Speakers

Bjørn is the founder and CEO of Revontulet and the co-founder and Director of The Khalifa Ihler Institute. He is an internationally renowned expert on counter-terrorism and preventing radicalization into violent extremism. Bjørn’s work is focused on the international dynamics of terrorist networks online and offline. His work has been instrumental in developing a more comprehensive approach to terrorism and violent extremism across sectors while maintaining a principled approach to human rights. As a survivor of the 22nd of July 2011 terrorist attack in Norway, Bjørn is also working to ensure the rights and healthy inclusion of victims and survivors of terrorism and violent extremism in the work to prevent violence.

Ihler is a member of the Obama Foundation Leaders Europe Network and has, among others, advised world leaders, governments, and international organizations through his work with the Kofi Annan Foundation and the Khalifa Ihler Institute. From 2020 to July 2022, Ihler served as the inaugural chair of the Independent Advisory Committee of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, facilitating joint efforts across the tech industry to counter the spread of terrorism online.

Daniel is the founder and Chair of the Daniel Sachs Foundation, where he is actively involved in revitalizing democracy. He has established several organizations dedicated to reimagining politics, including the Apolitical Foundation and the Multitudes Foundation, as well as the Foundation for Democracy & Pluralism. Sachs also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board at the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Chair of OSF’s Investment Committee.

Daniel is the CEO of P Capital Partners (PCP), a leading corporate lender and strategic financial partner to entrepreneurial and family-owned companies in Northern Europe. He also serves on the board of Wallenberg Investments AB, on the panel of senior advisers to the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, and is a founding council member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Veronika has been working ah Ökotárs – Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation since 1997 and holds the position of the director since 2007. Earlier, she was the national consultant for the Dutch Foundation Milieukontakt Oosteuropa, but also worked for the eco-counselling office of Ecoservice Foundation. With HEPF and earlier, she’s been working on a variety of issues related to ecological consumption, gene technologies and public participation. Since 2003 she’s been leading HEPF’s Civil Partner program aiming to improve the legal-fiscal environment of civil society, but she also gained experience in managing and overseeing grant programs of various sizes, not least the Hungarian NGO Fund under the EEA/Norwegian Financial Grants.

Besides her full time occupation she also has voluntary positions in a number of NGOs, among them the chairmanship of the Hungarian Donors Forum. She is a biologist (MSc) by education, but also has a MA degree in organisational psychology, and more recently gained a diploma in environmental law.

Zsófia Banuta started her career as a business news producer at CNBC with a focus on the new EU countries. She studied televisions production at Hofstra University, NY and received her MBA at IE Business School in Madrid, where she obtained her leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

Zsófia co-founded Unhack Democracy following the 2018 parliamentary elections in Hungary and with the team’s year-long investigation put Viktor Orbán’s supermajority into question. She is currently running REWIRE, a hope-based mindset shift incubator for civil-society leaders.

Barbora Bukovská is a human rights lawyer. She is currently leading legal and advocacy work at the UN and EU for ARTICLE 19, an international organisation dealing with freedom of expression.

Since 2009, she has been a Senior Director for Law and Policy at ARTICLE 19, an international free speech organisation. In this capacity,she has been leading on the development of all ARTICLE 19 policies and legal work, covering a broad range of freedom of expression issues. She is also overseeing legal support to ARTICLE 19 offices in Mexico, Brazil, USA, Kenya, Senegal, Tunisia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kazakhstan and international operations.

Prior to ARTICLE 19, Barbora worked with various organisations on a range of human rights issues, including protection from discrimination, access to justice, deprivation of liberty, reproductive rights and community development. She also initiated about 50 cases at the European Court of Human Rights on these issues and has published a number of reports and articles on a broad range of human rights.

Barbora is a member of the Centre for Investigative Journalism´s Board of Trustees.

She graduated from the Law School of Charles University in Prague and has earned a doctorate degree in law in Slovakia and an LLM degree from Harvard Law School. In 1998 and 1999, she was a visiting scholar at the Columbia University Law School in New York.

Martin is a graduate in German studies. He began his professional career as a teacher before transitioning into journalism. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as an editor for the weekly magazine Domino fórum. In December 2004, he co-founded the magazine .týždeň, where he served as deputy editor-in-chief from 2008 to 2014. He was also involved in the creation of the news website Postoj, and has been its editor-in-chief since May 2020.

Jakub is a journalist and communications expert specializing in social media and its impact on politics. He worked in the Presidential Office during the tenure of Zuzana Čaputová and previously at the Ministry of Health, where he focused on improving communication within state institutions in the online space. He has received several awards, including a journalism prize and the SDGs award.

