panellists

Eva Bubla is an artist, activist and educator, and researcher at the Doctoral School of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. Her works articulate current social and ecological concerns and are strongly connected to the specific environment. She is keen on working together with local communities and other sectors; these forms of interactions define the focus of a project, the formats and media used. At the boundaries of art and science, her works aim to map, perceive and reflect on the local ecosystem, and as such (re)connect audiences to it. 

Uroš Mladenović is an actor, workshop leader, and youth worker. He finished acting at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in 2013, and his master's studies in 2014, defended his doctoral studies of dramatic and audiovisual arts in April 2021. 

He founded the Teleport theater, which deals with the artistic education of young people, works with young people, and performs plays for young people in various cities in Serbia. 

He currently works with drama groups in Prijepolje, Ćuprija, and Subotica. He is a creative member of various international arts projects and holds various awards in field of drama. He is the author of the methodology of youth collective creation, which he wrote as the basis for a doctoral art project at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad.

His hobbies are orienteering, yoga, traveling, and cycling.

Alenka Oblak hosts change processes, supports creativity and participation of everybody involved to release the potential of co-creation and new ways. For more that 20 years she is supporting diverse organisations and communities: in youth work, business, schools, local communities, with focus on inclusion, supporting leadership development. She is an Art of Hosting and Harvesting practitioner and uses approaches that are based on embodiment, graphic facilitation, adventure education, non-violent communication, learning-in-nature, inclusion, non-formal education, and System Scribing. She does not say what to do, with everybody included she co-creates process to find further steps.

Originally from Santiago de Chile, after completing her postgraduate studies in Berlin, Josefa Zavala started as a Career Partner Manager at ReDI Cyberspace in October 2022. Since 2023 she has been working more intensively on new action proposals together with ReDI's Talent Success Team to enhance the Cyberspace mission. Josefa's work during this year has focused on ReDI's educational commitment not only with the technical training of our students, but also with soft and extracurricular skills, as well as the job integration especially of women, migrants and refugees interested in the tech world. 

Martin is a climate change manager working in the city of Buehl with previous experience as such on the county as well as municipal government level. Trained in the field of sustainable development, global change and climate mitigation he is working towards city-wide climate neutrality at the interface of government, industry and civil society.

Peter brings over 10 years of international experience in Human Resources and Talent Acquisition. With his background in Psychology and post-graduate qualifications in Coaching and Learning & Development, he has also been active in the area of People Development as a Coach and Facilitator. His focus in coaching is on helping people at professional crossroads to make meaningful career transformations. As a HR specialist, he supports organizations in sharpening their People and Talent strategies, so that goals and aspirations of individual employees as well as the business can be achieved.

LinkedIn | Website

Choosing to be an office drop-out was probably the most rewarding decision of my life. I didn’t know at that time that being self-employed is one of the most effective paths to self-awareness. Now I show business people communication tips and tricks I wish I had known when I was there. Whenever my clients are in doubt if they should be honest or keep a good relationship the answer is: BOTH. We also review and clear a number of limiting beliefs so that they can build a fruitful cooperation with business partners, team members as well as with family and friends. 

Co-founder of Repayz, an employee at Passion4Business, freelance trainer, and politically active person. Previously, he held seminars for volunteers from abroad on various social topics, ranging from discrimination to reforming the working time. His recent activities are mostly connected to the customer analytics for a new SaaS for people who want to start their own business. 

LinkedIn | Website

Aimed for diplomacy, became a public speaking and communications trainer instead. 

I studied international relations, spent two years in China and five years at the United Nations. My goal was to transition into EU external relations, focusing on EU-China relations. It never happened. By the time I the opportunity came, I declined. Instead, today as a freelance professional, I give soft skills training to multinational companies and help people prepare for their presentations. My lifestyle probably couldn’t be much further away from being a diplomat. And I like it. This is (probably) something we will further discuss during the panel discussion. Join us!

