Jaafar Abdul Karim
Journalist and talk show host (Lebanon/Germany)
Jaafar Abdul Karim is an international award-winning journalist and the host of the interactive, personalized talk show JaafarTalk, broadcast on Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. He is a typical trimedial reporter that tweets, posts, films, and interviews at the same time. He has reported from various war zones, such as Libya, Syria, and Iraq. With his previous award-winning talk show Shababtalk, he hosted discussions in Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Lebanon and Morocco.

Abdul Karim was born in Liberia, raised in Switzerland and Lebanon, and studied in Germany, France and Great Britain. He is now often considered a politically independent, brave, and free mediator between the German and Arab community. His work enables open and direct communication between Germany and the Arab world and provides a safe space for Arabic youth to discuss ideas, opinions, and thoughts openly.

Abdul Karim was honoured as “Reporter of the Year” 2016 by the online publishing platform Medium. Shababtalk has been honoured by the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) as “Best Arabic Talk Show” three years in a row.

In addition to being a TV host, Abdul Karim also works as a columnist for Zeit Online and has a vlog on the internet portal Spiegel Online. He is also the author of the book Fremde oder Freunde? (Friend or foe?).

Amer Alqadi
Community Builder (Palestine/Germany)
Amer Alqadi has a background in business management and human resources, having worked for some of the largest industrial companies in the Middle East. He is most well-known for having developed human resources train-the-trainer programs across Syria. Since moving to Germany, Alqadi has also developed a passion for connecting newcomers and locals through business.

See Amer Alqadi at the Coffeehouse

Sally Armstrong
Journalist and author (Canada)
Human rights activist, journalist, and award-winning author Sally Armstrong has covered stories about women and girls in zones of conflict all over the world. From Bosnia and Somalia to the Middle East, Rwanda, Congo, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Iraq, her eye witness reports have earned her awards including the Gold Award from the National Magazine Awards Foundation and the Author’s Award from the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters. She received the Amnesty International Canada Media Award in 2000, 2002, 2011 and again in 2017.

She was named the Massey Lecturer for 2019. The lectures and book are titled Power Shift: The Longest Revolution.

Armstrong was a member of the International Women’s Commission, a UN body that consists of 20 Palestinian women, 20 Israeli women, and 12 internationals whose mandate is assisting with the path to peace in the Middle East.

She is the author of several books, including Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan (2002); The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor (2007); Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: the Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan’s Women (2008); Ascent of Women (2013) and Power Shift: The Longest Revolution (2019).

Armstrong is the recipient of 10 honorary doctorate degrees and is an officer of the Order of Canada.

Ali Aslan
TV presenter and journalist (Germany/Turkey/U.S.)
Ali Aslan is an internationally renowned TV presenter and journalist with over 20 years’ experience as a talk show host, news anchor, correspondent, and moderator.

His illustrious career in TV journalism spans more than two decades and three continents, and includes work for CNN, ABC News, Channel News Asia, TRT World, and Deutsche Welle TV.

Throughout his international career, Aslan has interviewed and shared the stage with many world leaders, including Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Bill Clinton, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Sergey Lavrov, Christine Lagarde, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, and King Felipe of Spain.

Aslan regularly moderates at high-level global conferences, such as the World Economic Forum, the UN General Assembly, G20 summits, the World Bank-IMF annual meetings, the Munich Security Conference, NATO summits, and the OECD Forum.

Aslan holds masters degrees in international affairs and journalism from Columbia University in New York and a bachelor’s degree in international politics from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Sawsan Chebli
State of Berlin Delegate to the Federation, Permanent Secretary for Active Citizenship and International Relations (Germany)
Sawsan Chebli has been the State of Berlin Delegate to the Federation and Permanent Secretary for Active Citizenship and International Relations since 2016. Prior to that, she was the deputy spokesperson at the federal Foreign Office under federal minister for foreign affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier for almost three years, and was the policy adviser for intercultural affairs at the Berlin Senate Department for the Interior and Sport from 2010 to 2013.

After graduating from high school in 1999, Chebli studied political science at Freie Universität Berlin. She began her political career in 2005 as a research assistant in the German Bundestag.

Chebli is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and a strong advocate of interreligious dialogue, especially between Muslims and Jews, and campaigns against anti-Semitism as well as against Islamophobia. In her role as Permanent Secretary for Active Citizenship, Sawsan Chebli unequivocally supports civic engagement and projects that strengthen democracy and civil rights, such as “Farben Bekennen” (“Made in Germany”).