Jakub has also had extensive experience in advertising and political campaigning. He studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at the University of York and previously studied at the Faculty of Management at Comenius University.

Laura graduated with a degree in journalism from Comenius University in Bratislava and also studied at the University of Warsaw as well. She worked as an editor in the news department of the Slovak Radio and, since March 2018, has been a member of the investigative team at the editorial office of Aktuality.sk. She has received several journalism awards.

In February 2024, Laura published the book The Murder of Ján and Martina – The Investigation, in which she details the largest police investigation into a double murder in the history of independent Slovakia.

Zoltán Varga is an international entrepreneur and investor, best known as the CEO and Chairman of Central Media Group, one of the biggest independent media companies of Hungary. Its diverse portfolio includes a significant share of Hungary’s most well-known and beloved brands (including Nők Lapja, National Geographic, Marie Claire, 24.hu, Nosalty and the newest brand, REFRESHER, which primarily targets the millennial and Gen Z generations). With 14 printed magazines, over 20 special editions and bookazines, as well as 19 online publications, Central reaches about 6 million people every month.

Moreover, his book publisher company under the umbrella of Central Media Group is in the top five publishers on the Hungarian book market managing titles just like Harry Potter books and Scandinavian crime novels. The Central Group also has interests in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with the potential of a regional media group.

Václav founded Y Soft in 2000 in Brno with a vision of creating a global, borderless organization. Since his high school years, he explored software, network management, and the value of a customer-centric approach in business. Today, he also supports independent journalism and an active civil society through Y Soft, involving people from the company in helping in a unique way.

His key product, YSoft SAFEQ, led to global success. He spearheaded Y Soft’s expansion into Japan, the USA, and other countries. On top of that, he founded Y Soft Ventures, which invests in startups in Central Europe.

He holds the ENX Difference Maker 2019 award and the Centennial Award for promoting Czech-American business relations.

For many years, Andrej was the head of Credo Ventures, a fund that invests in startups from Central Europe. Hundreds of start-ups such as Deepnote or Photoneo have passed through his hands in his lifetime. Today, many of them are worth millions of dollars and have achieved global success.

He is currently developing his own startup Brain. He defines himself as an investor and occasional philanthropist.

Beata Balogová became editor-in-chief of the daily SME at the end of 2014. Before that, she was the editor-in-chief of The Slovak Spectator, a weekly English-language newspaper. She is a graduate of Columbia University in New York, United States, where she studied journalism in 2006 and 2007. Beata won the Opinion Award of the 2020 European Press Prize.
She is the author of a successful novel Cornelia.

Pavol Kosnáč is the director of the DEKK Institute in Bratislava, which conducts research on social cohesion, polarisation and trust. He is also the only Slovak expert witness on religious extremism. He is a research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) in London. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, having previously studied Religious Studies at Oxford and Bratislava.

Helena teaches at the Department of Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava. She is interested in issues related to communication, rituals, sociolinguistics and anthropology of law. He is currently publishing on topics related to communicative space, interpretation and cultural expertise. He applies the applied dimension of ethnographic methods in collaboration with organizations in the public and non-governmental sectors.

Juraj works at Faculty of social and economic science of Comenius University in Bratislava. He is a social anthropologist, working on social and political movements, the politics of memory and religion, and the transformation of wine. He is the author of The Cultural Economy of Protest in Postsocialist European Union. Village Fascists and their Rivals; Nation and Religion: The Politics of Commemoration in South-east Poland; Slovak Ideology and Crisis and Postsedliaci: Slovak Folk Protest.

Samuel founded the Vedátor project in 2016. He is a theoretical physicist who earned his PhD at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Informatics of Comenius University in Bratislava (FMFI UK). From there, he moved on to the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he received a research grant from the Science Foundation Ireland. He currently works at the FMFI UK and Masaryk University. His research focuses on modifications of quantum mechanics, numerical simulations, and matrix models. However, he also writes about very human topics, such as clouds, animals, and trees. 

Eva is the Deputy Mayor of the city of Trnava for the second election period. She ran as an independent candidate with the support of the current mayor. As a Deputy Mayor, she is responsible for education and social affairs.

In the past, she worked as a scientific researcher at the University of Trnava in the fields of public health, vulnerable groups, migrants, and quality of health care in developing countries.

