Founder and Executive Director, Educate Girls

Safeena is the Founder and Board Member of Educate Girls (EG), an Indian non-profit working towards empowering communities for girls' education in some of the hardest-to-reach villages. Under Safeena's guidance, EG has mobilised 1.2 million+ girls for enrolment to date, supporting over 17.5 million+ children.

Most recently, when the global pandemic hit India in 2020, EG under Safeena's leadership distributed ration to poverty-struck households in rural India. With the second-wave creating a massive loss of livelihood in India, EG restarted its Covid Relief Initiative to distribute ration and hygiene kits 200,000+ households to date benefitting over 1 million individuals, while running awareness campaigns and amplifying the use of government learning applications. To combat the impact of Covid19 on children's education, especially girls, EG started Camp Vidya – a community-based learning initiative. Piloted by Safeena, 17,000+ camps were completed, reaching 340,000+ children.

A London School of Economics graduate, Safeena worked extensively with underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia, before returning to India. Her efforts to bridge the gender gap in education in India has been instrumental in EG achieving a major global milestone — the world's first Development Impact Bond in education. On its completion, the bond surpassed both its target outcomes by achieving 160% of its learning target and 116% of its enrolment target. These results are testimony to the commitment of EG to deliver quality at scale (the organisation currently has 2,262 full time employees and 20,000+ community volunteers) and value to every single child in the program. She has also been instrumental in EG becoming the first Audacious project in Asia, a first-of-its-kind coalition that surfaces and funds critical projects with the potential to create global change. In 2020, EG's solution to empower 1.5M girls to go to school was selected at MIT Solve's Learning for Girls & Women Challenge. EG also became one of world's 100 most inspiring innovations in K12 education twice in a row in 2021. Safeena has been conferred with many accolades for her work at grassroots which includes the 2017 NITI Aayog's Women Transforming India Award, the 2016 NDTV-L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth Award.

Strategic Director and European CEO/Co-founder Wolfram Research

Wolfram Research pioneers new approaches to AI, data science and computation-based development, with technology and consulting solutions that drive innovation in analytics, software development and modelling. Working with start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, governments, most universities and school systems worldwide, Wolfram's expertise spans all fields where computation is applied including medicine, finance and telecoms for R&D, deployment and education.

Over the last 30 years Conrad has been a key part of the technology transformation that has brought maths, computation and data science to the forefront of today's world and moved us towards the AI age. He regularly appears in the media, speaking about subjects ranging from the computational future and artificial intelligence to 21st-century education.

World President of OMEP (World Organization for Early Childhood Education)

Degree in Primary Education, with a BA in Educational Sciences, from the University of Buenos Aires. In the area of government, ex- Director of the Early Childhood Education Area of the City of Buenos Aires. Ex-senior consultant for the United Nations Development Program. Nowadays Professor in the Master Early Childhood Education at the University of Buenos Aires and the Regional Training Program in Educational Policy Planning and Management, IIPE-UNESCO Buenos Aires, Office for Latin America. Her field of interest is early childhood education policies in relation to children's rights, and management of educational institutions for children aged 0 to 3 years. She coordinates training and teacher update programs in poverty contexts and assess public policies and programs on early childhood education and care.

Member of OMEP (World Organization for Early Childhood Education) since 1999. Currently, she is the WORLD PRESIDENT of OMEP since January 1, 2020.

Member of the COORDINATION GROUP of the Collective Consultation of NGOs for Education 2030 (CCNGO-Education 2030)

Advisor, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Former CEO, Queen Rania Teacher Academy

Dr. Osama brings more than 25 years of experience in education quality, policy, evaluation, and reform, among other areas. Before joining QRTA in 2019, Osama worked for 6 years as the Director of the school inspection at Abu Dhabi Department of Education and Knowledge. Osama worked as an Associate Professor of educational management and policy at the Hashemite University in Jordan.

Throughout his career, Osama consulted for several local and international organizations such as the World Bank, UNICEF, EDT, Ministries of Education in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Rwanda, and Iraq.

Osama holds a Ph.D. in International and Development Education from the University of Pittsburgh and a Certificate in Evaluation Practices from George Washington University as well as an Executive Leadership Certificate from INSEAD Business School.

Senior Advisor to Abu Dhabi's Early Childhood Authority. Former Executive Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation

Cecilia Vaca Jones has over 25 years of experience managing social development policies and programmes.

Cecilia was the Executive Director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation until June 2022. Before she joined the Foundation, Cecilia was the Coordinating Minister of Social Development of Ecuador from 2013 to 2016. She was responsible for policies in health, education, housing, sports and social welfare.