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson
26th Governor General of Canada, and co-founder and co-chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (Canada)
The Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson arrived in Canada from Hong Kong as a refugee in 1942 and made the astonishing journey from a penniless child to accomplished broadcaster, journalist, and distinguished public servant in a multi-faceted lifetime.

During Madame Clarkson’s mandate as governor general, her energy, enthusiasm, and passion left an indelible mark on Canada’s history. A leading figure in Canada’s cultural life, she is the bestselling author of the 2014 CBC Massey Lecture Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship; Room for All of Us: Surprising Stories of Loss and Transformation; Heart Matters: A Memoir; and a biography of Dr. Norman Bethune.

Madame Clarkson has received numerous prestigious awards and honorary degrees in Canada and abroad. A Privy Councillor and Companion of the Order of Canada, she lives in Toronto.

See Adrienne Clarkson at What’s Next

Leila El-Amaire
Co-founder of i,Slam and project manager for Artists at Risk at the Allianz Cultural Foundation (Germany)
Leila El-Amaire is an activist from Berlin. She currently works as a project manager of the Artists at Risk program at the Allianz Cultural Foundation. El-Amaire is the co-founder of i,Slam, an artist collective that empowers young artists who are affected by racism and other discriminatory mechanisms and structures. i,Slam has a special focus on the topic of anti-Muslim racism.

See Leila El-Amaire at Art and Activism

KDV Dance Ensemble
By Kianí del Valle
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Kianí del Valle has danced in numerous companies and trained in several schools, such as Balleteatro de Nana Hudo, Ballet de San Juan, and Andanza in Puerto Rico; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and RASTRO Dance Company in New York; Sasha Waltz & Guests and Matanicola in Berlin; and Costa Compagnie, a pioneer European group working with AI and dance.

Del valle’s own KDV Dance Ensemble, as well as her solo work has been presented in many theatres and museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, the Roundhouse, Barbican Center, Dance Theatre Workshop, Tribeca Performing Arts Centre, National Sawdust, Cathedral Vibiana, Konzerthaus Berlin, and most recently, Copenhagen Contemporary.

Del valle’s body of work often discusses subjects of displacement, the colonized and de-colonized body and androgyny. Del Valle draws from collaboration between dance and different mediums, such as video, theatre, music, visual art, and feature films. Her choreographic craft is formulated through authentic movement, character development, and the disruption of classical dance structures and formations.

Del Valle has been involved in the music scene, collaborating in live performances and music videos for artists such as Objekt, Bendik Giske, Simian Mobile Disco, Floating Points, Clark, Matthew Dear, Dirty Projectors, John Legend, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Rammstein. Clients include Lexus, Mercedes Benz, Selfridges, Uniqlo, and established Danish fashion designer Stine Goya.

Del Valle was named Latin American Artist of the year by UNESCO and the Institute of Puerto Rican culture.

See KDV Dance Ensemble at 6 Degrees Presents

Max FineDay
Executive director, Canadian Roots Exchange (Sweetgrass First Nation)
Max FineDay is a nêhiyaw napew from the Sweetgrass First Nation in Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 Territory. He is currently serving as executive director of Canadian Roots Exchange, a recognized leader in delivering reconciliation programming to Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth across the country. FineDay is passionate about training the next generation of youth leaders, understanding how to make change, and increasing access to traditional ceremonies for Indigenous youth.

In his spare time, FineDay can be found serving as an adviser to the president of the Economic Club of Canada and the Laidlaw Foundation and serving on the interim National Council for Reconciliation and the board of directors at the Institute for Canadian Citizenship.

See Max FineDay at 360: Where We Go.

Robert Gromotka
Contrabassist and composer (Germany)
Robert Gromotka is a composer of music for film, TV, radio dramas, commercials, and the concert stage, who currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Gromotka started his musical career by learning to play the flute at the age of 6. Later, the piano, the bassoon, and finally the bass took over. He subsequently graduated from the University of Dortmund.

After years on stage and worldwide touring with various bands and orchestras, Gromotka founded the “Tarab Taksi”, an ensemble playing originals combining traditional Arabic music, contemporary improvisation, and classical music.