LinkedIn | Website

András is an entrepreneur, an independent researcher and digital nomad. He completed his PhD in electrical engineering in 2016 and worked as a research fellow on biomedical and data science projects in the medical field. With his wife, in 2019 they decided to take a gap year, as a result of which they are still travelling around the world to this day. In 2020, they founded their own business, Xpat Consulting in order to help expatriates to find their place in the world. He has lived for longer periods in the following countries: Hungary, Germany, Portugal, Luxembourg, Vietnam, Mexico

As a Board member at The World Bank Group, Gábor represents Hungary in overseeing the Group's business, while he also work closely with representatives of other countries and the Group's staff in delivering on the twin goals of The World Bank Group: ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

Máté is an official in the European Commission, currently working directly with the Director-General for Trade as her Policy Assistant. He has held various roles in the European Commission, most recently  advising on market access and industry matters, also in the Directorate-General for Trade. He has had wide ranging responsibilities and tasks, ranging from the trade policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic to various international trade negotiations or enforcement issues notably with the United States and China. Máté is a graduate of the World Trade Institute (University of Bern, Fribourg and Neuchatel) in Switzerland, as well as the Corvinus University of Budapest in Hungary.

Anna is a Consultant in the office of the World Bank Group Special Representative to the United Nations. She previously worked with the UN in New York and Geneva and gained first work experience at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin and the German Mission to the UN in Geneva. She studied International Relations and Peace Studies in Erfurt, Gent, and Tübingen.

Logan Strenchock a garden team member at Zsámboki Biokert, a four-hectare organic fruit and vegetable farm in Hungary a Co-Founder of Cargonomia, a local food distribution and cargo bike center in Budapest, and the Environmental and Sustainability Officer at Central European University. He is the president of the Open Garden Foundation and helps coordinate educational outreach programs in coordination with Cargonomia and Zsamboki Biokert team members. 

He is a member of the Hungarian Agroecology Network, and enjoys getting his hands dirty in mixing research and practice in degrowth-inspired experimentation with a diverse team of collaborators living in Hungary, and across Europe.

Marijana is a political scientist and environmental policy specialist by training, and works for 2 ½ years at the United Nations Environment Programme in the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions. These are three multilateral environmental agreements which share the common objective of protecting human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals and wastes. She speaks German, English, French and Spanish fluently, some Serbo-Croatian as well. Currently, she's living in Geneva and loving the lake and mountains. 

Founder of COMOT

Tünde is a DIY maker, urban-composter, food scrap saver, indoor jungle lover with experience in environmental sustainability education and a background in environmental NGO work and management of 9 years. She likes exploring new ideas and likes mimicking nature when it is about problem solving.

Alexandra

Alexandra is a Greek-born Madrid-based digital project manager, specializing in online product design and development. She is also the Manager of the MVDM Mentor Program at IE and a member of the UWC International Council. Alexandra has consulted and managed a variety of projects in the field of executive education, lifelong learning, and learning innovation, having worked with world-renowned universities and European NGOs. Currently, she is working on a number of youth training and arts & humanities initiatives, while exploring her research interests in a diverse spectrum of areas, such as mentoring, digital humanities, and visual grammar in design. 

Association Kulturanova

Jelena Božić is a journalist and project coordinator. With a background in communications, she deals with youth policy through the local, regional and national networks of organisations. She also works on the youth radio called Oradio as a journalist and researcher and in 2020 was named best young journalist.

Anita has worked as an English teacher, Cambridge teacher trainer, materials writer and examiner for about 10 years now. Right now she is working at an EdTech company called Preply which is a learning platform. She does regular teacher training sessions, conference workshops and creates asynchronous courses both for novice and experienced teachers. She is passionate about promoting learner autonomy and the judicious use of technology to facilitate language learning. 

Cultural manager and PM² practitioner, Katalin specialises in socially engaged art projects, with a strong interest in European cultural policies and hands-on experience within the European Commission.

National University of Public Service & University of Szeged

An assistant lecturer of public international law, András Hárs is also an organiser and coach of national and international competitions with a mild passion of visiting foreign lands and absorbing as many different cultures as possible.

