The main objectives of the educational sessions in Brussels and in London are: workshops on adaptive leadership and talks with social innovators and representatives of philanthropic organizations.
We are excited to announce this year’s speakers:
Alberto Alemanno, Ashoka Fellow, founder of The Good Lobby
Alberto is empowering citizens to move from passively consuming to actively shaping public policy. Through The Good Lobby, he enables people to become citizen lobbyists by equipping them with key civic and legal skills through a citizen lobbying toolbox. He offers inspiration from real cases of citizen-led initiatives and matches participants with expert volunteers to support the lobbying needs of civil society organizations.
Tessy Britton, Founder of Participatory City
Participatory City is an organization working to co-create ecosystems with residents that ensure neighborhoods have the social infrastructure for participation and social cohesion. Tessy has also authored a book entitled Hand Made, in which neighborhood innovators describe their unique design processes and provide insight into different perspectives on community and participation from around the world.
Tatiana Cary, Senior Venture Manager at Ashoka in the UK & Ireland
Tatiana’s background is in international development. She holds an MSc in Gender, Development, and Globalisation from the London School of Economics. Alongside her work at Ashoka, she is pursuing a PhD in Social Policy at the University of Edinburgh. She is interested in elite philanthropy in the UK and her research focuses on power, accountability and social change.
Amandine Englebert, CEO of 4WINGS foundation
A pragmatic idealist, Amandine is the founder of the Innovative Sharing Community. Passionate about building bridges between different ecosystems, she strives to spark social engagement by building a community of thoughtful, committed entrepreneurs working together to create a more caring society. For 12 years, Amandine’s career has been driven by a focus on social justice; first as a lawyer and now as the CEO of the 4WINGS Foundation.
Arnoud Raskin, Ashoka Fellow, founder of Mobile School, StreetwiZe
Arnoud is revolutionizing help for street children to increase their chances of successful social reintegration. By reaching them in their environment – the street – and focusing on their positive skills to restore their self-esteem, he empowers them until they themselves decide to move towards a better future. Catalyzed in the Mobile Schools tool, his work is now used in 20 countries in over four continents.
Ignace Schops, Ashoka Fellow, founder of the only National Park in Belgium – Hoge Kempen
Ignace has realized the untapped potential of nature reserves in densely-populated areas across Europe and found a way to dramatically enhance their environmental and economic value through concerted development. He is now using the park he founded to anchor an economic development model adaptable to small and large nature reserves in densely-populated regions across Europe.
Steven Serneels, chairman of EVPA
Steven has spent over 20 years working with executive teams to reorient their strategies towards inclusive business, and with social enterprises to scale up their impact. In 2011, he joined Ashoka Global in Washington, D.C. as strategic advisor. In this capacity, he has focused on how citizen-sector organizations (and social entrepreneurs in particular) and corporations can work together successfully to have a social impact in a commercially-viable setting. Since then, he has worked with many social enterprises, investing in some of them.
Myleen Verstraete, ASN, Board Member of PYM Foundation
Myleen wants to mobilize capital to do good in Belgium. Through her background in a Belgian family specializing in industrial carpets, she developed a passion for making the textile industry more sustainable. She became the Belgian ambassador for Waste2Wear, a company focused on textile products made from recycled plastic bottles. She is convinced that collaboration is key to changing the system. This has led her to focus on building bridges and bringing communities together.