While Gromotka is now focusing on composing and producing music, he is still very active in the jazz scene of Berlin, playing his beloved upright bass.

Georgios Kaminis
Former mayor of Athens, Greece and special envoy for Mayors Migration Council and C40 Cities (Greece)
Georgios Kaminis is a member of the Greek Parliament. He was elected on July 7, 2019, heading the national list of Movement of Change (Kinima Allagis), a social-democratic party in Greece. He sits on the Standing Committee on Public Administration, Public Order and Justice of the Hellenic Parliament, shadowing, on behalf of Movement of Change, the work of the Ministry of Citizens’ Protection, the ministry responsible for migration and refugee affairs.

Kaminis served as mayor of Athens between 2011 and 2019. First elected in October 2010, he was re-elected for a second term in May 2014 with the support of 14 different political parties and political groups. In 2003, he was unanimously elected by the Greek Parliament as the Greek Ombudsman, and re-elected for a second term in 2007. Kaminis served as deputy ombudsman for Human Rights from 1998 to 2003. In 2016, he was awarded the World Mayor Commendation for services to refugees.

He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship and a special envoy for migration and climate change for the Mayors Migration Council.

He is an assistant professor of constitutional law at the University of Athens, and a member of the Department of Parliamentary Studies and Research of the Greek Parliament. He studied law at the University of Athens and holds a doctoral degree (Doctorat d’Etat) from the University of Paris I.

Born in New York City, has also lived in Osaka, Paris, Madrid, and Heidelberg. In addition to his native Greek, he speaks fluent English, French, and Spanish.

Kaminis is married and has two children.

See Georgios Kaminis at Where We Go

Martin Katz
Founder and president of Prospero Pictures, and chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television (Canada)

Martin Katz, founder and president of Prospero Pictures, is one of the most prolific feature film producers in Canada. His credits include Hotel Rwanda, Spider, A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars, in addition to television projects including the Elvis Costello series, Spectacle, and Ice Road Truckers.

Katz holds degrees in law from University of Toronto and Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, a director of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship, and chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television.

See Martin Katz at Art and Activism

Wadah Khanfar
Chairman of the Common Action Forum and former director general of Al Jazeera (Palestine)
Wadah Khanfar is the former director general of the Al Jazeera network. He is currently president of Al Sharq Forum, an independent international network with a mission to develop long-term strategies to ensure the political stability and economic prosperity of the Arab world and the region. He is also a board member of the International Crisis Group and the Global Editors Network (GEN).

Khanfar was named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 global thinkers of 2011, as well as one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” of 2011.

See Wadah Khanfar at 360: Where We Stand

Sarah Kivi
Electronic music producer and singer (Finland)
Sarah Kivi is a Finnish-Iranian singer and electronic musician from Helsinki. Kivi has been active in music for the past decade in multiple different roles, such as a DJ, radio host, event manager, sound designer, and voice actor, but above all, as a singer and performer. Her debut release, Kiveen Kirjoitettu, was released in 2013 with her former band, Sarah Kivi & Non Orchestra – an electroacoustic band that mixed folk and pop with electronic sounds. They performed at festivals such as Flow Festival, Kuudes Aisti, and Funky Elephant in Helsinki. Kivi has since developed her own role as a music producer and extended her expertise to other arts sectors, such as theatre and performance arts. Her debut solo album Tiny Anthems came out in 2018, the same year Kivi was touring as a sound designer for a theatre production called Ejaculation – Discussions About Female Sexuality.

Currently, Kivi is focusing on her solo career and has been awarded with a working grant for professional artists in 2020 by the city of Espoo, Finland. Kivi is known for merging together various styles of music, from light pop to distorted break beats with dusty and soulful vocals. She is constantly creating her own multi-genre space, keeping her work fresh, impactful, and unique. Her approach is a blend of conventional songwriting and contemporary compositional methods, which combined with her curiosity for avant-garde music techniques makes sure that her work is always evolving towards the unexplored side of popular music.

Kivi is dedicated to establishing a solid connection between her and her audience through various mediums and is planning on multiple releases for the year.

Abdul-Rehman Malik
Lecturer, Yale Divinity School; journalist and cultural organizer (Canada)
Abdul-Rehman Malik is an award-winning journalist, educator, and cultural organizer. In June 2019, he was appointed lecturer and associate research scholar at the Yale Divinity School. He also serves as the program coordinator at Yale University’s Council on Middle East Studies, and is responsible for developing curricula and partnerships with public schools to promote better cultural, language, and religious literacy about the Middle East to educators and students alike.

