Scholars

Alba Giol is from Catalonia. She studied Social Work at the University of Girona. She did her final project about how this profession can contribute to fighting the climate crisis, according to how it affects vulnerable groups. That research helped her focus her professional training on sustainable development. That is how she decide to study for a Master’s degree in Environment, Sustainability and SDGs, which is focused on the UN 2030 Agenda and brings a whole view of sustainability on its three edges. Right now, Alba is doing her Master’s internship with UN Etxea, participating in some projects about environmental education, the climate crisis, and human rights. She has a particular interest in the relationship between the climate crisis, social exclusion, and inequalities. She had not particularly studied the link between these sectors in the university degree and she feels that nowadays it has become part of the base of social change. She also shares the idea that we are now facing a very complex problem, which means we need multidisciplinary solutions. This will lead everyone to be involved and contribute as much as we can, working together as a society and empowering community work, to ensure a better future for the next generations and even for ourselves.

Lisa Henry is a humanitarian leader who has worked for the past 25 years in humanitarian response, support to civil society organizations, and human rights work. Lisa’s experience stretches from the Rwandan genocide, the Balkans War, the Ethiopian famine, and the Haiti earthquake. The response was always organized through the input and opinions of local or national organizations and leaders. Affected populations and lived experience are valuable elements in a well-functioning team that relies on strict adherence to human rights. Lisa’s strength is understanding, spotting, and motivating the best response from her team members, while convincing external stakeholders to understand and believe in the results generated.

Lishu Gang has four years of professional experience at the intersection of technology, media, and politics. Currently, Lishu is a project manager at a data science startup working on products that help liberal-progressive political parties and organizations better control their media narratives. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Sciences from Minerva Schools at KGI in a six-country global rotation program. Most recently, she completed a Master’s degree in Nationalism Studies from Central European University in Austria and Hungary, with a focus on migration and refugee studies and the Israel-Palestine conflict. While volunteering for the Alumni Relations Office and the Student Recruitment Office at CEU, Lishu contributed to various projects in event planning and operations, media production, and marketing and communications. Previously, she worked at an NGO to promote effective implementation of youth social change programs in Kenya, during which she researched the informal sector innovation gap and helped design a curriculum on systems-thinking. She also led several marketing projects and website development for two ed-tech startups in Berlin and San Francisco. Additionally, Lishu volunteered as a community-building assistant on diversity and inclusion at her undergraduate university. Through these experiences, she developed a diverse skill set of research and policy analysis, project coordination, and media production. She enjoys exploring innovative solutions to address complex political, social, and cultural problems.

Mamisoa Samy graduated from the University of Antsirabe Madagascar with a Bachelor’s degree in Management and received a Master’s degree in Marketing and Communication from ISCAM in Antanananarivo, Madagascar. Wanting to experience professional life abroad, she landed a contract with a big placement agency for a house and 5-star hotel in Lebanon. Later, she worked within the housekeeping department for Intercontinental Phoenicia Beyrouth. After seven years, she came back to her country with a fueled passion for hoteliers’ jobs. She started training many hotels in Madagascar by using 5-star strategies, especially in housekeeping. After some time, she co-founded a coaching agency. She served as an Assistant Manager of the guesthouse of Lovasoa Cross-cultural Competence Antsirabe and helped improve the quality of maintenance of the accommodation according to the international standard, as well as trained the teams in the use of cleaning products. She is now part of the Commercial and Communication team. She voluntarily leads an association registered in France called “Les enfants du jacaranda” — it concerns the education of underprivileged children in the city of Antsirabe. She started to develop the association by integrating poor single mothers who are unable to educate their children. She managed the funds in order to give children access to school and food. Mamisoa works on finding donors to sponsor school canteens for children to increase the number of other poor kids’ access to school.

Mialy Rabemanantsoa is from Antananarivo, Madagascar. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality & Tourism Management, and a diploma in Business Management. She graduated from English First – English Town in Guangzhou, China in English studies, and also got her HSK2 certificate in Chinese languages studies. She has passed her theoretical exams in private law studies, and is on her way to get her final studies book to validate her Master’s degree in Law. Mialy is the President of an NGO called Avotr’aina which fights for human rights and against violence. She is also the secretary of an environmental NGO called Dry Forest which works for the reforestation of baobabs in Madagascar. For almost four years now, she has been self-employed as a legal advisor. She already experienced work in hotels, semi-governmental companies, and political organizations.

Tahir Kamran, from Chiniot, Pakistan, is currently working as a lead trainer at Quaid E Azam Educational Academy Lahore. He holds a Ph.D. degree with a specialization in (numerical solutions of PDEs, computational fluid mechanics, numerical methods, mathematical fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer) from Government College University Faisalabad. He has nine published research articles in international journals while 20 research articles are in the process of publication in different journals. He has more than 10 years of experience in Fluid Mechanics as he has been teaching it for 12 years. He is the author of four books. He is a 22-time award recipient for being Best Teacher and Best Master Trainer. He has two years of management experience at Ranjha Hostel and Academy. His hobby of reading books makes him a critical thinker and keen observer. As a professional, he has a combination of valuable skills in project coordination, analytics, and research, which makes him more efficient. In addition, he has recognized expertise in critical thinking and is a communicative colleague with keen attention to detail and accuracy. During his studies at university, he has worked as a research assistant and has polished his talents. He has also developed good skills in science communication, which can facilitate him to disseminate research findings scientifically in journals, workshops, and conferences as well as in public.

For approximately more than 11 years, Veronika Oxtafia has been working in the Public Prosecutor Institution (Attorney General Office of The Republic of Indonesia). As a Public Prosecutor Officer, Veronika Oxtafia handled multiple criminal cases and there are parts of them dealing with crimes against children. Within her law enforcement duties, Veronika focuses not merely on law enforcement efforts, but on the other side, she as well as committing deterrence duties to overcome or at least decreasing the number of crimes against child/children, and as consequences, the children would still receive their physical and/or psychological protection amongst their society later on and still could get their bright future. Due to those reasons, Veronika has committed sort of cooperation with Dinas Pemberdayaan Anak dan Perempuan (Child and Woman Empowerment Service) under the Merauke District Government to makeover District of Merauke to be a region with its characteristic that welcome and care towards children through several deterrence efforts such as establishing a halfway house for street children in District of Merauke.