Year: 2021

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and co-leads Stanford’s Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

Kata Tüttő is a Hungarian politician. Since November 2019 she is Deputy-Mayor of Budapest responsible for utility management: waste, water, sewage,street light, public transport and green infrastructure. Chairing the Operational Group responsible for the City’s responses in the COVID-19 pandemic. Member of the European Committee of the Regions (COR).

Ms. Júlia Király is an associate professor of finance and monetary economics of the Corvinus University and of the International Business School (IBS) Budapest. Since 2013 Ms. Király has been an independent board member of the KBC Group and the KBC Bank Belgium. Since 2016 she has been member of the Selection Panel of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund. She was the Deputy Governor of the MNB, the Central Bank of Hungary, responsible for financial stability during the crisis years (2007-2013). Prior to this she was one of the owners and CEO of the ITCB Budapest, a well-known training and consulting company in the banking sector. She has several publications on financial crises, monetary policy, banking and finance.

Srdja Popovic is the Founder and Executive director of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies (CANVAS), a non-profit organization based in Belgrade, Serbia that aims to teach the use of nonviolence to make a change.

He was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia (then part of Yugoslavia), in 1973. Popovic played the guitar in a rock band and graduated from the Faculty of Biology in Belgrade, holding a Master’s degree (MA) in animal ecology. Since his early 20ies, he has focused on activism, democracy and human rights issues.

In 1998, Popovic founded the student movement “Otpor!” (“Resistance!”) which played a crucial role in ousting president Slobodan Milosevic, former Serbian dictator accused of war crimes. After Milosevic was defeated in 2000, Popovic was elected to the Serbian Parliament where he served from 2000 until 2004.

Following his career in the Serbian Parliament, Popovic went on to found CANVAS, acting as its executive director ever since. CANVAS was created with the intent of teaching people all over the world about how to be successful in nonviolent conflict. So far, the organization has worked with activists from 46 different countries, spreading the knowledge of the nonviolent strategies and tactics used by Otpor! worldwide.

He was the 53^rd Rector of the University of St Andrews. He commenced the role of the University Rector for a period of 3 years, starting from 1 November 2017.

Apart from being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, Popovic was listed as one of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” of 2011 by the Foreign Policy Magazine. And in 2014 he was listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos. Popovic is also the author of the recent book Blueprint for Revolution.

For more information visit: canvasopedia.org

Zdeněk Hřib has been the Mayor of Prague since 2018, the first Mayor both in Czech Republic and worldwide to have been nominated by Pirate Party.

In 2006 Zdeněk graduated in General Medicine at the Charles University. During his studies he worked as an intern at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan. After graduation Zdeněk worked for several organizations as a healthcare IT specialist and consultant. In 2008 he received an internship in the National Patient Safety Agency in London.

He has been active in Pirate Party since 2013. Zdeněk helped to formulate Pirates´ position on some healthcare topics, such as mandatory vaccinations, anti-smoking law, ePrescriptions or spying on patients.
He was also one of the authors of the Party´s election programme for healthcare for 2017 Chamber of Deputies elections and provided consultancy to candidates and deputies in the field of healthcare.

Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan received his B.A. in Sociology and M.A. in National Development from National Taiwan University. He has demonstrated his passion for politics since he was a university student. In 1990, when Cheng was serving as the vice president of NTU’s Student Association, he and his peers launched the Wild Lily Student Movement, a movement that eventually led to major reforms to the National Assembly and enabled democracy to flourish in Taiwan.

As Taiwan became democratized, Cheng served as a staff for political leaders and began participated in several elections, accumulating his political experiences. In 1988, Cheng was elected as a councilmember in Taoyuan County with a record-breaking number of votes. In 2006, Cheng was appointed as Minister of the Government Information Office in the Executive Yuan. During his term, Cheng focused his efforts on revitalizing Taiwan’s cultural and creative industry with the objective of shaping Taiwan as a major pop-culture hub in the Mandarin-speaking world.

Cheng was elected as mayor of Taoyuan at the age of 47. At the time, he was the youngest municipal mayor in Taiwan. He has shown his outstanding ability in city governance and earned a rating of “five-star mayor” for four consecutive years in nationwide media. Taoyuan, home to the nation’s largest international airport, is the gateway to Taiwan. During his term, Cheng proposed the concept of “airport economics,” highlighting Taiwan’s advantageous sectors, such as aviation, logistics and warehousing, e-vehicle and component manufacturing, the green industry, as well as IoT and ICT. In addition, many overseas Taiwanese business looking to relocate to Taiwan have chosen Taoyuan as their first choice of investment. Since Cheng took office, Taoyuan’s population growth has become the highest in the country. Taoyuan also boasts the youngest population in Taiwan, with an average citizen age of 39 years old. This population increase is largely credited to Cheng’s youth-oriented policies, emphasis on startups, and support for families.

Virginijus Sinkevičius is the present Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, at the European Commission. Mr Sinkevičius was from 2017 to 2019 Minister of Economy, and before he was leading the Committee of Economy at the Parliament of Lithuania. Mr. Sinkevičius was elected to the Parliament in October 2016. Prior, he was a Team Lead for Regulatory Affairs at Invest Lithuania. Mr. Sinkevičius holds BA in International Relations and Affairs from Aberystwyth University and Master‘s degree in European International Affairs from Maastricht University.