Malik also serves as director of the Muslim Leadership Lab, an innovative student leadership program being incubated at the Dwight Hall Center of Social Justice at Yale. He is also the programs manager at the Radical Middle Way, which offers powerful, faith-inspired guidance and tools to enable change, combat exclusion and violence, and promote social justice for all. His work has spanned the United Kingdom, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, Mali, Morocco, Singapore, Canada, and Malaysia.

Malik is a frequent journalist for BBC Radio, offering contemporary perspectives on contemporary spirituality. Until 2018, he regularly presented the popular Pause for Thought segment on Radio 2 and Something Understood on Radio 4.

In addition to providing curation and content guidance to a variety of cultural and literary institutions, Malik works to create platforms at the intersection of arts and social change. In January 2015, he became director — a voluntary position — of the Insight Film Festival, a unique year-round festival that celebrates the intersection between faith and film.

See Abdul-Rehman Malik at the Opening Circle, Coffeehouse and What’s Next

Bianca Monroy
Expressive artist and creative change agent (Mexico)
Bianca Monroy is a contemporary Mexican expressive artist who has lived in Berlin since 2007. She loves experimentation, and her strong and unique art voice is developing continually while she reinvents herself in a migration context.

Her work is notable for its display of colour and light, and has been showcased over 60 times in solo and collective exhibitions at important locations in diverse countries. One of her designs was chosen as part of the marketing image of Pankow, and her designs have been used by public and private organizations both in Mexico and Europe.

Deeply involved in the art scene, she is a member of the artistic movement Spirale di Luce in Italy. She is a co-founder of the artistic group The EXATEC Art Club, as well as the founder of the Creative Industries work line (2015), and president of the Mexican Talent Network Association in Germany (2018-2020).

She mixes her passion for helping others with her art work, and along with other causes, has participated in the campaign Genau Pankow! to welcome migrants to Berlin and through her project Integrarte. As a migrant artist, she shares her art work through art interventions — mostly together with kids and young adults — in different public spaces in Germany, showing to the world the asset that different cultural baggage brings to society.

Yasir Naqvi
Chief executive officer, Institute for Canadian Citizenship (Canada/Pakistan)
Yasir Naqvi is the chief executive officer of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), Canada’s leading voice on citizenship and inclusion. Prior to joining the ICC, Naqvi served as a Member of Provincial Parliament for almost 11 years, representing a downtown, urban, and diverse community in Ottawa, Ontario. In that time, he served as the attorney general of Ontario, Government House Leader, the minister of labour, and the minister of community safety and correctional services. Naqvi was also a member of the Treasury Board and Management Board of Cabinet.

Before being elected, Naqvi was the associate director and international trade counsel at the Centre for Trade Policy and Law (CTPL), a non-profit think-tank affiliated with Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. He also practiced international trade, competition, regulatory and administrative law with major law firms in Ottawa. In addition, he has served as a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, and a guest lecturer at Carleton University.

Naqvi is recognized by his peers as a strong community leader and involved resident of Ottawa. He has been cited as a “Community Builder” by United Way Ottawa and listed as one of the “Top 50 People in the Capital” by Ottawa Life magazine. In 2018, he was named on Canadian Lawyer’s “Top 25 Most Influential” list for advancing technological modernization in Ontario’s justice system. Most recently, Naqvi received the Lincoln Alexander Award by the Law Society of Ontario.

See Yasir Naqvi at the Opening Circle and What’s Next

Katarina Niewiedzial
Commissioner of the Senate of Berlin for Integration and former executive director of Das Progressive Zentrum (Poland/Germany)

Katarina Niewiedzial has been the commissioner of the Berlin Senate for Integration and Migration since May 2019. Her main task is to help shape the migration and integration policy of the Berlin Senate and coordinate the policy area with other parts of the administration in the state of Berlin. The aim is to give migrants and refugees the opportunity to participate equally in all areas of social and economic life.

Before that, she was the commissioner for integration of Berlin´s largest district, Pankow (2014-2019). In this function, she initiated the Welcome Center Pankow, a service agency offering comprehensive assistance to new arrivals.

Between 2007 and 2014, she was executive director of the think tank Das Progressive Zentrum.