Over the years, she also held policy-making roles in various other Ecuadorian ministries — including the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Social Inclusion and the Ministry of Education — where she championed policies to improve the conditions of children, women and indigenous populations.
Beyond government, Cecilia has worked for civil society organisations such as CESTAS and Fundación Esquel, international organisations such as the Organization of American States and UNDP, and in academia: she was a part-time professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador in Quito, and a Fellow Language Scholar at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Cecilia holds an Executive Master in cities from the London School of Economics. She also holds a Master in Social Policies for Sustainable Development from the University of Bologna, Italy, and a BA in International Relations from the Pontifical Catholic University in Ecuador. A native Spanish speaker, Cecilia is fluent in English, Italian and French, and speaks basic Kichwa. Since 2002 she has been a volunteer for Ayuda Directa, an Italian NGO that develops sustainable projects for rural communities in Chimborazo and Cotopaxi provinces.

Cecilia is a passionate sportswoman. She has competed in events such as marathons and Ironman 70.3, founded a women's cycling club, and scaled the highest peaks in Ecuador and Italy.

Head, Department of Education Reform, and Endowed Chair, at the University of Arkansas, Former Senior Adviser, World Bank Education

Harry Anthony Patrinos is Adviser, Office of the Chief Economist for Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank. He specializes in the economics of education, particularly the returns to schooling, school-based management, demand-side financing and public-private partnerships. He has managed education teams in Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and the Global Unit. He led lending operations and analytical work programs in Latin America. He co-led the development of the Bank's Harmonized Learning Outcomes database, part of the Human Capital Index, published in Nature. He has studied and worked extensively on the socioeconomic status of Indigenous Peoples and has co-authored books and reports on this subject including Indigenous Peoples, Poverty and Development (Cambridge).

Mr. Patrinos has many publications in the academic and policy literature, with more than 60 journal articles published. He is co-author of the books: Making Schools Work; The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education; and Decentralized Decision-Making in Schools. His work appears - among other outlets - in the Nature, Journal of Development Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Population Economics, Education Economics, Labour, and the Economics of Education Review. He also worked in Africa, Asia and North America. He previously worked as an economist at the Economic Council of Canada. Mr. Patrinos received a doctorate from the University of Sussex.

CEO, Dream a Dream

Suchetha Bhat is the CEO of Dream a Dream, a non-profit organization that empowers children from vulnerable backgrounds to overcome adversity and thrive in a fast-changing world. Since starting her career in 2001, she has worked both in the corporate and social sectors. After a successful 9-year corporate stint where she worked with MNC's such as Larsen and Toubro and IBM, she started her journey in the social sector as a volunteer with Dream a Dream. The experience convinced her to get a Postgraduate degree in Psychology and join the organization full-time in 2010. Due to her success in driving the scale and strategic direction of Dream a Dream as COO, she was promoted to CEO in 2018. Her pioneering work in developing their design framework has firmly positioned Dream a Dream as a thought-leader in the space of Life-skills in India. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from working with 10,000 young people in Bengaluru to over 1 million children across 5 states. Suchetha is on the Advisory Council of Amani Institute and Kizazi. She is also an advisor to many young women social entrepreneurs and non-profits in India.

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Educate!

Under Boris's leadership, Educate! has grown to become the largest youth skills provider in East Africa, meaningfully impacting over 200,000 youth across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. With a team of over 190 staff and 300 youth mentors, the organization has received much acclaim for its work, including the 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and the 2015 WISE Award. Educate! was also highlighted by the World Bank's S4YE's Impact Portfolio, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies in their global scaling education learning initiative, the UN's Generation Unlimited as one of 20 innovative youth solutions, and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator.

Boris emigrated to the U.S. from Latvia at the age of 7. He considers himself lucky to have attended a great public school in San Francisco that eventually got him into Amherst College. As a refugee himself, Boris believes in giving other young people access to the same educational opportunities that have allowed him to get to where he is today.

Before jumping into Educate! full-time, Boris worked at startup incubator Loeb Enterprises. Boris is a recipient of the 2011 Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, and a two-time Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur.

Boris has been with Educate! since 2004.

General Director, VVOB

Sven Rooms is leading VVOB as General Director since 2018. He has more than 20 years of experience within the international development cooperation sector, working with governments and partners in more than 25 countries across Africa, Asia and South America. Sven Rooms joined VVOB in 2011 as International Programmes Director. Before he was Programme Director at Plan International Belgium.

Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Edukasyon.ph

Henry founded Edukasyon.ph in 2015. Fast forward to today, it is now a leading edtech in the Philippines empowering 8 million Filipino learners. Edukasyon.ph launched its newest product, EDGE Tutor, on-demand K-12 tutoring service in English, Math, and Filipino for students in Kindergarten to Grade 10, in addition to Explore (college & career counseling) and Experience (future skills training).

