy Section and the ‘Human Rights Council’ Task Force. From 1999 to 2002, he was Cultural Counsellor at the Swiss Embassy in London and from 1996 to 1998 he was Counsellor at the Swiss Embassy in Sarajevo.
Prior to joining the Department of Foreign Affairs, from 1992 to1993 he worked in the Department of Home Affairs (Social Security, Health, Culture, Education, Sport and Environment) as Private Secretary to the Minister of Home Affairs, Flavio Cotti, and as Acting Press Spokesman for the Department. From 1987 to 1991, he was head of Studies and Planning at the General Secretariat of the Christian Democratic Party of Switzerland.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CHARNIER
Scientific director of Agence France-Muséums, France
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CHARNIER
CATHERINE DAVID
Deputy Director, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, France
CATHERINE DAVID
Catherine David is deputy director at Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, where she is running the Research and Globalisation program. From 1982 to 1990, David was curator at Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou and from 1990 to 1994 she was curator at the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris. From 1994 to 1997, David served as artistic director for documenta X in Kassel, Germany (1997). Since 1998 she has been director of the long-term project Contemporary Arab Representations, which began at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. Between 2002 and 2004, David was director of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
David recently organised Reframing Modernism at the National Gallery in Singapore. In 2018 she also curated Memories for the futures – Indian modernities and co-curated, in conjunction with Mustafa Shabbir Hussein, Latiff Mohidin : Pago Pago (1960-1969) at MNAM-Centre Pompidou in Paris.
ISHAC DIWAN
PSL – Paris Sciences et Lettres, and Columbia University, France-USA
ISHAC DIWAN
Ishac Diwan is a visiting professor at SIPA, Columbia University. Diwan received his PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. He holds the chair of the Socio-Economy of the Arab World at Paris Sciences et Lettres, a consortium of Parisian universities.
From 1984 to 1987, he taught international finance at New York University’s Business School, after which, from 1987 to 1992, he worked in the Research Complex of the World Bank, in the Middle East department from 1992 to 1996, and then at the World Bank Institute from 1996 to 2002.
He held teaching positions at Harvard Kennedy School from 2011 to 2013, and at Dauphine University in Paris from 2014 to 2015. He was the Kuwait visiting professor at the Belfer Center of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government from 2016 to 2017. He is a frequent consultant with international organisations and governments.
Diwan spent time in Addis Abeba, from 2002 to 2007, and in Accra, from 2007 to 2011, as the World Bank’s Country Director for Ethiopia and Sudan, and then for Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. He has worked extensively on conflict prevention as well as state building in Palestine, Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Guinea. He has also participated in the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the Darfur Peace Negotiations, and the Oslo negotiations.
Diwan’s work on international finance, as well as on the Middle East, is widely published and cited. His current research interests focus on the political economy of the Middle East, in addition to broader development issues.
He is currently directing the Political Economy program of the Economic Research Forum, an association of social scientists from the Middle East.
JOLANTA DRZEWIECKA
Professor, Institute for Public Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
JOLANTA DRZEWIECKA
Jolanta Drzewiecka (PhD, Arizona State University, USA) researches discursive constructions of cultural, racial, and national differences and identities to advance a critical intercultural communication framework. She focuses on two areas: immigrant identity and public memories. In the first, she examines how immigrant identities are negotiated and represented in personal and media narratives. Here, she develops a theory as to how immigrants are racially incorporated through intercultural translation in ways that sustain structures of inequality. The latter area explores how public memories are shaped by and shape nationalism. She is particularly interested in how memories of ethnic violence are discursively disabled and blocked and victims rendered unrecognisable to protect fictions of the national self. Here, she combines discourse and rhetorical analyses with psychoanalytic theories.
She has published her research in journals such Communication Theory, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Media Studies in Communication, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.
Prof. Drzewiecka recently moved to Switzerland after teaching and conducting research at Washington State University, USA. She is Academic Director of the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication at USI, and Academic Director of the European Masters of Intercultural Communication.
FABRICE EPELBOIN
Cofounder Yogosha Bug Bounty; Startupper, creative technologist, Teacher, Sciences Po, France
FABRICE EPELBOIN
Professor Fabrice Epelboin has been teaching privacy and the surveillance state in the Institute of Political Sciences of Paris and has been a privacy activist and an open source advocate for the past decade and is a pioneer in social networking astroturfing studies.
As a hacker, he has been involved in the Arab Spring alongside the Telecomix hacktivist group. He cofounded numerous startups in various fields, ranging from social networking to collaborative cybersecurity, and has a true vocation in disrupting technologies since he was introduced to Mosaïc by his father in 1993 and learned the early version of html before starting a web agency. Today, Fabrice is treating himself to a second youth with the blockchain.
JOHANNA FASSL
Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Communication, Franklin University Switzerland, Switzerland
JOHANNA FASSL
Dr Johanna Fassl is associate professor of Art History and Visual Communication, and director of Scholarships Without Bordersat Franklin University (FUS) in Lugano, Switzerland.
She holds a PhD with distinction from Columbia University and received a number of grants for her research from the Mellon Foundation, the Getty Research Institute, and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Her research focuses on the mental processes behind the creation and reception of art with a specific interest in perception, studying the physiology and neuropsychology of vision.
In her research on Enlightenment art, Fassl took up notions of visuality in science and philosophy with respect to how Newton’s discoveries of white light, space, and gravity translate into an early modern psychology of perception.
In 2015, she founded the Scholarships Without Borders(SWB)program at FUS. SWB gives refugee students a chance to finish their university studies with a BA degree and is supported by a complex structure that ensures the academic success and personal well-being of its enrolled students.
She is currently writing the script for a documentary film entitled, ‘Missed Encounters’, which examines the representation of trauma in the art of soldiers from the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. In 2013, within the scope of this project, she curated the exhibition ‘Syria: Facing the Revolution’at FUS, and co-edited the second volume of ‘Intervalla: platform for intellectual exchange’, which was dedicated to ‘Trauma, Abstraction, and Creativity’.
FEDERICA FREDIANI
Ph.D. Senior Researcher, Educational Program Manager MEM Freethinking Platform, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
FEDERICA FREDIANI
Federica Frediani has obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Siena (2005). She is presently researcher, lecturer and educational program manager of the MEM Freethinking Platform at the Università della Svizzera italiana and she has scientific collaborations with the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Bergamo. Her research is primarily focused on the cultural representations and productions of the Mediterranean as well as its intercultural and political dynamics.
She is author of Uscire. La scrittura di viaggio delle donne al femminile: dai paradigmi mitici alle immagini orientaliste (Diabasis 2007) and editor of The Mediterranean Cities between Myth and Reality (Nerbini 2014). She is co-author with Fernanda Gallo of Ethos repubblicano e Pensiero meridiano (Diabasis, 2011).
DANIEL GASTEIGER
Founder, Procivis AG, Switzerland
DANIEL GASTEIGER
Mr Daniel Gasteiger has worked in financial services for more than 20 years. Starting out as an FX trader at Credit Suisse, he later joined UBS to work with hedge funds and third-party banks promoting UBS’s business-to-business API solutions and Prime Brokerage services.
In his last role at UBS, he built up and managed the chairman’s office as managing director. His fascination with blockchain technology led to his decision to start nexussquared, a business platform based in Zurich, where he drove the efforts to enhance the attractiveness of the location for international start-ups and helped new ventures, as well as established players to build up business based on the technology.
ABIR HAJ IBRAHIM
Modaberoon Network, Syria
ABIR HAJ IBRAHIM
Ms Abir Haj Ibrahim is one of the two co-founders of Mobaderoon Network, a civil institution with more than 4000 social activists, which works to provide civil society organisations in the Arab region with a range of consulting and training services.
Prior to founding the network, Haj Ibrahim was involved in voluntary work, whilst also working in the oil and gas sector, which she left once Mobaderoon gained momentum. She participated in developing the Procurement & Contracts department in partnership with TOTAL E&P and was nominated as High Potential employee for two years. She was subsequently selected as a project manager with the British Council where she was able to play a major role in putting the Active Citizens program into action.
During the Syrian conflict, Haj Ibrahim’s new area of concern involved conflict resolution as a response to the local needs in Syria. She became a peace building facilitator in a widespread youth network and had the opportunity to build on her skills in mediation in several ways. She trained, planned and worked with peace actors who had a clear common vision in mind. In protecting sectarianism from spreading across the country, she was able to lead the network into a synergistic process and gathered members from different backgrounds, cultures and ethnic groups into one network, whose focus was on common values, as well as managing the worst time of isolation in the surrounding areas.
Working with people has given Haj Ibrahim the ability and the dedication to allow the network to develop and function in a more systematic way, whilst providing proper protection for the flexibility of the network.
In 2014, Haj Ibrahim was one of the co-founders who won the Livia Foundation Prize for her work in peace during the conflict.
MARLEN HEIDE
Ph.D. Student, Institute for Public Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
MARLEN HEIDE
Marlen Heide is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Public Communication (ICP) and is carrying out research on national security secrecy. Prior to joining USI, she worked at the Transparency International Secretariat and the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She conducted survey research in Tbilisi, Georgia and was a consultant for the German Armed Forces. She studied at Erfurt University, Bogaziçi University Istanbul and holds an MA in War Studies from King’s College, London.
ANISSA HELOU
Writer, Journalist, Food Blogger, UK-Italy
ANISSA HELOU
Ms Anissa Helouis a chef, a food writer, a journalist, a broadcaster, a consultant and a blogger who focuses on the cuisines and culinary heritage of the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa. Having spent time in Beirut, Lebanon, and Mashta el-Helou, Syria, she knows the Mediterranean as only a well-travelled native can.
Helou is the author of numerous award-winning cookbooks including Sweet Middle East, Levant, The Fifth Quarter, An Offal Cookbook; Modern Mezze; Savory Baking from the Mediterranean; Mediterranean Street Food; Café Morocco; and Lebanese Cuisine, which was a finalist for the prestigious André Simon awards and was chosen as one of the Los Angeles Times favourite books in 1998.
Lebanese Cuisineremains the classic and most comprehensive work on this increasingly popular cuisine. The Fifth Quarter, An Offal Cookbook; Modern Mezze; and Mediterranean Street Foodhave received Gourmand World Cookbook awards. The latter was included in Food & Wine magazine’s selection of the Best of the Best for 2002. Savory Baking from the Mediterraneanwas chosen by NPR, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Food & Wine as one of the best cookbooks for 2007. Levantwas selected as best of the year by several publications including the Observer Food Monthly and Australian Gourmet Traveller. Her new book, Feast: The Food of the Islamic World, was published to great acclaim by Ecco in May 2018.
An accomplished photographer and intrepid traveller, she runs culinary tours to various Mediterranean countries and also teaches cooking classes. She was the featured chef in the travel and cooking show, Al Chef Yaktachef (meaning ‘the chef discovers’), which was broadcast on Abu Dhabi TV in 2010.
Helou has also featured as one of the judges/mentors to a team of chefs in Taste Arabia, which aired on Al Nahar TV in Egypt and OSN all over the Arab world. She was one of the guest judges in the final of the last series of Top Chef Arabia. Helou was also the first ever chef-in-residence in Leighton House during the Nour festival in November 2011.
In 2013, she helped a group of Egyptian entrepreneurs open Koshari Street in Covent Garden where they serve her gourmet version of Koshari, the ultimate Egyptian street food. Koshari Street was chosen by the FT as one of London’s 5 best street foods.
JULIAN HOTTINGER
Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAE), Switzerland
JULIAN HOTTINGER
Dr Julian Thomas Hottinger graduated from the University of Lausanne. He obtained his PhD in Political Science and specialised as an International Conflict Mediator at the Canadian International Institute for Applied Negotiations in Ottawa and at the Lester Pearson Peace Keeping Centre in Canada.