Armando Perla
Curator and activist (El Salvador/Canada)
Armando Perla is part of the team developing the new Swedish Museum of Movements, a museum focused on the issues of migration and democracy nationally and internationally in Malmo, Sweden. He was a member of the founding team of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, where he worked as a curator of Canadian and international human rights law for nine years. He is also a board member of the International Council of Museums’ International Committee on Ethical Dilemmas. In collaboration with community organizations, academia and the museum sector, he is currently developing a set of ethical guidelines for museum professionals working with the stories of historically marginalized populations.

Through his curatorial career, Perla has worked in the development of exhibitions in Canada and abroad. He also has experience researching, conducting oral histories, and co-curating exhibitions with vulnerable and historically marginalized populations.

Perla has been an adjunct professor at the University of Winnipeg and in the faculty of law at the University of Manitoba in Canada. He has also worked in different capacities in various human rights and academic organizations, such as Covenant House in Guatemala, Lund University Commissioned Education in Sweden, the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council in Canada, and the Center for Justice and International Law in Washington, D.C.

Perla holds a law degree from L’Université Laval in Canada and a master of laws in international human rights law from Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Sweden.

See Armando Perla at Art and Activism

Yaniv Sagee
Executive director of Givat Haviva
Yaniv Sagee has been the executive director of Givat Haviva since September 2012. Under his leadership, Givat Haviva regained its position as a leader in the field of shared society between Jews and Arabs in Israel, with over 50,000 participants in the 36 programs led by Givat Haviva. Sagee is also the head of the board of the Meretz Party and number 10 on the list of the party .

Sagee is a native and still a member of Kibbutz Ein Hashofet. At the age of 25, he became the youngest kibbutz member ever to serve as general secretary of a veteran kibbutz. He has worked as a teacher, boarding school principal, general director of the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, and chairman of the National Council for Youth Movements in Israel. Sagee also served as the Israeli representative in North America for the Givat Haviva Educational Foundation, Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, and the Kibbutz Movement.

See Yaniv Sagee at the Coffeehouse

John Ralston Saul
Essayist, novelist, and co-founder and co-chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (Canada)
John Ralston Saul proposes a new humanism through what he calls responsible individualism. His 14 works have been translated into 29 languages in 38 countries. His philosophical trilogy and its conclusion — Voltaire’s Bastards, The Doubter’s Companion, The Unconscious Civilization and On Equilibrium: Six Qualities of the New Humanism — has impacted political thought in many countries.

In A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada, he argues that modern Canada is profoundly shaped by Indigenous ideas. He is general editor of the Extraordinary Canadians biographical series and contributed his own biography of Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin. The Comeback, his latest release, explores how Indigenous Peoples are empowering themselves for a grand return to a position of power and influence.

Saul is president emeritus of PEN International, and founder and honorary chair of French for the Future. He also founded the LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of the Order of Ontario and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (an Order of France). His many literary awards include Chile’s Pablo Neruda International Presidential Medal of Honour, the Governor General’s Award, and the inaugural Gutenberg Galaxy Award.

See John Ralston Saul at What’s Next

Antje Scheidler
Educator and connector, Humanity in Action (Germany)
Antje Scheidler has been with Humanity in Action since 2001, when she became program director of the then new German Fellowship Program.

Scheidler was born in East Germany and has lived in East Berlin for almost her entire life. There, she experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall as a teenager. Seeing the Eastern part of the country transform so profoundly was a complex, at times challenging, but mostly exciting and rewarding experience.

Scheidler studied English and American studies, as well as social sciences at Humboldt University Berlin and the University of Toronto. She became very interested in immigration-related issues and matters of social cohesion. She worked as a researcher at Humboldt University’s department of demography from 2000 to 2007 and as editor-in-chief of the Migration and Population newsletter series from 2000 to 2011.

At Humanity in Action, Scheidler combines her passion for connecting people (especially transatlantically), education, and civic action. In addition to acting as the national director of Humanity in Action’s German chapter, Scheidler oversees the international programming of the organization. Besides her work, she loves her family and friends, books, and long-distance running.

Heike Steinweg
Photographer (Germany)
Berlin-based photographer Heike Steinweg has dealt with important social issues over the past few years. In her project I never said goodbye | Women in exile, she portrayed women who, for a variety of reasons, are living in exile in Berlin. The photographer doesn’t direct our gaze to our different backgrounds but to the common future we share.

