Olivier Gaillard, social entrepreneur

Since 2004, Olivier has developed and leaded different social projects.To heighten awareness and equip young people for active citizenship and social entrepreneurship, he developed Trans-Mission who proposes social discovering days for youngsters (flash), a web portal (plash - www.theworldwithyou.org) and an action tool kit (klash).To enhance young people's experiences, he also founded the Platform for Civic Services (www.service-citoyen.be) and created a citizen's passport.In less than 5 years, Olivier has heighted awareness more than 8,000 young people and enabled over 1,000 young people to engage in concrete actions.In the meantime, he has participated to different competition boards. He is a frequent speaker on social entrepreneurship and youth engagement.Now and before to start a new project, Olivier will travel around the world to discover social innovation in education and advanced his formation in social entrepreneurship. Olivier is teacher in social science and has been recognized by Ashoka as social entrepreneur.

Yasmina Tippenhauer, Phd., Director Tierra Incógnita

yasmina.tippenhauer@tierra-incognita.ch

Born in Colombia to a Haitian father and Swiss mother, Yasmina Tippenhauer, who has among others lived in Mozambique, Italy, Damas, Lima, Princeton, finally settled in Geneva in 1990.
Very active in the Genevan community life, Yasmina takes notable part in debates on foreigners' integration and Swiss cultural diversity. She occupied a significant role in coordinating the ‘Filmar in América Latina’/ film festival until 2006 and is currently Secretary General of the Swiss Society of Americanists.
She spent 9 years teaching Spanish at university while working on her PhD on "Black" poetry in America. Graduated in 2002, she decided to devote herself fully to community life and cultural management in 2003.
Currently, she is head of the Latin-American cultural Centre Tierra Incógnita and goes yearly to Latin America.
Created in 2003, the cultural centre Tierra Incógnita is striving to promote cultural diffusion, integration as well as overall ethics (fair trade, human rights, cultural diversity, biodiversity, citizenship, right to education and creative commons, among others).
It coordinates various projects from rap to "la Ville est à Vous" neighbourhood fair. It offers free cultural activities, migrants' support, Spanish and French lessons, and owns a multimedia library of more than 3000 films as well as a café serving Latin-American dishes... and much more!
For more information, please check www.tierra-incognita.ch

Peter G. Kirchschläger, Co-Founder & Co-Director of the International Human Rights Forum Lucerne (IHRF) 

Peter G. Kirchschläger has studied Theology, Judaism and Philosophy in Lucerne, Rome (Gregoriana) and Jerusalem (he graduated from the University of Lucerne in 2001), as well as Philosophy, Religious Studies and Political Sciences in Zurich (he graduated 2003 from University of Zurich).

He is co-founder of the International Human Rights Forum in Lucerne (IHRF) which he co-directs ever since its foundation in 2003. The IHRF draws every year globally renowned national and international experts to Lucerne to discuss issues concerning Human Rights. During its sixth edition in 2009, more than 70 panellists and over 1200 Swiss and international participants made of the IHRF one of the biggest and most respected Human Rights Forum worldwide.

From 2004-2008 he made his PhD within a research-project of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Zurich and in 2005-2006 he received a research-scholarship at the University of Chicago from the Swiss National Science Foundation. In May 2007 he was assigned co-director of the Centre of Human Rights Education at the University of Teacher Education Central Switzerland – Lucerne (Pädagogische Hochschule Zentralschweiz Luzern).

In 1997 and 2004 he won the Wings of Excellence ISC Award at the international St.Gallen Symposium. In 2002 he was named the New Entrepreneurs NETS-Laureate by the Gerbert Rüf Foundation and in 2003 his outstanding commitment was priced by the City of Lucerne. And as if such achievements were not impressive enough by themselves: in 2005 he published his first novel "Pateiros".

Dennis Hoenig-Ohnsorg, Director Ashoka Youth Venture Germany

Entrepreneurship and Youth run like a thread through the life of Dennis Hoenig-Ohnsorg. He studied business and economics at ICADE University (Spain) and ESB Reutlingen (Germany) specializing in Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship.

In University he founded a foundation in Bolivia focusing on preventional work with street kids in La Paz, where he lived and worked for two years. Back in Germany and inspired by this experience he started a German civil society organization and initiated a new project: based on a national competition and innovative pedagogic material he promoted social commitment among adolescents and a skill-focused educational approach within schools.

Since 2008 he is the director of Ashoka Youth Venture in Germany. Youth Venture inspires and invests in teams of young people to design and launch their own lasting social ventures, enabling them to have this transformative experience of leading positive social change.

Anusooya Sivaganesan, very active in the field of human rights and integration

Anu Sivaganesan is a law student at the University of Zurich who will specialize in international law and human rights. At the same time, she has been concerned with converting theory into practice and adapting humanitarian ideals into every day life since a very young age.

No wonder therefore, that she became a member of the Committee for Integration and against Racism of the Canton of Zug as well as president of the volunteer association „Integrationsnetz Zug“ (Network for Integration, Zug) before her majority.

Anu Sivaganesan is a member of the core team of „zwangsheirat.ch“, a program founded in Zug and with national and European alliances fighting against the social problem of forced marriages. With this important issue, she has been interviewed in Swiss media as an expert various times.

Apart from that, she is also Chapter Leader of the National Coalition Building Institute, an international non-profit leadership development network dedicated to the elimination of racism and other forms of oppression, for Central Switzerland.

Anu Sivaganesan is involved in further volunteer projects against the discrimination of black people and muslims in Switzerland for example or looking for solutions for the problem of violent youth and youth unemployment.

Being a convinced cosmopolite, the young human rights activist helds that volunteering not only can overbear borders and frontiers of many kind. Voluntary work at it’s best is also more independent of powerstructures than other form of committments. Therefore, it is an important way of strengthening the stance of the civil society and for addressing global challenges

Alec Gagneux, peacemaker

Alec Gagneux was born in Lucerne in 1959. He first chose to become a mechanical engineer and later opted for post-grad studies in business management.In 1990, after a journey through India, which showed him that material success alone does not offer true happiness, he quit his job with ABB, one of the largest engineering companies in the world. Ever since he has committed himself as a freelance project-facilitator to activities as diverse as family planning or solar cooking. With his online portal fairCH.ch, he launched peace-oriented activities aimed at promoting less violence, more justice and greater peace. He lives in Brugg and in Schinznach-Bad in Switzerland and has consciously chosen not to have children.