Zsuzsanna is founding director of the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy and is running research and pro-democracy projects at the CEU Democracy Institute, focusing on perniciously polarized and autocratizing societies. She started her career as young political activist in Hungary in 1988, and served as Member of Parliament in Hungary for party Fidesz until 1994.

Zsuzsanna completed GMAP of International Politics and Economics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, MA of Psychology of ELTE Budapest and MA of International Relations of Corvinus University. Her book Tainted Democracy, Viktor Orbán and the Subversion of Hungary was listed among the best books of 2023 by Foreign Affairs.

Oktawia is a deputy mayor of Gdynia responsible for education and youth policy, and an Equality Advisor to the City Mayor. Previously she worked as a director of 42 Warsaw – programming academy. Octawia is an author of a book and numerous publications in the areas of leadership and educational innovation. She graduated from the Leadership Academy for Poland and for a long time served as a director of public schools. She is a co-author and former coordinator of the Active Use of Technology Workshop (CPPC) project. As an advisor to directors in nationwide programs, she also serves as a lecturer. Octawia is a founder of the Educational Leadership Academy and co-initiator of the EduLab platform.

Gazeta Wyborcza awarded her with the title Jutronautka 2022. 

Zuzana is a democratic governance expert with over 20 years of experience managing donor-funded programs in Central and South Eastern Europe. During her tenure with National Democratic Institute (NDI), Zuzana has designed and implemented programs that support citizen engagement, civic advocacy, political party organizing, and parliamentary strengthening. She currently serves two roles for NDI: Resident Senior Director in Poland and Central Europe and Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Central Europe Civic Engagement Program implemented in Hungary and Poland.

Zuzana earned her master’s in law from Comenius University in Bratislava and is fluent in Slovak, English, Czech, and Polish, with a working knowledge of Macedonian and Serbian.

Barbora is the host of the podcast Ľudskosť by SME daily, where she engages in conversations with guests about society and mental health. She has previously worked as a reporter for TV Markíza, focusing on topics related to healthcare, economics, and politics. Her work has earned her several awards.

Michal is a Slovak writer, translator from German, and publicist. He writes both books for adults and children. In 2024, he co-authored the comic Súdruh disident about Milan Šimečka with Matúš Vizár. He is a regular contributor to Denník N.

Martina Kolesárová is the executive director of the Pontis Foundation. She is dedicated to the development of social innovation and strategic philanthropy in Slovakia.
She initiated the mapping of social innovators in our country, and she has been working on the long-term development of individual philanthropy and connecting business donors with people from the public administration and civil sector.

In 2023, she became the first person from Slovakia to be part of the Obama Leaders Europe program.

Tomáš worked for seven years as a cultural manager at the Municipal Cultural Center in Rimavská Sobota. In 2019, he founded the multi-genre festival FRAJ, focused on showcasing the alternative art scene. In addition, he organizes the FRAJ Sessions concert series and the OZVUK music improvisation workshop. He is also a member of civic initiative Rimavská Kaviareň (Rimava Coffee House), which aims to contribute to more active public engagement in local civic life. Furthermore, he is an outspoken critic of Mayor Jozef Šimko, for which he was dismissed from his job as a city employee last year. In November 2023, he received the White Crow award. Earlier this year, he established the first independent cultural center in Rimavská Sobota, called CITADELA.

Zuzana studied the European studies in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Denmark. After returning to Slovakia, she worked at IBM and collaborated with human rights organizations. Later, she joined Teach Next — a program for future leaders, which also involved a paid two-year full-time teaching practice. Her motivation was to actively engage in sexual pedagogy and gain teaching experience, as well as an understanding of the education system, so she could advocate for the implementation of relationship and sexual education in schools. Today she does so as the executive director of InTYMYta, previously known as the Slovak Family Planning Association. For her work, she was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2023. 

Zuzana is a volunteer, civic activist, artist, and cultural manager. She led the office of the President of Banská Bystrica Self-Governing Region Ján Lunter and, since February 2022, has been coordinating material assistance for vulnerable people in Banská Bystrica. Through artistic productions and happenings, discussions, and workshops, she focuses on human rights, vulnerability, and democracy. She understands that freedom is not a game and believes that each person must fight against the evils they are capable of confronting. 

Juraj has been working in the media industry since 2001, primarily focusing on business and economic topics. He was the editor-in-chief of the Slovak edition of Forbes magazine from its inception in 2010 until 2024. Previously, he served as the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Pravda. He completed his studies in International Trade at the University of Economics in Bratislava and holds a PhD in International Relations. He has lectured at several universities and is currently active at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.