In Open History | Israelis and Germans in Portrait, she traced German-Israeli relations beyond the political agenda by working with individual people. In both projects, she combined portraits with personal statements by the people she had photographed. “Making the experience of individual people visible for me is also a political process,”Steinweg says about her work.

Steinweg’s work has been shown internationally in solo and group exhibitions in New York, Washington, Toronto, Berlin, Israel, and other places.

Apart from her creative artistic projects, Steinweg is best known for her portraits of writers.

See Heike Steinweg at Art and Activism

Düzen Tekkal
Human rights activist, journalist, filmmaker, founder & chairwoman of human rights organization HAWAR.help and education initiative German Dream (Germany)
Düzen Tekkal is a German journalist, author and documentary filmmaker/director of Kurdish-Yazidi descent. She is the founder and CEO of the human rights organization HAWAR.help, which works to empower women and children who have been persecuted based on their religion, ethnic association, or gender. Through projects and advocacy efforts in Iraq, Germany, and the U.S., HAWAR.help aims to build tolerant and open-minded societies by creating opportunities for education, justice, and reconciliation.

Tekkal is also founder and CEO of the nationwide education campaign GermanDream, working to strengthen the liberal-democratic values anchored in the German Constitution, initiate and actively shape a nationwide, positive discourse about what it means to be German, and inspire young people to pursue their dreams.

Tekkal’s documentaries include HÁWAR - My Journey into Genocide (2015), and Jiyan – the forgotten victims of ISIS (2020), and her journalism explores issues around migration, genocide, radicalization, integration, and religious freedom.

See Düzen Tekkal at Where We Stand

Naile Tuncer
Jazz singer and educational scientist (Germany/Turkey)
Naile Tuncer was born in Berlin in 1988. By trade, Tuncer is a vocational educator and has worked as a music educator in kindergarten and in diverse social projects with children and young people. She studied educational science at the Freie Universität Berlin, but became involved in the music scene at an earlier age when she began playing the violin.

Inspired by her father, who is a guitarist, and by her Turkish roots and influence from Makam music, she decided to pursue music and singing. She first started with jazz by taking vocal lessons in music school and singing with Big Band.

Tuncer is now a singer for the jazz and neo-classical ensemble Filumela.

See Naile Tuncer at 6 Degrees Presents

Åsa Wikforss
Professor of theoretical philosophy and member of the Swedish Academy (Sweden)
Åsa Wikforss has a PhD in philosophy from Columbia University, New York, and is a professor of philosophy at Stockholm University. She does research in the intersection of philosophy of mind, language and epistemology, and has a career as an international scholar. In 2019, she was awarded a large interdisciplinary research program, Knowledge Resistance: Causes, Consequences and Cures, funded by the Swedish Foundation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Wikforss is a member of the Academia Europaea, the Royal Academy of Sciences and was recently elected a member of the Swedish Academy. With the publication of her popular book on the post-truth phenomenon, Alternative Facts: On Knowledge and its Enemies (2017, currently under translation), she has become an important voice in Sweden, with countless public appearances. She is rapidly gaining recognition as a public intellectual in the wider European context – as a woman defending reason and truth against the enemies of knowledge. Alternative Facts: On Knowledge and its Enemies has received three prizes, including the Natur & Kultur popular science prize.

See Åsa Wikforss at Where We Stand

Astrid Ziebarth
Senior migration fellow and head of strategy, Europe Program, German Marshall Fund of the United States. (Germany)
Astrid Ziebarth is a senior migration fellow and head of strategy with the Europe Program, based in the organization’s Berlin office. She coordinates program development in the areas of research, networking, and leadership development in migration and mobility, refugees and asylum, integration, and diversity.

Her current work projects include the Migration Strategy Group on International Cooperation and Development, a joint project by GMF, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the Robert Bosch Foundation.

She also coordinates the Young Policy Network on Migration in cooperation with the Swiss Forum on Migration Studies, funded by Mercator Switzerland and National Center of Competence in Research.

Ziebarth holds a master’s degree in American studies, sociology, and anthropology from the Free University Berlin with study visits at the Universiteit van Amsterdam and Emory University in Atlanta. She is a member of the advisory committee for the International Center on Policy Advocacy about migration narratives and frames.

See Astrid Ziebarth at the Coffeehouse