Hottinger works as a Senior Mediator at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, where he currently focuses mainly on advising processes in the military/security area in Colombia, Mozambique and Myanmar.
He previously worked as an expert and consultant on various projects covering conflicts in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Colombia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Rwanda, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Ukraine.
Since 1998, Hottinger has held various roles as mediator, facilitator, negotiator and director for organisations and processes relating to ceasefires, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration, security sector reform, reconciliation, as well as peace and nation building in numerous countries, including Burundi, Indonesia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Uganda. In parallel,
He has also worked as a member of the International Standing Hostage Negotiation Team and has collaborated in various activities within this area over the last eighteen years, mainly within the private sector.
TOMASZ JANOWSKI
Professor and Head of Department of Applied Informatics in Management, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland
TOMASZ JANOWSKI
Tomasz Janowski is Head of the Department of Applied Informatics in Management at the Faculty of Economics and Management, Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland. He is also an visiting Professor at Danube University Krems, Austria, and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Government Information Quarterly, Elsevier. From 1995 to 2016 he worked for the United Nations University in China and Portugal where he founded, and directed from 2004 to 2016, a research and development programme focused on digital government. As part of this programme, he conducted lectures, projects, training workshops and consultations in 61 countries around the world. In 2007, he founded the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, and from 2007 to 2017 he coordinated 10 editions of the conference that took place in Macao, Cairo, Bogotá, Beijing, Tallinn, Albany, Seoul, Guimarães, Montevideo and New Delhi. He is author or co-author of over 250 publications, including technical and policy reports prepared for organisations such as CTO, the European Commission, IDRC, ITU, Macao Foundation, Microsoft, OSCE, UNDP, UNESCO and the World Bank, as well as for governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. His research focuses on Digital Government and Development Informatics. He obtained Habilitation in Management Sciences (equivalent) from the Gdańsk University of Technology and received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Warwick.
MARCO KAMPP
CEO, Deutsche Bahn Italia S.r.l., Italy
MARCO KAMPP
Dr Marco Kampp holds a PhD and an MA in Mathematics and theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge, UK.
Dr Kampp is currently director of international long-distance passenger transport at Deutsche Bahn AG. He is responsible for executing DB’s plan to enhance cross-border passenger transport in Europe.
Previously, he held different leadership positions within Deutsche Bahn AG in the areas of strategy, corporate development and network management.
HABIB KARAOULI
Chairman and CEO, Capital African Partners Bank (CAP Bank), Tunisia
HABIB KARAOULI
Mr Habib Karaouli is the CEO of a leading investment bank, Founder and Chairman of Capsa Capital Partners, a private equity fund manager.He served as a sell side or buy side adviser in the main public and M&A divestment transactions in the banking, insurance, telecoms and retail sectors.
Karaouli was wanked by Jeune Afrique among the three pioneers of investment banking in Africa and qualified as “key figure”. He received Beijing Business Banker’s Award in October 2016, conferred by the International Capital Conference (ICC) for his creativity and contribution to the profession.
Karaouli is also Vice-Chairman of the Club of Bank Managers and Credit Institutions of Africa and Chairman of the Committee on SME financing by the markets to the Tunis Stock Exchange (BVMT). He has been president of the Maghreb Economist Forum: 2011-2018. Karaouli was elected “Financier of the Year 2007” by an independent jury of the newspaper l’Expert.
He is an expert in business development at the Delegation of the European Commission in Tunis and giva lectures in many national and international seminars on investment banking, private equity, business development, training and employment development.
Karaouli has been a Keynote speaker, author of several studies and publications and is a regular contributor in several media including the Maghreb Economist, Le Manager, Express FM and Jeune Afrique to enrich the public debate on major issues.
ALEXANDRE KAZEROUNI
Post-Doc Research Fellow, Ecole Normale Supérieure, France
ALEXANDRE KAZEROUNI
Alexandre Kazerouni, PhD, is a political scientist and a specialist in cultural objects in the contemporary Muslim world, with a focus on the neighbouring countries of the Persian Gulf.
Following his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University in 2014 and Sciences Po in 2015, he is currently a researcher in the Geography department at École normale supérieure, Paris, and is also a member of its Middle-East Mediterranean Chair.
He is the author of Le ‘Miroir des cheikhs : musée et politique dans les principautés du golfe Persique’(The Mirror of the Sheikhs : Museum and Politics in the Principalities of the Persian Gulf), which was published in 2017 at Presses universitaires de France, where he puts new museum projects into a historical, geographical and sociological perspective, such as Louvre Abu Dhabi or the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, which are also known as ‘mirror-museums’.
GILLES KEPEL
Professor, PLS Paris Sciences et Lettres-École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
GILLES KEPEL
Professor Gilles Kepel is a French Political Scientist and Arabist, has specialised in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. He is the Director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Chair at PSL Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, based at École Normale Supérieure. Kepel holds degrees in Arabic, English, and Philosophy, a PhD in Sociology and a Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) in Political Science.
He has specialised in contemporary islamist movements since his 1983 PhD. He has been a Visiting Professor at New York University and Columbia University and was elected as a Senior Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France from 2010 to 2015.
Professor Kepel created and was general editor of the series ‘Proche Orient’ at Presses Universitaires de France, which was comprised of 23 volumes between 2004 and 2017. His books, such as ‘The Revenge of God’ and ‘Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam’, have been translated in a dozen languages. Recently he has published ‘Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West’ (Princeton U. Press, 2017).
ANDREAS LADNER
Professor and Director, Institut de hautes études en administration publique, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland
ANDREAS LADNER
Andreas Ladner isa full Professor for political institutions and public administration at IDHEAP, University of Lausanne. His areas of research include the quality of democracy, local government, institutional change, political parties and voting advice applications. He has conducted several major research projects of the Swiss National Science Foundation and authored books and articles on these topics. He has published in: Local Government Studies, International Review of Administrative Sciences, International Political Science Review,Environment and Planning C, International Journal of Electronic Governance, Environmental Politics, European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, Regional and Federal Studies, among others. He also regularly comments on Swiss politics in the media. Andreas Ladner is currently director of IDHEAP and vice dean of the Faculty of Law, Criminal Science and Public Administration at the University of Lausanne.
MARTINO LOVATO
Lecturer in Comparative Literature, Mount Holyoke College, USA
MARTINO LOVATO
Martino Lovato works on the intersection between Italian, French and Arabic literature and cinema. He obtained university degrees from the University of Bologna, The American University in Cairo, and The University of Texas at Austin, and is Visiting Lecturer in Classics and Italian at the Mount Holyoke College.
His research focuses on the Mediterranean as an interdisciplinary regional framework to study narrative works together with law, ethics and conflict,translation, religion, and historiography. At Mount Holyoke College, he teaches language, literature and cinema at the departments of Italian Studies, Romance Languages and Cultures, and Middle Eastern Studies.
His writings on Merzak Allouache and Leo Africanus appeared in The Mediterranean Review and the Echi Oltremare Conference 2011 Proceedings. He also wrote several book reviews for the E3W Review of Books. He is currently working on his first book project, a study on contemporary writers and filmmakers from Algeria, France, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt, to propose an interdisciplinary approach to literature and cinema across diverse societies and cultural traditions in the Mediterranean region.
XIANKUN LU
Associate Partner, IDEAS Centre Geneva, Switzerland-China
XIANKUN LU
Professor LU Xiankun isManaging Director of LEDECO Geneva and Associate Partner of IDEAS CentreGeneva.
He is Emeritus Professor of China Institute for WTO Studies of the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and Wuhan University (WHU) of China, and visiting Professor or Senior Research Fellow of some other universities and think tanks in China and Europe. He also sits in management of some international business associations and companies, including as Senior Vice President of Shenzhen UEB Technology LTD., a leading e-commerce company of China.
Previously, Mr. LU was senior official of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and a senior diplomat posted in Europe, including, from 2006 to 2014, in Geneva as Counsellor and Head of Division of the Permanent Mission of China to the WTO, and, from 1996 to 2000, in Brussels as Commercial Secretary of the Permanent Mission of China to the EU.
Mr. LU speaks Chinese as mother tongue as well as fluent English and French. He is married with one son.
AHMED MATER
Artist, Saudi Arabia
AHMED MATER
Physician turned artist, Ahmed Mater is one of the most significant cultural voices documenting and scrutinising the realities of contemporary Saudi Arabia. Born in 1979 and having grown up in the fertile south of the Kingdom, his life and work has been shaped by the seismic changes of the oil boom and rentier era – transformations which have diverged into unprecedented social shifts and trenchant ideologies. He uses photography, film, sculpture and performance to map, document and analyse the tension of these rapid developments, considering their psychological impact on the individual, the community, society and the world.
His practice embraces the paradoxes of science and faith. Entwining expressive and politically engaged artistic aims with the scientific objectives of his medical training, he fuses the two realms to explore their connections and contradictions. Employing broad research-based investigative techniques, Mater assesses the Kingdom’s social, economic and religious condition, mining and preserving disregarded and forgotten narratives through expansive documentary ambles. His surveillances are also distilled into compacted conceptual scenarios, nodes that tug at the dense strands of the Kingdom’s past, present and future, conjuring and contemplating modernisation and tradition, religion and globalisation.
Mater’s work has been widely exhibited internationally including at The British Museum, London (2006 and 2012); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2011); Institut du Monde Arab, Paris (2012); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2013); New Museum, New York (2014); Guggenheim, New York (2016). In 2016, he became the first Saudi artist to hold a solo exhibition in the United States with ‘Symbolic Cities: The Workof Ahmed Mater’at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington DC. He has participated in talks and panels including at The Louvre, Paris (2010); Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (2010); Armory, New York (2011); Art Basel, Basel (2012); Leiden Museum, Amsterdam (2013); Art Dubai, Dubai (2017); and UNESCO NGO Forum, Riyadh (2017). His work is part of major international collections including The British Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; and Centre Pompidou, Paris.
SILVIA NAEF
Professor, Université de Genève, Switzerland
SILVIA NAEF
Silvia Naef has been a full professor at the Arabic Studies Section of the University of Geneva since 2006, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1993 with a thesis on modern art in the Arab world (published in 1996). As a postdoctoral scholar, she worked on Shia in Iraq and Lebanon and their relation to left-wing ideologies, in Germany (Tübingen and Freiburg im Breisgau, 1993-1996) and Basel (Switzerland, 1996-2000), with grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Janggen-Pöhn Foundation (St. Gallen, Switzerland). She has taught in Tübingen (1995/96) and Basel (1997-2000); in 2000, she became an associate professor at the University of Geneva.
At present, her research focuses on modern art, visual representations and images in the Arab and Islamic world; she is also interested in gender issues. On this theme, she organised in April 2013, with Prof. Yasmina Foehr (Medieval French studies) a conference on the veil and the female body, which resulted in a publication. She was the leading researcher of the four years Sinergia research project ‘Other Modernities: Patrimony and Practices of Visual Expression Outside the West’, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2013-2016), codirected by Prof. Irene Maffi (University of Lausanne) and Prof. Wendy Shaw (Free University Berlin). She has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto (2007-2009), and at the University of Sassari (Italy, 2012), at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris (2016), and a research fellow in Göttingen (2013) and Princeton (2003).
YOSRA NAGUI
Swisspeace, Geneva, Switzerland
YOSRA NAGUI
Ms Yosra Nagui is a Program Officer in the Mediation program at swisspeace, focusing on Syria. She has been mainly working on supporting swisspeace’s activities on the inclusion of Syrian civil society in the UN OSE-led Intra-Syrian Talks in Geneva. She also manages a project supporting local peace actors in Syria through trainings and coaching on mediation.
