SPEAKERS

Alain Berset has served as Secretary General of the Council of Europe since September 2024, having previously served as a minister in the Swiss government, where he headed the Federal Department of Home Affairs and served twice as President of the Swiss Confederation. He played a central role in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and represented Switzerland on the international stage, notably at the UN Security Council and at the Reykjavik Summit. Before entering politics, he taught economics at the University of Neuchâtel.

Mazin Abdalla, Civil Engineering graduate from National University of Sudan, currently a French language student at the University of Strasbourg.

Aurora Ailincai is Head of the Anti-discrimination and Inclusion Department at the Council of Europe. Since joining the Organisation in 2003, she has worked on education, democratic governance, equality and inclusion policies. She currently oversees the Council of Europe’s work on anti-discrimination, diversity and inclusion across standard-setting, monitoring and co-operation activities. Aurora holds a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Strasbourg and has taught at universities in West Indies and the Pacific, specialising in policy design and strategic partnerships.

Liz Alderman is an award-winning European correspondent with nearly 30 years of experience covering economic, trade and social dynamics. She spent 17 years at the New York Times, where she produced agenda-setting reporting and analysis from over 20 countries, focusing on the European economy and politics, the Ukraine war and the shifting trans-Atlantic alliance.

Prof. Inbal Becker-Reshef is Managing Director of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab, which applies artificial intelligence and geospatial technologies to global challenges including food security, linguistic inclusion in AI, biodiversity, and disaster response. She is a Professor and Fellow at the University of Strasbourg and Founder and Chief Scientist of NASA Harvest, NASA’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Program. Across these roles, she brings together research, technology, and global partnerships to translate science into impact. Her work has been recognized with the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal, the U.S. APEC ASPIRE Prize, and the Arrell Global Food Innovation Award.

Pam DIXON is the founder and executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a respected public interest research NGO. An author and researcher, she has written influential studies on AI, identity, health, and complex data ecosystems and their governance for more than 20 years, working extensively across the US, India, Africa, Asia, and the EU.

Giuliano da Empoli is an Italian-Swiss writer and essayist, a professor at Sciences Po Paris, and editor-in-chief of the journal Le Grand Continent. Author of the award-winning novel The Kremlin’s Magician (Gallimard, 2022), he continues his exploration of power in 2024 with The Hour of the Predators. He also appears in the media and at international conferences on democracy, geopolitics, and influence.

Serena is a master’s student in International Development and Cooperation at Sciences Po Strasbourg, specialising in how polarization undermines democratic societies.

Victoria Grech is the founder of Truzentia, pioneering relational intelligence for human-AI teams, and serves as a fractional Chief AI Officer deploying AI systems across regulated industries. She collaborates with the Alan Turing Institute and UCL, bringing a practitioner’s perspective to the governance of new and emerging technologies. Victoria’s work sits at the intersection of technology, policy, and ethics, focusing on ensuring AI systems are capable and governable.

Ana Kuprava is an international legal studies student at the University of Trento. She serves as the EU-Georgia Dialogue Coordinator for the Young European Ambassadors network.

Maya Lahav is a cyber-criminologist at Oxford University, researching how online platforms and AI shape crime and institutional responses to harm. Previously, she worked as Head of Section in the Danish Ministry of Defence’s cyber defence unit and in the tech sector as a team lead in intelligence research focused on online criminal ecosystems and platform safety.

Elias Lundgren is a political science student at the University of Stockholm. He previously interned at the Swedish Embassy in the Netherlands and has contributed to a Swedish foreign policy newsletter.

Gilles Marchand is the director of the “Media Philanthropy Initiative” at the University of Geneva. He served as CEO of SRG SSR (www.srgssr.ch), Switzerland’s public broadcasting service, from 2017 until the end of 2024, after working in both public and private media for over 30 years. Gilles Marchand holds a Master’s degree in sociology from the University of Geneva.

Arman R. Martirosyan is a PhD candidate in political and social history at the University of Strasbourg and Sorbonne University.

She is the anchor of Journal Afrique, which she presents from Monday to Thursday. Specialised in African and international affairs, she has been covering news from the African continent for more than fifteen years and has conducted numerous interviews with heads of state and other leading public figures.

A graduate of CELSA, as well as several French and American universities, she has also worked for France 2, France 24, TéléSud, iTÉLÉ, and C8 before joining TV5MONDE on a long-term basis.

Amélia Pinto holds a master’s in law. She is also co-director of the youth-led organisation Politics4Her, and has completed traineeships in the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Rok Šarić is a law student at the University of Ljubljana who has gained experience at Slovenia’s Permanent Representation to the Council of Europe and competed in international moot court competitions.

Vetle Skrede holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Politics from the University of Bergen, Norway. He also serves as President of UN Students Bergen.

Alex Taylor is a European journalist, having been based in Paris, Brussels and Berlin. He has produced and presented TV and radio programmes on European affairs for over 30 channels, including France Télévisions, ARTE, TV5 Monde, Euronews, BBC, France Inter, France Musique and RFI of which he was also Programme Director.
He has moderated over 2 000 events and conferences worldwide. He has written several books including a best-seller on languages, and speaks mother tongue standard English, French and German and fluent Italian, Spanish and some Dutch and Russian.