An independent health coach and systemic trainer, Niklas Kotthaus works with people and organisations to increase sustainability in their daily lives and businesses—and thus increase their physical, emotional and social well-being.

Marko Kovačević is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Science. In his research and teaching, Marko focuses on foreign and security policies of small states within international organizations, and the UN in particular. He  is also managing editor of Journal of Regional Security, and has some 15 years of related professional experience in academic, publishing and civil society sectors.

Technical University of Denmark

Ádám Kovalovszki is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University of Denmark. At present he is working on projects related to the conversion of organic wastes into biofuels and biomaterials and doing research in computational biotechnology, metabolic modelling and environmental ecology, focusing on anaerobic fermentation and (waste)water systems.

Tairi is a project coordinator in the NGOs field, managing European Solidarity Corps volunteers and organising international youth and innovation projects, seminars and training courses. Her "job" is to create new opportunities for learning, sharing, empowering and giving back to the community. 

André has more than 9 years of experience as a trainer. Besides that, he is a coach and certified functional nutrition guide who looks at every moment in life as a chance to make a healthy decision. He is on a mission to create healthier environments for individuals and organizations and to contribute to inclusive learning ecosystems. He has been very flattered to be called a 'learning geek' and 'champion for non-formal education' by his colleagues.

ADASTRA

A self-described tech geek and ex-entrepreneur, Tomas Machalicek has experience establishing sustainable businesses and currently works as an IT consultant in Prague.

LogMeIn, Minup

Hey! I'm Adam, a digital product designer and startup founder from Hungary. I work at LogMeIn on a password manager software called LastPass. On the side, I've recently created my own startup together with one of my former colleagues. We are building Minup, an appointment scheduling software for small businesses.

Miganoush is the CEO and co-founder of TeachSurfing social enterprise.  She is responsible for fundraising, business development, and project management. She holds a Master’s in Engineering & Management of Information Systems. She has 11 years' work experience as a software engineer, project and product manager in SAP and Ericsson international software corporates, and at TeachSurfing.

Coming soon!

Air navigation company

Emese Petrik studied work and organisational psychology. Before finishing university, she started a full-time 'grown-up' job at the Hungarian air navigation organisation as an OD consultant. A few years later she became a business coach and an action learning team coach.

Inspiring Change

Nina Petrov is a Serbian entrepreneur, mathematician, artist, and activist. She is the founder of Inspiring Change, an accelerator for creative, social, and green startups. She is one of the founders of Krpica, the first zero-waste fashion brand in Serbia, and WorldFair—an international media channel sharing inspiring stories from across the globe. 

Coming soon!

TeachSurfing

After finishing his Bachelor's in Business Informatics and working at IBM for 3 years, Malte followed his curiosity to venture into the field of non-formal education. At the center of his work stand his passions for life-long learning, meditation, self-empowerment and emotional healing.

Sergei's YouTube channel

Author, facilitator, PR & GR professional. Trainer in the fields of media & communications, networking, project management. Co-Founder of ARTa - Association of Russian Trainers. Conducted 40+ trainings all over Europe. Sergei fluently speaks English, German, Polish and Russian as his mother tongue and can communicate in fourteen other languages.

DoesItFeelGood.com

Sonia Wargacka is a founder of a global social impact video production company, DoesItFeelGood.com. A Polish-born, UK-based filmmaker and entrepreneur, Sonia started her career working as an assistant producer at Screenology Film School in Bristol. In 2018, she decided to connect her passions for travelling and social impact by launching a business with her partner Ben. Together they have completed projects on 5 continents, promoting social enterprises, female empowerment summits and organisations providing employment for minorities.

Sara Zanini is a cultural heritage professional, currently working in Brussels as a European Project Officer. She has a background in cultural tourism, heritage management and a passion for cultural diversity, local communities and world heritage. She has lived in six foreign countries other than Italy and worked in environments from European institutions to local organisations.