Before joining swisspeace, Nagui was working with the UNHCR Syria Emergency Operation in Cairo. She has also worked with different human rights organisations in Geneva, Cairo and Beirut including with Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
Her research interests include the interplay between mediation and human rights, security arrangements, and comparative politics with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa region. Nagui holds a MA in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and a BA in Political Science from Cairo University. She is Egyptian-Swiss.
MOATAZ NASR
Artist, Darb 1718, Egypt
MOATAZ NASR
Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr explores traditions and new globalism, questioning geopolitical and social development in Africa. The artistic practice for Nasr is a tool and a language that embraces art, sociology, Sufism and history in order to encourage dialogue across geographical boundaries.
The most recent group shows include: ‘The See Is My Land’, curated by Francesco Bonomi and Emanuela Mazzonis (MAXXI, Rome, 2013); ‘Metropolis. Afriques Capitales’, curated by Simon Njami (La Villette, Paris, 2017); ‘Senses of Time: Video and Film-based Arts of Africa’, (LACMA and The Smithsonian National Museum of African Arts, Washington, 2017).
His most recent solo shows include: Galleria Continua / Beijing in 2012 and Galleria Continua / Le Moulin in 2015. In 2017, he was selected to represent Egypt during the 57th Venice Biennale. The work presented in the Egyptian Pavilion was an immersive installation showing the original film ‘The Mountain’.
In June 2018, Nasr will participate in the Yinchuan Biennale, China, curated by Marco Scotini.
IBRAHIM OLABI
Executive Director and Founder, Syrian Legal Development Programme, Syria
IBRAHIM OLABI
Mr Ibrahim Olabi is the founder of the Syrian Legal Development Programme, an organisation addressing international law matters in the Syrian conflict. Olabi trained more than 500 Syrians inside Syria and in neighbouring countries on matters of international humanitarian, human rights, and criminal law relevant to the Syrian conflict.
He was in Syria during the chemical attack of 2014, providing legal training, and also regularly engages with the policy makers such as those in Geneva, London and Brussels on human rights matters related to Syria.
Olabi chaired and spoke at many events organised by Chatham House, universities and think tanks. He also met with previous heads of States, such as President Holland, and received personal invitations from the heads of State of the UK and Germany to attend Syria related conferences.
In 2017 he worked as a consultant for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the legality of local agreements that lead to population transfer in Syria. He is also a consultant for the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute.
Academically, he has completed his LLM (Master of Laws) in Security and International Law and his LLB at the University of Manchester and was awarded Distinguished Achievement Award: Undergraduate Student of the Year and then a year later the Postgraduate Taught Student of the Year.
HELA OUARDI
Professor, Université de Tunis, Tunisia
HELA OUARDI
Ms Hela Ouardi is a University professor in Tunis, where she teaches French Literature and civilisation. She is also an associate member of the Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes [Laboratory of Studies on Religious Monotheisms] of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris.
In addition to her numerous works in the field of literary criticism and history of ideas, she is interested in Islamology. She coordinated the new critical edition of the Chrestomathie arabe [Arabic Chrestomathy] by Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (P.U.F., 2008) and she published in the French Review ‘Le Débat’ an article entitled De l’autorité en islam [On Authority in Islam] (Gallimard, 2012).
Ouardi devotes herself particularly to the study of the Origins of Islam. She is the author of the book Les derniers jours de Muhammad [The Last Days of Muhammad], (Albin Michel, 2016).
FRANCIS PICCAND
Head, Think-Tank Middle-East and North Africa, Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
FRANCIS PICCAND
Dr Francis Piccand is responsible for the Middle-East and North Africa think tank at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. He is also professor associate of International Relations at the Webster University, Geneva. Prior to that, he worked as a delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Piccand is a member of Swiss and Swiss-based organisations and their respective activities in Israel and Palestine (Swisspeace). He is a member of the International Directory of Middle East Scholars (Columbia University, New York) and he is Chairman of the CRES Foundation (Centre de Recherches Entreprises et Sociétés). He is also a member of the Scientific Counsel at the Geneva School of Governance, as well as a founding member of the Geneva Center for Security and Development in the Middle East.
Some of his publications include: ‘The Syrian Policy in the Middle East: 20 Years of the Assad Doctrine (1970 – 1990’); ‘From Tribe to Nation in Black Africa’; ‘Islam and International Relations: Towards a Clash of Civilizations?; ‘Bachar al Assad from Syria: End of Regime or New Start?’; and ‘The Arab Spring: Challenges and Perspectives for Switzerland’.
GINO RAIDY
Blogger, Lebanon
GINO RAIDY
Mr Gino Raidy is a blogger based in Beirut, Lebanon. While studying Biology at the American University of Beirut in 2010, Raidy started his blog as an extra credit assignment for an English creative writing course. The blog started to garner wide attention beyond the AUB campus, and soon it transformed from a platform for reviews about where to go out dining and clubbing, into a voice for liberal Lebanese youth.
Raidy tackles social, political and economic issues in Lebanon and the Middle East, whilst focusing on human rights. Gender equality, free speech, criminal justice reform and LGBT rights are prominent recurring themes on the blog.
Raidy worked as a journalist covering the refugee crisis and the political unrest in Lebanon with VICE, BBC, CNN and others. He is currently the vice president of a local NGO, MARCH, which works against censorship of all forms in Lebanon, as well as peace building projects in former conflict areas such as Tripoli, Arsal, Akkar and Beirut.
Raidy regularly contributes to Annahar Newspaper and NOW English, and continues to maintain his blog in its 9th year with over 4000 articles published and millions of views.
GHADA SAYEGH RAHAL
Institut d’Etudes Scéniques, Audiovisuelles et Cinématographiques, Université Saint-Joseph Beyrouth, Lebanon
GHADA SAYEGH RAHAL
Ms Ghada Sayegh is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Scenic, Audiovisual and Cinematographic Studies, Saint-Joseph University of Beirut, where she teaches ‘Contemporary artistic practices in Lebanon – Cinema and History – Cinema, archives and memory’.
She has a PhD in Film Studies from Paris Nanterre University; her thesis was entitled Images in the aftermath: the space-time of war in Lebanese cinema, from the “New Lebanese Cinema” (1975) to contemporary artistic practices (1990 to this day).
Her research focuses primarily on cinema and contemporary art in historical contexts in Lebanon.
PRASHANT SHARMA
Senior Consultant, The World Bank, Switzerland
PRASHANT SHARMA
Dr Prashant SHARMA is a senior consultant with the Infrastructure, PPPs and Guarantees group at the World Bank. He is also a Research Associate at the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, IDHEAP, University of Lausanne.
Sharma holds a PhD from the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and also has degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and the University of Delhi.
He was previously a Visiting Fellow at the United Nations Research Institute for Sustainable Development (UNRISD), Geneva, and an Open Society Fellow working on a global research project investigating the accountability question in social infrastructure PPPs.
Based in Geneva, Sharma has been researching, working and lecturing on PPPs and accountability in all corners of the world for almost a decade. He is currently working on a project that provides technical assistance to the governments of Ghana, Honduras, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda in developing and implementing national level PPP disclosure frameworks.
He is an author and editor of two books, and his work has been published widely in several international journals, as well as mainstream media.
MARK THATCHER
Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
MARK THATCHER
Mark Thatcher is Professor of Comparative and International Politics, Department of Government, London School of Economics. He has also taught in Paris and Oxford and been a fellow at the European University Institute,Florence. He studied at Oxford and also qualified as a Barrister.
His research expertise lies in comparative public policy and regulation in Europe, and specifically; regulation of network industries; independent regulatory agencies; EU policy making and regulation; regulation of sovereign wealth fund investment; heritage policy and regulation of historic buildings.
His current projects include: comparing policies to preserve cultural heritage; the EU and its political identity; Western policies towards sovereign wealth fund investments. Recent publications include: editor, ‘The state and historic buildings’, special issue Nations and Nationalism24 (1), 2018; ‘European Commission merger control: Combining competition and the creation of larger European firms’, European Journal of Political Research 53(3) (2014): 443-464; Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (co-edited with V Schmidt; Cambridge University Press, 2013).
MATTIA VACCA
MATTIA VACCA
Mr Mattia Vacca is a freelance photojournalist and a documentary photographer.
For ten years, he was a daily contributor for Corriere della Sera covering breaking news stories in Northern Italy.
He is currently working on various personal projects focused on social issues and the consequences of armed conflicts around the world.
He is the founder of the independent publishing house Delicious Editions. His first photobook “A winter’s tale” came out in 2014, in 2018 he published the photobook “Confine”; a collective narrative about how the city of Como, on the border between Switzerland and Italy, became a refugee camp.
In 2018 he joins Prospekt Agency.
His work has been featured on New Republic, Wired, The Guardian, The Independent, Die Zeit, BBC, Vice, Vanity Fair, among the others.
He received numerous awards, including Sony World Photography Awards, Royal Photographic Society Awards, Unesco Humanity Photo Awards, New York Photo Awards.
His photographs have been exhibited in galleries and festivals worldwide.
He was also a TEDx speaker.
LIISA VÄLIKANGAS
Professor, Hanken School of Economics, Finland
LIISA VÄLIKANGAS
Professor Liisa Välikangas teaches innovation management at Aalto University and Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland.
She was previously affiliated with Stanford University, London Business School and Keio University in Japan. She has also worked for Strategos, a strategic management consulting firm, and SRI International in California’s Silicon Valley.
She is Senior Editor of Management and Organization Review, a journal focused on China and emerging markets, published by Cambridge University Press. Her current research projects focus on the business and societal implications of digital technologies including blockchain and how to tackle very large problems, namely, world challenges.
Välikangas has consulted and worked with many small and large companies around the world and served on the board of the Finnish National Innovation Agency, Tekes.
She is known for her publications in strategic renewal and resilience, including ‘The Resilient Organization’, (McGraw-Hill, 2010) and ‘The Quest for Resilience’, (Harvard Business Review, 2003). She is also known for her publication on innovation management, ‘Strategic Innovation’, (Pearson/Financial Times Press, 2015).
JEAN-PATRICK VILLENEUVE
Professor and Vice-Director, Institute for Public Communication, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
JEAN-PATRICK VILLENEUVE
Jean-Patrick Villeneuve is Associate Professor at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI). He is Vice Dean of the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Deputy-Director of the Institute for Public Communication and Academic Director of the Master programme, Public Management and Policy (offered in conjunction with the University of Lausanne and the University of Berne). He is also Adjunct Professor of Public Management at the Ecole nationale d’admnistration publique (Canada) and Visiting Professor at the International University of Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, China. He is member of Ticino’s Cantonal Commissione di Mediazione Independente. and Member of the Steering Committee of the Independent Expert Panel of the Open Government Partnership.
Before joining USI, Prof. Villeneuve worked for the United Nations (International Civil Aviation Organisation, International Labour Organisation) and Canadian public organisations (Federal Ministry of Transport, Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, House of Commons). He works regularly with public institution at the local, national and international level.
His research on organisational transparency, anti-corruption policies and gambling regulation has been funded by various institutions, notably by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Science Foundation. He has published in a number of top level academic journals (Government Information Quarterly, International Review of Administrative Sciences, European Journal of Risk Regulation, Gaming Law Review, among others) and with leading publishing houses (Routledge, Springer, etc.). He is a member of various journal boards and academic associations.
He holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration from the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration/HEC Lausanne (Switzerland), an M.Phil. from Cambridge University (United Kingdom), an M.A. from Concordia University (Canada) and a B.A. from McGill University (Canada).