Henry received his Bachelor degree in Economics and Economic History at the London School of Economics in 2007. He pursued his MBA at the Harvard Business School under a scholarship from Bain Capital, and graduated in 2013 with distinction.

Acknowledging his contributions to society through his efforts as a social entrepreneur, Henry has been recognized by the Forbes list of 30 Under 30 Asia Social Entrepreneurs, Asia Society 21 Young Leaders and the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Institute.

Member of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education; Vice President of Terawe Corporation

Steven Duggan is Vice President, International of Terawe, a global technology solutions & services company serving both blue chip and SME clients across 12 different industries.

Being a member of the Governing Board of the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education, where he represented the global IT Industry, Steven authored the UNESCO policy brief on the use of AI in Education, ‘Change at the Speed of Learning’, which was provided to the governments of the 193 UNESCO member states.

Steven has worked in the technology industry for over 30 years, including several years as Microsoft’s Director of Worldwide Education Strategy. A regular speaker at international events, he has a passionate interest in literacy and the role of technology in disadvantaged communities and has delivered a TEDx talk on the subject as well as writing and presenting the documentary feature ‘The First Mile’ (winner of the Gold Award at the Deauville International Film Festival).

Higher Education President & Education Advisor at Qatar Foundation

Francisco Marmolejo is Higher Education President at Qatar Foundation (QF) in Doha, where he leads QF’s work in support of 8 prestigious universities established at Education City in Doha offering more than 70 academic programs to students from more than 110 countries. During 2012-20, he worked at the World Bank, where he served as the Global Coordinator of Higher Education, based in Washington, DC., and later as Lead Higher Education Specialist for India and South Asia, based in New Delhi.

As part of his activities at the World Bank, he coordinated the internal thematic group on higher education, which helps to facilitate the exchange of ideas among the more than 100 Bank’s staff members and consultants involved in higher education initiatives across the globe.

During 1995-2012, he served as founding Executive Director of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, a network of more than 160 colleges and universities primarily from Mexico, Canada, and the U.S based at the University of Arizona, where he also worked as Assistant Vice President for Western Hemispheric Programs, Affiliated Researcher at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, and Affiliate Faculty at the Center for Latin American Studies. Previously, he has been American Council on Education Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Academic Vice President of the University of the Americas in Mexico, and International Consultant at OECD in Paris. Currently, he serves on the Board of Directors of NAFSA and World Education Services, and also as member of the Academic Board of the Centre for Higher Education Internationalisation (CHEI) at UNICATT in Italy, and of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Internationalisation of Higher Education — Policy and Practice. He is Senior Fellow of NAFSA and Founding Scholar of CHEI-UNICATT. He has received honorary doctorate degrees in Mexico from five Mexican universities including his Alma Mater, the University of San Luis Potosi.

Founder, CEO & Inventor of IXO, Partner at Venturerock

Inventor of the IXO Protocol for identifying, verifying and valuing impact. Shaun is a clinically experienced physician, international development specialist and visionary leader at the forefront of solving complex social challenges, through systems-thinking and technological innovation.

At an international level, Shaun has advised and worked for international institutions such as the World Health Organisation, UNAIDS, UNICEF, the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (where he was a Health Systems Advisor in the Research and Policy Division). Shaun is now leading an initiative to build the Web3 Internet of Impacts.

King of Mangkunegaran

Kanjeng Gusti Pangeran Adipati Arya (KGPAA) Mangkoenagoro X is the current ruler of the Mangkunegaran Palace in Solo, Indonesia. He ascended to the throne on March 12, 2022, succeeding his predecessor, KGPAA Mangkoenagoro IX. Born on March 29, 1997, Mangkoenagoro X represents a younger generation of leadership within the Mangkunegaran lineage.

Mangkoenagoro X, a law graduate from University of Indonesia, is known for his progressive approach to preserving and revitalizing Javanese culture and traditions, blending them with modern elements to remain relevant in contemporary times. As the guardian of the Mangkunegaran's cultural heritage, he plays a significant role in promoting art, literature, and its unique culinary traditions.

His leadership focuses on making the palace more accessible to the public and engaging younger generations in cultural preservation efforts. Despite his young age, Mangkoenagoro X has shown exceptional wisdom and a strong dedication to honoring his heritage while driving innovation in his governance. Mangkoenagoro X is also CEO of PT. Kereta Api Indonesia (Indonesian Railways Company) and Partner of Mangkoenagoro, Dirgantara, Oepangat (MDO) Law Firm.