ÉDOUARD WAINTROP
Film Critic, Artistic Director, Switzerland
EDOUARD WAINTROP
Edouard Waintrop was born in Paris in June 1952. He has always been involved in cinema; first, when he was a teenager, as a film buff, then as a programmer of a movie theatre in the suburbs of Paris, then, and for 26 years, as a critic in the daily Parisian newspaper, Libération. For the last 11 years he has been an exhibitor in Geneva and artistic director of two festivals, the first one in Fribourg (2007 – 2011), and then the Directors Fortnight in Cannes (2011 – 2018). He has also written two books, one coauthored with Frank Eskenazi in 1991 about the French Jewish community (Le talmud et la République, Grasset), whilst the other one he wrote alone in 2012 about the Spanish anarchists (Les anarchistes espagnols, Denoël).
GABRIELLA ZALAPI
Artist, France
GABRIELLA ZALAPI
Ms Gabriella Zalapì graduated from HEAD, Geneva, and is an artist who probes the construction of identity and the role played by memory in its process. She uses material such as family photographs, archive images, cinema, personal correspondence, and administrative documents as integral sources in her writings, paintings and drawings.
Forum 2018
The first Middle East Mediterranean Summer Summit involved 150 young people from over 30 countries of the Middle East Mediterranean region and Europe. Organised by Università della svizzera italiana (USI) with the joint support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the meeting aimed to develop innovative solutions and concrete opportunities for dialogue and growth.
On 25 and 26 August 2018, after an intense eight-day Seminar, the ideas generated and formulated by the young participants were presented and debated in the framework of a Forum, open to the public. Forum attendees included high-level political authorities, experts, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs of the Middle East Mediterranean region. The Forum was held at Palazzo dei Congressi, Lugano, over two days, with a programme consisting of several thematic sessions, based on a structured presentation of key issues and points for reflection raised during the preceding Seminar. Tunisia, a major crossroads in the Mediterranean civilisation, and clear political-constitutional example of a government’s successful policy of integration and coexistence of differences, was the guest of honour at the MEM Summer Summit 2018.
The event provided opportunities to explore the geopolitics of the region, to outline scenarios for material reconstruction, and the development of cultural policies; to address the relationship between water, peace, and borders; and to discuss new models of citizenship, energy transition, and education and training as an engine of change. Also on the agenda: the question of infrastructure, of the need to rethink economics; examples of success stories on the ground; and how to promote new and positive narratives through literature and the arts.
Full programme of the Forum: MEM Summer Summit 2018 Forum – Programme
ALMOTAZ ABADI
Senior Adviser – Managing Director Water and Environment, Union for Mediterranean, Palestinian Territories
ALMOTAZ ABADI
Mr Almotaz Abadi is currently holding is a regional development and cooperation Adviser at the UFM, mainly Responsible on the Water Policies and Development closely working with the Water and Environment Division at the UfM. Mr Abadi Was Appointed to this position based on the Understanding between the UFM and the GoP. Academically Speaking, he has a Master degree in water resources management and another certificates in the Governance and public sector services, Also international development.
Mr Abadi has been Acting deputy secretary General for water and environment division during September 2015 until July 2016. Previously Mr Abadi has been the director of the Aid Coordination and management Unit at Palestinian Gove and adviser to the Minster, During the Last five years he was very active in the water sector in the country and international Affairs and also had played a crucial roles in the region through his active engagement with the regional dialogue and also the bilateral and trilateral relations aiming to enhances the regional cooperation and to enhance the way we govern our water resource as well as the water services. Mr Abadi was one of main drive for the water sector reform and also to the water governance initiative for the Mediterranean.
MUFLEH AL ALAWEEN AL ABBADI
Regional Water Advisor, Jordan
MUFLEH AL ALAWEEN AL ABBADI
Mr Mufleh Al Alaween Al Abbadi holds M.Sc. on Environmental Science (Water and Climate change). He has more than 20 years of diverse work experience, including projects design, water transboundary, development, implementation and evaluation in the environmental field specifically on water, climate change and energy management. He contributed in the development of several publications e.g. training materials and guidelines on water governance and climate change management and planning and ecological restoration.
In addition, he led several regional projects in MENA region on water, climate change and energy management by working with NGOs, governmental organisations and civil society. Before Joining SDC in Oct. 2016, Mufleh has worked for both Governmental and non-Governmental sectors (national and international), 9 years with IUCN, 5 years with Care international and for 8 years with Governmental Organisations. He has also demonstrated competence in community mobilization.
TERESA ALBERO
President, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Tunisia
TERESA ALBERO
Ms Teresa Albero is a political sociologist by upbringing with a master in political studies and international cooperation for development. She has been working at the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for more than twenty years in many different capacities, supporting Special Procedures mandates and the Commission of Human Rights; as head of the Asia-Pacific Section and deputy of the Regional Office for Central America.
Most recently, Albero has served as OHCHR’s Senior Strategic Planner. In that capacity she has been responsible for the development of the last four global strategic plans of the organization and served as lead of the United Nations Strategic Planning Network.
She is currently the representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Head of OHCHR’s Country Office in Tunisia.
LINDSEY ALDACO-MANNER
President, World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW), USA
LINDSEY ALDACO-MANNER
Ms Lindsey Aldaco-Manner is President of the World Youth Parliament for Water (WYPW), Research Associate at the Texas A&M Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Initiative, and an observing board member of the steering committee for the Global Water Partnership.
Aldaco-Manner holds an MSc in Water Management and Hydrological Science from Texas A & M University (2018). Founder of the young professionals chapter of the Texas American Water Works Association (the Texas A & M Water Network), Aldaco-Manner saw its membership grow to 95 members in its first year and received an award for its outstanding membership recruitment in spring 2018.
As President of WYPW, a global youth network working to empower youth in the implementation of concrete water projects in their local communities and advocating for greater youth participation in the water sector, Aldaco-Manner has a fervent passion for youth to become the voices of change and has a strong vision of engaging young people in the governance decisions about water.
While at Texas A&M, Aldaco-Manner interned for a Congressman working in the U.S. House of Representatives Committee for Water and the Environment, and has presented her work and research on the decision-making processes and governance issues related to water reuse at three state water conferences and two international conferences, including the World Water Congress (Cancún, 2017) and the World Water Forum (Brasilia, 2018).
Aldaco-Manner’s career goals are to become a water policy advisor for the executive branch of government.
AMER AL-HINAI
Director, Sustainable Energy Research Center, University of Sultan Qaboos, Oman
AMER AL-HINAI
Dr Amer Al-Hinai received a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Sultan Qaboos University and his MSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University, USA. Al-Hinai is the director of Sustainable Energy Research Center (SERC) at Sultan Qaboos University. In addition, Al-Hinai served as the Chairman and a member of the Authority of Electricity Regulation – Oman during 2011-2017, which functions as the nation’s electricity regulator. During 2012-2016 he joined Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He was a faculty member at the Institute Center for Energy (iEnergy) and an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the Masdar Institute. His areas of interest are in the control and operation of power systems, integration of renewable energy, microgrid, and energy conservation.
Al-Hinai has carried out more than 30 industry-funded research and 10 research grants. He has published over 60 research papers in international journals and conferences and more than 35 technical reports. He received several awards such as His Majesty Trust Fund research award, “One of the Pioneers in the Engineering Practice in the Gulf”, Fulbright Research Scholarship, and first prize for the technical competence paper at the 39thIECON. Al-Hinai is an IEEE senior member and a former Chairman of IEEE Oman Section.
MUZAHM QASSIM AL-KHAYAT
President, Ninevah University; Chairman, Advisory Group for the reconstruction of the Province, Iraq
MUZAHM QASSIM AL-KHAYAT
Professor Dr Muzahm Qassim Al-Khayatt won the Ideal Student Award in 1975 and graduated from the College of Medicine, Mosul, in 1977. He subsequently obtained an FRCS degree from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland in 1984 and worked as a specialist until 1989 at various UK hospitals. In 1993, he took a sabbatical year in field surgery whilst training at UK hospitals. In 1995, he introduced the laparoscopic surgery technique from France to Iraq. The Ministry of Higher Education in Iraq and many world and humanitarian organisations have awarded Professor Al-Khayatt with world prizes.
From 2004 to 2012, Professor Al-Khayatt was Dean of the college of Medicine at the University of Mosul. Thereafter, from September 2012 to January 2014, he was President of the University of Tikrit. He subsequently became President of the newly inaugurated University of Nineveh which offers medical and engineering specialisations. In 2014, he worked in alternative areas in the field of higher education and has been greatly involved in the rebuilding of the University.
Since 2017, Professor Al-Khayatt has been responsible for supervising the governmental effort to restore the services of the Nineveh governorate and the chairmanship of the Engineering Advisory Group. He has been working with UNESCO to preserve the heritage and the history of Ninevah and the Old City; his main objective is to bring about peaceful living and coexistence, whilst also encouraging Women, youth and higher education.
Professor Al-Khayatt’s vision is to improve higher education in universities in Ninevah and allowing displaced people to return, as well as the reconstruction of the governorate and supervising the implementation of 1300 projects to restore services to the governorate.
H.E. ENG. MAYSOON AL-ZOUBI
Former Secretary-General, Jordan Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Jordan
H.E. ENG. MAYSOON AL-ZOUBI
H.E. Eng. Maysoon Al-Zoubi is currently the Secretary General of the Higher Population Council. She got a bachelor of Engineering at the University of Jordan in 1986. Then, she attended many specialization courses abroad. She got a Master of Water Demand Management at the Jordan University of Science and Technology. From January 2009 to July 2012, she has been the Secretary General of the Jordan Ministry of Water & Irrigation. Her professional experience is quite extensive and was accumulated mainly at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation. She joined the Hashemite Royal Court as Senior Policy Analyst/Economic Affairs Department from 2007 to 2009. Before that, she was seconded to the Prime Ministry of Jordan as Senior Infrastructure Specialist from April 2005 to April 2007.
Al-Zoubi has a long and prestigious career increasing accountable, sustainable, water sector management and governance for Jordan’s water resources. She has 29 years of experience managing water resources and utilities in Jordan demonstrating political savviness and diplomacy working closely with numerous political and private stakeholders.
Al-Zoubi served as the Technical Committee Chair for the ambitious Red to Dead Sea Project, Negotiator and Ambassador for Climate Change, Jordan. She is a WANA Institute’s Academic Advisory Board Member, Blue Peace Core Group member, chaired by HRH Prince Hasan Bin Talal, and The Jordanian Engineers Association’s Representative in Arab Engineers Union Committee of Water and Natural Resources.
SUAD AMIRY
Writer and Architect, Founder of RIWAQ, Center of Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, Palestinian Territories
SUAD AMIRY
Ms Suad Amiry is a conservation architect, a writer and a community leader. Amiry attained a BSc from The American University of Beirut (AUB), an MSc in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh. She is the founder of RIWAQ: Centre of Architectural Conservation in Ramallah, Palestine.
Amiry taught architecture at University of Jordan and Birzeit University. She is the vice president of Birzeit University’s Board of Trustees, as well as a board member for the Palestine Investment Fund, the Palestine Housing Council, and Jury for The Palestine Award for Culture. From 1991 to 1993, Amiry was an influential member of the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Talks in Washington.
Amiry has written numerous books on architecture. In 2004, she received the prestigious Viareggio Literary Award in the international writing category in recognition of her architectural work and her novel, ‘Sharon and My Mother in Law’. In conjucntion with her RIWAQ organisation, Amiry has received numerous architectural awards, among which was the prestigious ‘Aga Khan Award for Architecture’ in 2013.
BASHAR AZZEH
AL Quds Holding Company, Palestinian Territories
BASHAR AZZEH
Mr Bashar A Azzeh is a leading entrepreneur and youth activist in Palestine. Azzeh pursued his higher studies in the USA and received a BSc in Telecommunication Systems, a Master’s degree in Management and a PhD in Political Economy.
Upon returning to Jerusalem in 2008, Azzeh worked closely on the development of the Palestinian Economy through entrepreneurship, the development of the social sector through the initiation of various NGOs, as well as leading various initiatives.
Azzeh worked as planning director for the two previous Palestine Investment Conferences, as an economic and political advisor for various ministers, and as a business development manager of various international economic development projects.
On the economic front, Azzeh is a founding board member of Al Quds Holding Company in Jerusalem and is the youngest stakeholder. Azzeh is the owner and chairman of Deal Marketing, which deals with national stone, marble and leather. Azzeh founded Quds Development Services (QDS) were he served as CEO. He is also the CEO and board member of the Jerusalem Business Forum.
Azzeh is a Board Secretary of the Palestine Britain Business Council and a board member of the Palestine Italian Business council; he participated in the World Economic forum in the Dead Sea and Davos. On the social front, Azzeh is the Founder and Chairman of Al Maqdese Association for economic development in Jerusalem, as well as Founder and Chairman of Jerusalem Business Development Center that serves young and general entrepreneurs in Jerusalem.
He has participated in different youth initiatives organised by the Representative Office of Switzerland in Ramallah. He is currently the Chief Marketing and Business Development Officer at Wassel Group.
Azzeh is ardent in his belief in achieving peace by means of a prosperous Palestinian economy.
SABRI BACHTOBJI
Secretary of State to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tunisia
SABRI BACHTOBJI
Academic Background
1987: Licence in Translation : Arabic, French, Spanish ; « Institut Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes ».
1992: 1st year of Master’s Degree in Political Sciences and International Relations ; « Faculté de Droits et de Sciences Politiques de Tunis ».
1993: Post Graduate Certificate in International Relations ; “La Escuela Diplomatica de Madrid”.
Professional background
1989 : Joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (National Exam).
1993/1999 : Secretary of Foreign Affairs Promoted Counselor in 1995 while serving at the Embassy of the Republic of Tunisia in Madrid.
1999/2003 :Head of Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (General Direction for Europe).
2003/2009 :Counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Tunisia in Rome (Chargé d’Affaires a.i. 01 February 2008 – 03 March 2009).
2009/March 2010: Served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (General Direction for Europe).
.January 2010 : Promoted Minister Plenipotentiary.
March 2010/June 2011 : Consul General of Tunisia in Lyon, France.
July 2011 : Deputy Directo r, in charge of Turkey, the Balkans and Switzerland (General Direction for Europe).
April 2013/August 2016 : Ambassador Extraordi nary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Tunisia to the Federative Republic of Brazil.
September 2016 : Promoted Minister Plenipotentiary First Class.
PASCALE BAERISWYL
State Secretary and Head of the Directorate of Political Affairs, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
PASCALE BAERISWYL
Ms Pascale Baeriswyl was appointed by the Federal Council as State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. She took up her post on 1 December 2016.
Baeriswyl studied in Basel, Geneva and Paris, and graduated from the University of Basel with a master’s degree in private and public law (specialising in European Law) and a second master’s degree in history, French literature and linguistics.
As a researcher, she contributed to a study on domestic violence and headed the office against domestic violence, Halt-Gewalt, where she also worked as a legal adviser. She was also a judge at the Civil Court in the Canton of Basel-Stadt for several years.
Baeriswyl joined Switzerland’s diplomatic service in 2000. After completing her diplomatic service internship in the Directorate of International Law and at the Swiss embassy in Hanoi, she worked as deputy head of the Human Rights Policy Section for the Asia-Pacific region in the Human Security Division.
From 2005 to 2008, she was responsible for foreign and security policy matters at the Swiss mission to the European Union in Brussels. From 2008 to 2013, she headed the political team of the Swiss mission to the United Nations in New York.
She returned to the Directorate of International Law in 2013 as head of Task Force Asset Recovery and later took over the International Law and Treaties section as assistant director with the title of ambassador.
SALMAN BAL
Chief, Political Affairs and Partnerships Section, Office of the Director-General, United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland
SALMAN BAL
Mr Salman Bal holds a Master in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and a LLM degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex (UK).
He worked as a Human Rights Observer for the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and later at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva before joining the diplomatic service of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in 2001. Since then, he has served in two diplomatic posts at the Headquarters in Bern (‘Financial and economic affairs’ and later ‘Deputy of the Special Envoy of Switzerland to Sudan’), as well as at the Embassies of Switzerland in Mexico-City (Mexico) and Oslo (Norway).
From 2011 to 2015, Bal was Counsellor and Head of Section at the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the United Nations Office and other International Organisations in Geneva. In 2015, he joined the Office of the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva where he heads the Political Affairs and Partnerships Section.
MOHAMMED LAÏD BENAMOR
President, CACI – Chambre algérienne de commerce et d’industrie, Algeria
MOHAMMED LAÏD BENAMOR
Mr Mohammed Laid Benamor was born in Annaba (Algeria). After starting his career at the bottom, working in a tomato factory, Benamor eventually became the leader of a family group that includes a food cannery, a semolina mill, couscous factory and pasta. Benamor has continued to attend training in Algeria, Europe and the United States of America, related to its activities and responsibilities in areas such as management, international trade, systems information and computer science.
Benamor is currently President of the Algerian Chamber of Trade and Industry, Vice President of the Algerian Forum of Heads of Enterprises, Chairman of the Inter Grains Council and member of the international advisory board of the U.S.- North Africa Partnership for Economic Opportunity (NAPEO).
MARCO BORRADORI
Mayor, Lugano, Switzerland
MARCO BORRADORI
Mr Marco Borradori, born in Lugano, graduated at the Law faculty of the University of Zurich in 1983. He became Lawyer and notary in 1986.
Borradori was elected to the Swiss Federal Parliament in 1991. After that he joined the Municipality of Lugano in 1992 until 1995. Borradori was Minister in the Council of State of Ticino Canton from 1995 until 2013, head of the Department of Territory.
Since 2013 he has been Mayor of the City of Lugano; Head of the Institution Department, comprising: Chancellery, Communication and Istitutional Relations, Human Resources and Economic Development.
PAOLA CARIDI
Journalist and Writer, Italy
PAOLA CARIDI
Dr Paola Caridi worked in Cairo, from 2001 to 2003, and in Jerusalem, from 2003 to 2012, as a correspondent of Italian news agency Lettera22 and as an analyst on Middle East affairs. Lecturer at the University of Palermo on History of International Relations, Paola Caridi is also a member of the International Affairs Institute (IAI). In 2008 she was awarded the honor of Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy, an order presided over by the President of the Italian Republic.
For the past ten years, she has been maintaining her blog, invisiblearabs, on popular Arab culture and politics. Since 2016, Caridi has been Turin Bookfair’s Guest Curator, supervising ‘Arab Souls’ with Lucia Sorbera , a program dedicated to Arabic literature and Arab cultures.
She is the author of several books and essays on the contemporary Middle East, including: Hamas: From Resistance to Government (Seven Stories Press, 2012) and Jerusalem Without God (American University in Cairo Press, 2017). She also wrote Cafè Jerusalem, a play about Jerusalem, which was put on in Italy from 2015 to 2017.
IGNAZIO CASSIS
Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), Switzerland
IGNAZIO CASSIS
Mr Ignazio Cassis graduated from the University of Zurich in 1988 with a degree in human medicine. He then worked as a doctor from 1988 to 1996. Thereafter, in 1996, he became cantonal physician for the Canton of Ticino and in the same year he obtained a master’s degree in public health (MPH) from the University of Geneva. He also graduated in 1998, specialising in internal medicine as well as in prevention and public health.
Cassis’ political career began in 2004 with his election to the legislative authority of the Ticino municipality of Collina d’Oro. From 2008 to 2012, Cassis held the office of Vice-President of the Swiss Medical Association. From 2015, he chaired the National Council’s Social Security and Health Committee, and has also been vice-chairman or chairman of various parliamentary groups.
During the two years prior to his election to the Federal Council, Cassis was president of the parliamentary group of the FDP.The Liberals, of which he became a member since his election to the National Council in 2007.
Since 2001, he has lectured at various universities in Switzerland. He has also been a member of numerous foundations and associations. He was the head of the CURAVIVA association (care homes and institutions in Switzerland) and Curafutura, a health insurance association.
Cassis was elected to the Federal Council of Switzerland on 20 September 2017, where he took up his post as Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs on 1 November 2017.
CINZIA CATALFAMO
Consultant, FIFA, Global Academic Network and Interagency Partnerships, Switzerland
CINZIA CATALFAMO
Ms Cinzia Catalfamo, born in Italy, studied Economics at the prestigious Bocconi University of Milan, focusing especially on developing countries.
Her career started in 1989 as International Relations Manager for her alma mater in South America and, later, she worked as Public Relations Manager for the Leningrad International Management Institute in the former USSR.
In 1993 she moved to Madagascar, where two years later she founded the Fihavanana Association, a humanitarian organisation dedicated to helping orphaned children.
Since 2008, she is the Founder and President of the Akbaraly Foundation, which promotes the health and wellbeing of the Malagasy population through the 4aWoman project, the largest integrated project of cancer prevention and care in sub-Saharan Africa, created in partnership with the local Ministry of Health and supported by the World Health Organization.
She also served as General Honorary Consul of Italy in Madagascar from 2001 to 2015.
In April 2017, she was named Manager of Global Academic Network and Interagency Partnerships at FIFA.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CHARNIER
Scientific director of Agence France-Muséums, France
JEAN-FRANÇOIS CHARNIER
MAROUANE EL ABASSI
Governor and Chairman, Central Bank of Tunisia, Tunisia
MAROUANE EL ABASSI
Dr Marouane El Abassi is a PhD in Economics from the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne. A Senior Economist with the World Bank as from January 2008, he coordinated the Country Programme for Libya. In 2012, he was appointed Office Manager of the World Bank in Libya. He was also Senior Adviser at the Arab Institute of Business Managers (IACE), Expert for the Tunisian Institute of Strategic Studies (ITES) and Economic Adviser at the Ministry of Commerce, Tourism and handicrafts charged with conducting the export development project financed by the World Bank. Being an Associate Professor of Economics, he was appointed as full professor at the University of Carthage in 2007. Marouane El Abassi who has, several times, received an honorary mention for excellence in teaching and research, has published many of his articles in renowned economic magazines and participated in publication of several works ; when teaching several MBA programmes, he was a guest lecturer at ICHEC Brussels, at Tsukuba University and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of New York.
BOAS EREZ
Rector, Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
BOAS EREZ
Professor Boas Erez graduated in 1981 from the Liceo Cantonale (scientific lyceum) in Lugano, and continued his studies at the University of Geneva where he obtained a degree in mathematics in 1985 and, in 1987, a Ph.D. in mathematics. From 1985 to 1990, he was an assistant at the same university, before moving to Harvard University where he was Benjamin Peirce Assistant Professor from 1990 to 1993. In 1993, he was appointed Full professor of mathematics at the University of Bordeaux, where he held several executive positions at the level of institute, faculty, commissions, programmes, doctoral committees and international scientific projects. Erez was time and again a Board member of the University of Bordeaux 1, and was also vice-president of the university from 2005 to 2008. Erez is the author of numerous quality scientific publications and has regularly organized international activities in his subject field. He has great experience in the coordination of joint international projects in higher education. As of September 1st, 2016, Boas Erez is Rector of the Università della Svizzera italiana.
PHILIPPE ÉTIENNE
Foreign Policy Advisor of the President, France
PHILIPPE ÉTIENNE
Mr Philippe Étienne is a French diplomat who currently serves as diplomatic adviser to the President.
As a diplomat, he has served in Belgrade (1981-1983), Bonn (1985-1987), the French mission to the EU in Brussels (1988-1991 and 1997-2002), Moscow (1991-1994) and Bucharest (ambassador to Romania, 2002-2005). He has also served in various roles in Paris, notably as president of the Agency for French Education Abroad(2004-2007). He has also worked as deputy chief-of-staff to Hervé de Charette (1995-1997) and as chief-of-staff to Bernard Kouchner (May 2007-April 2009). In the latter role, he was closely involved in the G20 summitfollowing the 2008 financial crash, the evacuation of French citizens from Tbilisi during the Russian invasion of Georgia, and the French presidency of the Council of the European Union.
From 31 July 2014 he served as French ambassador to Germany. In April 2017, he was designated to replace Jean-Maurice Ripert as French ambassador to Russia, but was instead appointed diplomatic adviser to President Emmanuel Macron on 14 May. Étienne’s appointment was widely interpreted as signaling a desire for close ties to Germany and the EU.
WAHID FERCHICHI
Professor of Law, Tunisian Association of Defending Individual Liberties (TADIL); Vice-President, Tunisian Foundation for Public Administrations Sciences, Tunisia
WAHID FERCHICHI
Professor Wahid Ferchichi, Doctor of Laws, Professor of Public Law, at the University of Carthage, Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences of Tunis, where he co-directs the Master of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Ferchichi devotes his studies and research to two fundamental themes: individual freedoms and the democratic transition. Former member of the National Investigation Commission on Corruption and Malpractice, Member of the National Institution for the Protection of Personal Data, Co-Founder of the Tunisian Association for the Defense of Individual Liberties and director of the Tunis office of the Legal Agenda.
He has published and co-directed studies on religious freedoms, liberties of the body, sexual rights, minors and discriminated under Tunisian law, sex change, all these studies and researches are available on: www.adlitn.org
Ferchichi, who is interested in human rights structures in Tunisia, publishes periodically studies on the governance of human rights.
He participated as an expert in the drafting of legal texts on human rights, including the law on the elimination of violence against women and the draft law on combating racial discrimination.
Currently, Ferchichi within the Framework of the Civil Collective for Individual Freedoms, is conducting a broad advocacy campaign to institute the perfect and effective equality between men and women, the abolition of capital punishment and non-discrimination against LGBTQI ++ people.
ALESSANDRO FERRARI
Professor of Law and Religion, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Italy
ALESSANDRO FERRARI
Alessandro Ferrari is Professor at the University of Insubria (Varese and Como) where he teaches Law and Religion, Comparative Religious Laws and Mediterranean Islam, and also directs the Religion, Law and Economy in the Mediterranean AreaResearch Center (REDESM).
His most recent research interests and publications focus on secularism, religious freedom in Europe and constitutional transitions of the MENA countries. He was Roberta Buffett visiting Professor at the Northwestern University, Evanston (IL), from 2014 to 2015 and is currently guest Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratiques des Hautes Etudes of Paris.
His latest book is entitled Religions and Constitutional Transitions in the Muslim Mediterranean: The Pluralistic Moment (ed. with James Toronto), Routledge, Abingdon-New York, 2017.
KAMEL GHRIBI
CEO, GK Investment Holding Group, Switzerland
KAMEL GHRIBI
Mr Kamel Ghribi is Chairman of GK Investment Holding Group, a Swiss-based holding. GK Investment Holding offers expert insight to clients at every stage of the transaction and across a range of sectors. In this complex world of strategic consultancy, GK Investment Holding Group takes special care in working closely alongside clients, helping them to capitalise and profit from new opportunities in any given field.
GK Investment Holding Group’s investments are greatly in favour of the development of new business opportunities in Africa and the Middle East, as it believes in the extraordinary potential of these regions and in preserving heritage and tradition as further steps are made into the future.
Success can only be gained through greater cooperation and dialogue at the highest level. In so doing, a framework can be defined in order to rebuild impoverished economies and fractured societies. Dialogue and cultural awareness are key to the foundation of stable social and political systems in the Middle East and Africa; only through the principles of unity, faith, discipline, tolerance and respect can this be brought about.
ENRICO GRANARA
Minister Plenipotentiary, Coordinator Euro-Mediterranean Multilateral Activities, Directorate General for Political and Security Affairs, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation MAECI, Italy
ENRICO GRANARA
Mr Enrico Granara was born in Asmara (Eritrea) in 1955, where he lived until the age of 18. He graduated in Political Sciences at the University of Padua in 1978. After a brief experience as export manager, he joined the Italian Foreign Service in 1983. He was assigned to Maputo in 1984, where he served as First Secretary for Development and Emergency Aid at the Italian Embassy in Mozambique. In 1988 he was appointed to the post of Consul in Grenoble (France). In 1990 he was appointed Consul General in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia).
He resumed his duties at the Foreign Ministry in 1992, where he served as Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Department until 1995. He was then assigned to Mexico City as Counsellor and DHM. In 1999 he was appointed Consul General in Chicago (US Midwest). In 2003 he resumed his duties at the Ministry as Head of the Budget Unit in the Directorate General for Development Aid, also serving as the Italian Focal Point for the Global Fund to Fight HIV, AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM).
In 2005 he was elected Executive President of the Italian Diplomats Union. In early 2008 he was appointed Ambassador of Italy to the State of Kuwait. Upon completion of his mandate, he resumed his duties in Rome as Counsellor for International Affairs at the Centre for High Defence Studies (CASD-Ministry of Defence, 2012-2013). In 2013, he was appointed Coordinator of the Euro-Mediterranean Multilateral Activities in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this latter capacity he is the Italian Senior Official at the Union for the Mediterranean, and Member of the Board of Governors of the Anna Lindh Foundation.
ROBERTO GRASSI
Fidinam, Switzerland
ROBERTO GRASSI
After achieving economic degree and PhD, Dr Roberto Grassi experienced five years in the food industry with different tasks, from corporate controlling to integration of newly acquired companies. He then entered in the consulting and financial industry and joined Fidinam in 1996, engaged in business and management consulting projects for small and medium companies in Switzerland and Europe, among them also post merger integration projects for listed companies. Since 2001 he’s also CEO of the Fidinam Group. He seats in several board of company in industry and financial sector.
MARCO KAMPP
CEO, Deutsche Bahn AG, Italy
MARCO KAMPP
Dr Marco Kampp holds a PhD and an MA in Mathematics and theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge, UK.
Dr Kampp is currently director of international long-distance passenger transport at Deutsche Bahn AG. He is responsible for executing DB’s plan to enhance cross-border passenger transport in Europe.
Previously, he held different leadership positions within Deutsche Bahn AG in the areas of strategy, corporate development and network management.
GILLES KEPEL
Professor, PLS Paris Sciences et Lettres-École Normale Supérieure, France; Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland
GILLES KEPEL
Professor Gilles Kepel is a French Political Scientist and Arabist, has specialised in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. He is the Director of the Middle East and Mediterranean Chair at PSL Paris Sciences et Lettres Research University, based at École Normale Supérieure. Kepel holds degrees in Arabic, English, and Philosophy, a PhD in Sociology and a Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) in Political Science.
He has specialised in contemporary islamist movements since his 1983 PhD. He has been a Visiting Professor at New York University and Columbia University and was elected as a Senior Fellow at the Institut Universitaire de France from 2010 to 2015.
Professor Kepel created and was general editor of the series ‘Proche Orient’ at Presses Universitaires de France, which was comprised of 23 volumes between 2004 and 2017. His books, such as ‘The Revenge of God’ and ‘Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam’, have been translated in a dozen languages. Recently he has published ‘Terror in France: The Rise of Jihad in the West’ (Princeton U. Press, 2017).
IQBAL LATIFI GHARBI
Professor, Ez-Zitouna University, Tunisia
IQBAL LATIFI-GHARBI
Ms Iqbàl Latifi Gharbi holds a BA in Psychology from the Faculty of Human Sciences in Tunisia, an MA in ‘Classical Therapy in Tunisia’, and a PhD in anthropology from Université Paris Descartes, Paris, France.
She is a founding member of Karamah – Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, a non-profit organisation committed to promoting human rights globally, as well as a founding member of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Academic Liberties, and the Women and Memory Foundation.
Gharbi is the Chief Editor of the Ettanwir scientific journal of the High Institute of Islamic Sciences, and is also a member of the scientific committee of Zitouna University’s scientific journal, El Mishkat.
Since 2010, Gharbi has been a member of IPEMED, the Mediterranean world Economic Foresight Institute, an indipendent Euro-mediterranean think tank.
Since 2002, she has been Director of the pedagogic centre at Zitouna University. She has taught courses in religious anthropology, social psychology, gender and anthropology, communication, and mediation and management conflict.
In 2011, she was President of the koranic radio station, Radio Zitouna. In 2017, Gharbi became a member of the Presidential Commission on Individual Freedoms and Equality, and the following year she became Director of the Chair of Anthropology at the University of Islamic theology, Zitouna.
From 1995 to 1998, Gharbi was a Member of the Scientific Council of Zitouna University, and, since 1993, she has been a Member of the Scientific Council of the High Institute of Islamic Sciences. From 2008 to 2011, she was Head of the Department of Islamic civilisation at Zitouna University.
From 1989 to 2014, Gharbi held consultative roles at UNESCO, UNICEF, Konrad Adenaer Stinnfung, Femmes & Leadership, and Tunisian women Search for Common Ground.
JINAN LIMAM
Professor of Public Law, Tunis Faculty of Legal, Political and Social Sciences, Tunisia
JINAN LIMAM
Professor Jinan Limam holds a PhD in Public Law and is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of Tunis. She is the president of the Tunisian Association for the Defense of Individual Liberties and a founding member of the Tunisian Association of Political Studies. Her main interests and objects of research are the political-administrative organisation of the state and the human rights. She is also an expert in constitutional law and human rights and gender in collaboration with several international organisations.
Her main publications: “The Tunisia-European Union Association Agreement and the Democratic Process in Tunisia”, in XUEREB (P) (under dir.) Intercultural Dialogue and Citizenship. Translating Values into Actions. A Common Project for Europeans and their Partners, European documentation and research center, Malta, 2004. – “Freedom of religion in Tunisia”, in FERCHCHI (W.) (under dir.), Religious liberties in Tunisia, ADLI, 2015, pp.35 -55. – “Religious Freedom in Tunisia. The scope of ambivalence “, in FERRARI (A.), TORONTO (J.), Religions and Constitutional Transitions in The Muslim Mediterranean. The Pluralistic Moment, Taylor Routledge & Francis Group, 2017, pp. 77-88. – “Women, regions and political parties” in MRAD (H.) (under dir.), Politics in the regions: what challenges for political parties, ATEP and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2017, pp.73-113. -LGBTQI ++ associations in Tunisia. Emergence of a new activism.
XIANKUN LU
Associate Partner, IDEAS Centre Geneva, Switzerland-China
XIANKUN LU
Professor Xiankun Lu is Managing Director of LEDECO Geneva and Associate Partner of IDEAS Centre Geneva.
He is Emeritus Professor of China Institute for WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and Wuhan University (WHU) in China, as well as visiting Professor or Senior Research Fellow of some other universities and think tanks in China and Europe.
He also sits in management of some international business associations and companies, including as Senior Vice President of Shenzhen UEB Technology co., ltd – a leading Chinese e-commerce company.
He was previously senior official of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and a senior diplomat posted in Europe, including, from 2006 to 2014, in Geneva as Counsellor and head of division of the Permanent Mission of China to the WTO, and, from 1996 to 2000, in Brussels as Commercial Secretary of the Permanent Mission of China to the EU.
STEFANIA MANCINI
Vice-President, Fondation Assistance Internationale-FAI Lugano, Italy-Switzerland
STEFANIA MANCINI
After graduating in Political International Sciences at La Sapienza University of Rome Dr Stefania Mancini worked to promote the volunteering sector among the EU Member States. Then she turned the focus on the wider non profit sector with a special attention on the role of the private foundations in the development cooperation and the civic and human rights.
As expert on non profit issues, she has been member of EU steering and task groups (EU Social Economy Advisory Committee; Koschnik Group; Phare and Tacis Program for disadvantaged people; EESC Third Group).From 2001 to 2007, she was Commissioner of the Italian Agency for the Non for Profit (The Agenzia per le Onlus).Since 2015 she is member of The Italian Council for the International Development Cooperation.
She travels to many countries for the monitoring and the assessment of Humanitarian and Social projects (Latin America, Middle East, Africa).
In Italy she is the founder and the vice president of the national network of private foundations (Assifero) and is member of the board of directors of some private foundations and organisations.In Switzerland she is member of the Board of Fondation Assistance Internationale – FAI of Lugano.
SAFWAN M. MASRI
Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development, Columbia University, USA
SAFWAN M. MASRI
Professor Safwan M. Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University, and a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). In his role as EVP, he directs a number of Columbia’s global initiatives and is responsible for the development of an expanding network of Global Centers, currently located in nine cities around the world.
Masri joined Columbia University in 1988 as a member of the faculty of Columbia Business School. He was appointed Vice Dean in 1993, a position he held for thirteen years. He previously taught engineering at Stanford University, and was a visiting professor at INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires) in France.
A scholar of the contemporary Arab world, Masri’s work focuses on understanding postcolonial dynamics among religion, education, society and politics. He is author of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly(Columbia University Press, 2017), which examines why Tunisia was the only country to emerge from the Arab Spring as a democracy.
Masri is an honorary fellow of the Foreign Policy Association and a member of the International Advisory Council of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES). He was founding chairman of both King’s Academy and the Queen Rania Teacher Academy in Jordan, and is a trustee of International College, located in Beirut; the Welfare Association (Taawon), Ramallah; and The Children’s Museum, Jordan. Masri is also a member of the advisory board of the School of Business at the American University in Cairo, a director of Endeavor Jordan, and a former director of the Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA), Aramex, and the Nuqul Group.
ANTOINE NASRI MESSARRA
Constitutional Council of Lebanon, Lebanon
ANTOINE NASRI MESSARRA
Professor Antoine Nasri Messarra is a legal expert, a sociologist and a member of the Constitutional Council of Lebanon. He holds the post of the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Studies of Religions, Mediation and Dialogue at Université Saint-Joseph. He is a founding member of the Lebanese Foundation for Permanent Civil Peace and is a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and winner of the Joseph and Laure Moghaizel Foundation Prize in 1997 for ‘Civil Peace and Human Rights’.
He is author of several works of comparative constitutional law, the democratic management of religious and cultural pluralism, and citizenship, including: La gestion du pluralisme religieux et culturel – Le Liban en perspective comparée (The management of religious and cultural pluralism – Lebanon in a comparative perspective), and, in 2017: La culture citoyenne dans une société multicommunautaire (Citizen culture in a multi-communal society).
STÉPHANE MICHEL
President, Middle East, Exploration and Production Division, Total, France
STÉPHANE MICHEL
Mr Stéphane Michel is President of Middle East/North Africa, Exploration & Production Division at Total, which he was appointed in April 2014. Michel has been the Managing Director of Total E&P Qatar since mid-2011. Previously he held the position of Managing Director of Total E&P Libya after being responsible for Total E&P Qatar Joint Venture and Business Development from 2008 to 2010. Michel entered the Total Group in 2005 as Business Development Manager for Total Dowstream Asia, based in Singapore, after having served as Energy Advisor to the French Finance Minister between 2002 and 2004. A graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (1994) and Ecole des Mines de Paris (1997), Michel is an Engineer of the Corps des Mines.
ERNESTO OTTONE RAMIREZ
Assistant Director-General for Culture, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris, France
ERNESTO OTTONE RAMIREZ
Mr Ernesto Ottone R. is the Assistant Director-General for Culture of UNESCO. Prior to this position, Ottone R. served as Chile’s first Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage from 2015 to 2018. As Minister of Culture, he created a Department of First Peoples, a Migrants Unit and strengthened copyright laws and heritage protections. During this time, he also chaired the Regional Centre for the Promotion of Books in Latin America and the Caribbean (2016 – 2017).
From 2011 to 2015, Ottone R. served as Director-General of the Artistic and Cultural Extension Center of the University of Chile, which manages the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile, the Chilean National Ballet (BANCH), the Chile Symphony Choir and the Vocal Camerata. From 2001 to 2010, he held the position of Executive Director at the Matucana 100 Cultural Center in Santiago.
He holds a Master’s degree in Management of Cultural Institutions and Policies from the University of Paris IX Dauphine (1998) and a Bachelor of Arts in theatre from the University of Chile (1995).
BADREDDINE OUALI
Chairman, Vermeg Group; President, Tunisia Foundation for Development, Tunisia
BADREDDINE OUALI
Current Business Activity:
Chairman of Vermeg (software), SPG (IT), AMI Assurances (Insurance company)
Director of : BFI group (software), Adactim (BPO services), ESPRIT (University)
NGO’s:
Chairman Fondation Tunisie pour le Développement
Chairman Réseau Entreprendre Tunisie
Honorary Chairman GAIA (School for young Handicaped)
Vice Chairman Fondation Maison de Tunisie
MATHIEU PITET
CEO, Interstar Investment Ltd, France
MATHIEU PITET
Mr Mathieu Pitet has 20 years’ experience in Retail and mixed-use development in Real Estate in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Pitet was formerly the C.O.O. of Apsys, where he was involved in the development of more than 2 million sqm of Shopping Centres in France, Poland and Russia. Prior to this, Pitet was VP for development of LSGI, one of the leading shopping centre investors and developers in Western and Eastern Europe. He contributed to the establishment of A.M.S. in 1998 in Abu Dhabi and contributed in the meantime to the creation of the Middle East ICSC. He introduced most of the retail brands in the Middle East.
He is also the Ambassador for the Middle East for Finance Innovation (French Accelerator of the ministry of economy and Finance dedicated to Fin Tech, AI, Blockchain, smart city and any disruptive technology). He developed a strategic partnership with Dubai D.IF.C. to create a common investment fund and a common cluster to assist and develop the talented Emirati Start up in Europe and vice versa for the French one.
He is a member of G.R.I. (Global Real Estate Institute) – U.L.I. (Urban Land Institute) and ICSC (International Council of Shopping Center.
PHILIPPE PORTIER
Director of Studies, École Pratique des Hautes Etudes Paris, France
PHILIPPE PORTIER
Professor Philippe Portier is director of Studies of the Ecole pratique des hautes études (PSL). He is also a professor at SciencesPo, Paris. He is director of Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, the research laboratory of the École pratique des hautes études and of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and co-director of the Observatoire international du religieux at SciencesPo. His work is focused on analyzing the regimes of secularity in western societies, Catholicism, and the theories of democracy. His latest pubblications are Métamorphoses catholiques, Paris, Editions of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2015 (with C. Béraud), L’Etat et les religions en France. Une sociologie historique de la laïcité, Rennes, PUR, 2016, Politique et religion. L’enjeu mondial, Paris, Presses of Sciences-Po, 2017 (with A. Dieckhoff).
DIANA SEGANTINI
Journalist, RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera, Switzerland
DIANA SEGANTINI
Dr Diana Segantini holds a PhD in Arab-Islamic Studies of L’Orientale University in Naples and a Master in International Relations from IUHEI in Geneva.
Segantini started her professional career in the art and documentary film scene. She also gained extensive experience working in the humanitarian field in different countries serving for the UN and different NGOs. She has worked 4 years as a delegate for the International Red Cross ICRC in areas of crisis, mainly in the Middle East. She has become an expert on the Arab region and in intercultural issues.
In 2008, she founded Segantini Unlimited, an agency specialised in cultural mediation and international cultural productions such as art exhibitions, music events and documentary films. Her main mandate came from the Global Ethic Foundation of Prof. Hans Küng, specialised in interreligious und intercultural projects around the world.
Moreover, the great-granddaughter of the famous artist Giovanni Segantini strives to preserve the cultural heritage of the family and promotes different initiatives for art mediation. Currently she is Head of Arts and Culture for Swiss TV and radio RSI and is a Member of the Board RSI.
BAVAGUTHU RAGHURAM SHETTY
Founder and Chairman, NMC Health, UAE
BAVAGUTHU RAGHURAM SHETTY
Dr Bavaguthu Raghuram Shetty is the Founder and Chairman of NMC Healthcare, Finablr, Neopharma and BRS Ventures. He is a serial entrepreneur, a community pillar and a social servant. He is a visionary leader who has explored untapped markets and paved new paths in the UAE.
In 1975, he launched New Medical Centre (NMC), the first private healthcare facility in the UAE, which transformed the healthcare industry in the region. NMC is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is included as a part of the coveted FTSE100 index. NMC has also been inducted into the MSCI Global Index.
In 1980, Shetty ventured into the remittance sector by launching UAE Exchange, which is now a leading global remittance, foreign exchange and payment solutions brand.
In 2003, Shetty set up Neopharma, a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, which collaborates with multinational companies such as Pfizer, Merck, Abbot Laboratories, Hetero Pharmaceuticals and Biocon.
In 2014, Shetty acquired Travelex, the world’s leading foreign exchange specialist, and was successful in bringing two category leaders under a single umbrella. All these leading brands are now part of the recently formed holding company, Finablr.
Shetty recently established BRS Ventures, which provides innovative solutions in a wide variety of fields such as education, hospitality, finance, and the environment. It is one of the leading and premium business groups in the UAE and also worldwide.
Shetty has also established a leading healthcare services brand, BR Life. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Shetty currently operates multi-specialty healthcare facilities in India and Egypt.
Shetty’s endeavours have earned him the Order of Abu Dhabi, the highest civilian honour bestowed by the Government of Abu Dhabi. He is also a recipient of the prestigious Padma Shri Award from the Government of India. In addition, the former President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, conferred upon him the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award for his outstanding contribution towards the betterment of the NRI community.
JOHN SIBI-OKUMU
Journalist, Kenya
JOHN SIBI-OKUMU
Mr John Sibi-Okumu has been a notable broadcaster in his native Kenya. Amongst his interviewees on television have been such international newsmakers as Daniel arap Moi, Mwai Kibaki, Uhuru Kenyatta, Robert Mugabe, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Paul Kagame, Benjamin Mkapa, Joachim Chissano, Kofi Annan, Wangari Maathai and Jane Goodall. He was quiz master for The Zain Africa Challenge, an inter-university, general knowledge competition which was seen by millions of viewers in eight African countries. He was chief anchor for JSO@7, a one hour, TV news’ digest. He has taken on about forty lead roles on stage and been credited in eight films, including The Constant Gardener and Shake Hands with the Devil. He has written and devised nine plays and directed, amongst other productions, Mo Faya! which played to great acclaim at the New York Festival of Musical Theatre in 2009. He has narrated and voiced award-winning documentaries and commercials in English, French and Kiswahili. In 2017, he read the audio-book for Peter Kimani’s Dance of the Jakaranda. He is a published author for young readers as well and, as a print journalist, he is a longstanding columnist for a number of publications. He is an engaging public speaker and continues to serve as moderator for high level conferences. For his accomplishments, John is featured in the book Life Journeys, Scaling Heights – Conversations with High Achieving Men in Kenya.
FRANÇOIS-AÏSSA TOUAZI
Vice President, France-Saudi Arabia Council; Managing Director, Ardian, France
FRANÇOIS-AÏSSA TOUAZI
Mr François-Aïssa TOUAZI is the co-founder of CAP Mena, a think tank specialized on analysis and prospective for Middle East and North Africa.
He is Managing Partner at ARDIAN, the leading European Private Equity firm.
He is also co-chairman of the French-UAE, Saudi and Kuwait Council at the MEDEF International, the largest French business organisation.
DANILO TÜRK
Chairman, Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace; Political adviser of the Geneva Water Hub, Former President of Slovenia, Slovenia
DANILO TÜRK
Professor Danilo Türk obtained a BA in Law from the University of Ljubljana in 1975, an MA from the University of Belgrade in 1978, and a PhD from the University of Ljubljana.
In 1983, he became Director of the Institute on International Law at the University of Ljubljana. He was member of the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities; a UN body of independent experts. In that capacity he served, from 1986 to 1992, as the UN Special Rapporteur on the realisation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. From 1996 to 1997 he also served as member of the Human Rights Committee.
From 1992 to 2000, Türk was the first Slovene Permanent Representative to the UN in New York and represented Slovenia on the UN Security Council from 1998 to 1999. In 2000, he was invited by Mr Kofi Annan, the then Secretary General of the UN, to serve as UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs from 2000 to 2005.
In 2005, he returned to Slovenia as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. In 2007, he was elected President of the Republic of Slovenia and served his term until 2012. He became member of the Club de Madrid in 2013, an organisation of former, democratically-elected presidents and prime ministers.
In 2016 he was one of the candidates for the post of the Secretary-General of the UN.
From 2015 to 2017, he chaired the Global High Level Panel on Water and Peace. The Panel published its report, A Matter of Survival,in September 2017. Since February 2018, Türk has been Lead Political Advisor to Geneva Water Hub.
KHAYAM TURKI
President, Think-Tank Joussour, Tunisia
KHAYAM TURKI
Mr Khayam Turki graduated of IHEC in Carthage, Science-Po Paris and the American University of Cairo. He began his career in 1992, taking him for 20 years to several high management positions between North Africa, Europe and the Middle East in various sectors related to finance mainly but also to international trade, and real estate.
He also worked in London at the City as a financial analyst specialised in Arab World Stock Exchanges. In this context, he accompanied the strategic and financial evolution of the main groups and banks listed on stock exchanges.
Starting from the Tunisian revolution in January 2011, Khayam Turki joined the Ettakatol Social Democratic Party, where he became Campaign Director and then Deputy Secretary General. In early 2015, he left partisan politics to move towards civil society and created with 19 other colleagues from different political and civil society backgrounds the first Tunisian Think Tank specialising in public policies “JOUSSOUR” (bridges) and of which he was the first President.
Three years later, JOUSSOUR has become a reference on the scene of independent political thinking. Many reports on expected reforms, the country’s economy, foreign policy, strengths and weaknesses of the democratic transition have been published on the Think Tank website: www.joussour-thinktank.org.
FRANCO VACCARI
President, Rondine Cittadella della Pace, Italy
FRANCO VACCARI
Dr Franco Vaccari is a psychologist, founder and president of the Rondine Cittadella della Pace Association. He manages the New Psychology Lab in Arezzo and has taught at the local Sociology, Psychology and Pedagogy high school. Author of many newspaper and magazine articles, he has also published the work Portici: Politica vecchia, nuova passione, S-confinamenti (Overspilling – an approach to conflict), Storycycle. The last two pubblications are based on the Rondine history and method.
In 1997 he founded Rondine, a project of cultural and civil commitment for reconciliation between different populations and for the growth of a culture of peace through an experience of training between young people coming from different cultures and religions or from places of war and conflict. In his role as president of Rondine, Vaccari has established strong relations with the political, religious and academic authorities of: the Russian Federation, with particular attention, among others, to the autonomous republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia; Georgia (including the two self-proclaimed independent regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia); Armenia; Azerbaijan; Israel, Palestinian Territories, Lebanon; Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia; India, Pakistan; Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Suda, Mali, Nigeria etc.
Vaccari has always played a leading role in the world of associations, especially of a Catholic nature, in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. Activities culminated in the brilliant experience with the Rondine Association, which he founded and created, but which has its roots many years ago. A path never completely alien to the world of politics and the debate on ethics and civil conscience.
MARIANNE VIDAL MARIN
Institut Français, Safir Lab, France
MARIANNE VIDAL MARIN
Ms Marianne Vidal-Marin is a Program Officer at the Institut français, in charge of social innovation topics and incubation projects such as SafirLab in the MENA region and AyadaLab in West-Africa. Since 2014, she has created two consortiums of leading incubators in those regions and mentored more than 90 social and cultural entrepreneurs.
She has conceived and written “ Tamkin”, a web documentary which narrates the story of young Arab change-makers eager to take action and commit to their countries . “Tamkin” won the Reporters d’Espoirs Prize in 2016.
PIO WENNUBST
Vice Director General, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), Switzerland
PIO WENNUBST
Ambassador Pio Wennubst is assistant director general of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and head of the Global Cooperation Department.
He is a visionary who has worked successfully in promoting sustainable and fair globalisation. Having trained as an agricultural economist, his work involves developing viable solutions for implementing political agreements. After working as managing director of a Swiss chemical company, he moved to the public sector, joining the SDC in 1995. On the strength of many years’ experience in international development diplomacy, in his current position he is successfully mobilising both private companies and individuals to take part in building the ‘new economy’.
Cultural Dimension 2018
Public Conference with Anissa Helou
Friday, 17 August 2018
Born to a Syrian father and Lebanese mother, Anissa Helou is a well-known writer, blogger and chef. Based in London she specialises in Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa cuisine. During her conference, she talked about food and commensality.
Jazz Concert "Migrante"
Friday, 17 August 2018
Brilliant trumpet player, composer and arranger, Giovanni Falzone is one of the leading figures of Italian and European jazz. He defines himself as a migrant, having left his village in the Sicilian province to embark on a journey in search of a new life.
Jazz Concert "Mediterraneo"
Friday, 24 August 2018
The popular songs from Sicily of the Giovanni Falzone Trio blended with other sounds of the Mediterranean: from the voice of the Sufi mysticism of the Tunisian Houcine Ataa, to the African percussions of Dudu Kouatè, to the mythical Persian instrument Santur by the Iranian Alireza Mortazavi.
Symphony for Water and Peace
Saturday, 25 August 2018
The concert held by the Blue Peace Orchestra was organised in collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the City of Lugano. Its aim was to raise awareness on the issues of peace and water.
Multimedia Installations by Moataz Nasr
25 -26 August 2018
The Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr is a painter, sculptor, multimedia artist and cultural activist. His work explores the traditions and consequences of globalisation, questioning the geopolitical and social developments in the MEM region.
The Mountain (Biennale Venezia 2017)
Photo Exhibition 'Journeys through our Fragile Heritage'
July - September 2018
The photo exhibition 'Journeys through our Fragile Heritage' was showcased on the perimeter area of Parco Ciani. From a project by Wikimedia and UNESCO it highlighted the beauty and fragility of our common heritage. It landed in Lugano thanks to the cooperation between the UNESCO chair, founded and directed by Prof. Lorenzo Cantoni, and the Swiss commision for UNESCO.
Register for the Forum
Registration for the MEM Summer Summit 2018 Forum is available on-site from Saturday, 25 August, from 07:00 at the venue – Palazzo dei Congressi.
Online registration is now closed.
We would like to thank our sponsors for their generosity in supporting the MEM Summer Summit.
New registration fees
The registration fee includes:
• Entrance to the two-day Forum
• Access to all programme sessions: panels, keynote speeches and breakout sessions
• Access to the exhibition area
• Lunch and coffee breaks
Early bird registration
Regular registration
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Individuals 300 CHF
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Residents of LMC countries* 100 CHF
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Residents of LIC countries* 50 CHF
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Small Group 270 CHF
(5-20 people)
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Large Group 255 CHF
(21-50 people)
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SWITCH - Faculty / Staff 250 CHF
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USI & FUS - Faculty / Staff** 200 CHF
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International Students 150 CHF
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SWITCH - Students 150 CHF
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USI & FUS - Students** 100 CHF
*Residents of countries ranked in the categories “Low-Income Economies” (LIC) and “Lower-Middle Income Economies” (LMC), (see full list). Please note that there is a limited amount of tickets with the discounted price for the categories Residents of LIC and LMC countries.
**Università della Svizzera italiana & Franklin University Switzerland
All above prices are per person and are inclusive of Swiss VAT at 7.7 %.
Cancellations
To cancel your registration, please contact the MEM Summer Summit organisers at administration@mem-summersummit.ch.
All cancelled Forum registrations will be subject to a cancellation fee as shown below:
- Minus 50% for cancellations made before 15 July 2018
- No refunds for cancellations made on or after 16 July 2018
The Lugano Initiative
‘The Lugano Initiative. Proposals for the Middle East Mediterranean region’ is a document that collects concrete proposals for development and growth in the MEM region, developed and drawn up during the MEM Summer Summit 2018. The main contributors are the 150 young change-makers, who worked together across cultural differences and national identities.
Download the document: MEM Summer Summit 2018 – The Lugano Initiative
Partners 2018
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our Partners, who supported both the vision and realisation of the MEM Summer Summit 2018.
Patronage
Institutional Partners
Main Partners
Partners
Media Partners
Event Partners
Sponsors 2018
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our Sponsors. The MEM Summer Summit 2018 could not exist without their generous support.
Elite Sponors
Sponsors
Champions
Donors
Accommodation and Transport
Early arrangement of accommodation is recommended since the event is held during the high-season.
A contingent of hotel rooms has been reserved for Forum participants.
If you are interested in reserving a room, please fill in the booking form (download here) and send it to administration@mem-summersummit.ch. All hotels are within easy reach of Palazzo dei Congressi. Your reservation will be taken care of and an invoice will be sent directly to you via email.
Contacts:
administration@mem-summersummit.ch.
By train: Lugano is one of the principal stops on the main European North-South route and can be reached from many cities in the northern and southern part of Europe by direct day or night train connections. Check trains and updated departure times from/to Lugano here.
By plane: The quickest way to get to Lugano from most places abroad, will be through a number of airports listed below:
- From Milano Malpensa: There are frequent direct bus connections to Lugano (travel time 1hr). These are the main providers operating from Malpensa Airport Terminal 1 and Terminal 2: GiosyTours, LuganoServizi, and JetBus.
- From Milano Linate and from the city centre of Milano, you can take one of the frequent trains to Lugano (about 1h from Milano Centrale Station).
- Lugano Airport is served by Swiss (Zurich). From the airport, you can take a shuttle to the centre of the city (Shuttle Bus) or a taxi.
- Zurich Airport: As an alternative you might consider flying to Zurich and use the train to travel to Lugano (overall, a 2h journey). There is a direct, hourly train from Zurich main station to Lugano. It is a chance to experience the longest train tunnel in Europe by passing under the Gottardo.
Upon request, we can arrange private transportation between your arrival destination and your hotel. Request for transport can be made on the hotel booking form, or writing to administration@mem-summersummit.ch.
For citizens of the following countries, only a valid passport is required to travel in Switzerland:
- Americas (except Belize, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Colombia and Peru)
- Europe
- Japan
- Australia and New Zealand
Passport holders from other countries should consult the relevant visa requirements.
Invitation letters for visa procedures can be prepared upon request: only delegates who successfully complete their registration to the Forum can receive a Letter of Invitation in order to submit a visa application. A VISA letter from the hotel can also be provided, but only for delegates who book through us.
For all visa requests please write to administration@mem-summersummit.ch.
The Lugano region is well-known for the beauty of its landscape, lake, mountains and Mediterranean vegetation.
Destinations for half-day trips include Monte Brè and San Salvatore, the two mountains framing Lugano, both of which can be reached on foot or cable car. Bellinzona castle, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is 30 minutes away from Lugano by train. For further information on day trips, please visit: