Theme: Seeds of Change

At TEDxGVAGrad, we aspire to present a unique opportunity to bring together Geneva’s academic and non-academic realities while stimulating the spread of varied viewpoints on contemporary issues affecting our society. With nearly 1,000 students hailing from over 100 countries, the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) has a legacy of promoting diverse perspectives and ideas, with notable alumni such as Kofi Annan and Micheline Calmy-Rey.

Challenging preconceived notions opens the door for innovation in addressing key global issues. Across any sector or field of study- from the arts, technology, social justice, politics, to business- pushing the boundaries of the status quo not only helps solve the problems of today, but also to re-envision possibilities for the future. By tapping into the diversity of the Geneva Graduate Institute and Geneva as an international hub, TEDxGVAGrad aims to discover new paradigms beyond conventional perspectives through creativity, openness, and exposure!

This years theme, Seeds of Change, focuses the actions one takes in the present to create lasting change in the future. It focuses on targeted innovation across any sector or field of study- be it the arts, technology, science, social justice, politics, or business- to guide us towards a better tomorrow, inspiring further progress along the way.

Maison de la Paix
Chem. Eugène-Rigot 2
Genève, Genève (fr), 1202
Switzerland

Aurélie Schmiedlin

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

Aurélie Schmiedlin, born and raised in Basel, Switzerland, is a student at the Graduate Institute, focusing on human rights and humanitarianism. With a bachelor's degree in International Affairs from the University of St. Gallen, she is committed to reshaping humanitarian aid. Aurélie aims to create humanitarian efforts that promote independence rather than continued reliance. For two years, Aurélie has been part of Social Income, an NGO offering universal basic income in Sierra Leone, advocating for empowering humanitarian support.

Beaver Dam Company

Dance Company

Beaver Dam Company is a franco-swiss contemporary dance company founded and directed by choreographer Edouard Hue. Through his work he advocates a singular and generous approach to dance, with a sensitive, virtuosic physicality.

Brian Moscioni

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

Following an undergraduate engineering degree from Villanova University, Brian commissioned as a pilot in the US Navy. He served 5.5 years flying the EA-18G Growler, with carrier landings aboard the USS George H.W. Bush and the USS Nimitz. After military service, Brian worked for Goldman Sachs in their Consumer and Wealth Management division. Currently, he is a student in the Master program for International and Development Studies in the Conflict, Peace and Security track. Brian is enrolled in the dual-degree program at the Institute with the Harvard Kennedy School and will begin his Master of Public Administration in summer 2024.

Brice Bambara

Civil Society Advocacy Associate Specialist

Brice Bambara was born and grew up in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. He later moved to the United States to take English as Second Language (ESL) classes and pursue a bachelor’s degree in international politics at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts. In 2015, he completed a master’s degree in international relations from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Since 2016, he has been working at the Global Fund to Fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria where he currently serves as a civil society advocacy associate specialist. In his spare time, Brice likes to binge watch series on streaming platforms, read or spend time with his trusted small circle of friends.

Brindusa Burrows

Founder & CEO - Ground_Up Project

Brindusa Burrows is a Swiss visual artist, entrepreneur and lecturer. Over the years, she has created and piloted new ways to encourage sustainable investments towards social and environmentally-conscious entrepreneurs in developing nations. She has built international partnerships with the UN, international organisations and businesses, and has designed G20 financing programs for green growth. She co-led multidisciplinary international research projects with academic partners on several continents. She advised sustainability strategies of large not-for-profit organisations, mentored young entrepreneurs and supported the development of a sustainable, innovative entrepreneurial community in her native country, Romania. She is currently a visiting lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute where she teaches global sustainability and contemporary art approaches towards regenerative leadership.

Christina Bouglass

Founder - The Butterfly Movements

Christina Bouglass is a brand building & marketing expert with 20 years’ experience in big multinationals, including Procter & Gamble, Coty and The Wella Company. In 2022, she left her corporate career with the desire to contribute her skills towards creating a better world. She is the founder of The Butterfly Movements, a boutique consultancy which supports purpose-led brands to scale their impact. She is also a marketing lecturer at the Haute Ecole de Gestion, here in Geneva and is writing a book about her ”pivot to purpose” experience when leaving the corporate world and how it shifted her vision of marketing. She is truly passionate about the opportunity and responsibility of marketing in contributing to the long-term well-being of all people and planet and this will be the focus of her talk today.

Claude Hiol

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

Claude Hiol is a master's candidate in International and Development Studies at the Geneva Graduate Institute. He is interested in how storytelling, whether from the book of Genesis in the bible or Camara Laye's The Black Child, has shaped the world and how marginalised people use it to process trauma and build their identities. Born and raised in Cameroon, he was always too busy listening to London Grammar instead of doing his homework. His work has been published in the Kalahari Review and African Writer Magazine.

Esther Dingemans

Executive Director - Global Survivor's Fund

Esther Dingemans is a leading expert on developing and implementing survivor-centred programmes addressing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). With her expertise in community-driven projects, capacity building, and holistic care for survivors, Esther became the founding Director of the Dr Denis Mukwege Foundation. There, she worked on uniting survivors to advocate globally through one network and developing holistic care programmes. Esther transitioned from the Mukwege Foundation to Global Survivors Fund, where she is now working to realise the right to reparation for survivors of CRSV. Prior to these roles, Esther led programmes fighting CRSV in Guinea, Ivory Coast, Sudan (Darfur), Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Syria.

Fatimah Hossaini

Artist and Photographer

An acclaimed artist and photographer, Fatimah captures the essence of beauty amidst conflict, championing women's empowerment through her work and advocacy. Her impactful contributions transcend borders, resonating on national and international platforms.

Georg Krause

Executive Coach

Georg Krause started his professional career after graduation in 1996 at the Hotel Management School in Lausanne. He spent several years of his professional life in the hospitality business abroad. Always fascinated by human behaviour and seeking to improve his skills and know-how, he decided to deepen his knowledge through NLP, hypnosis and self-learning. He then started coaching in 2007 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Georg opened his office in the beautiful city of Lausanne in 2013 and works with executives, private clients and athletes. He is further the only German-speaking NLP New Code trainer in Switzerland, trained and certified by John Grinder, Carmen Bostic St Clair and Michael Carroll. Georg became an expert in change work, which allows his clients to build more positive and impactful relationships both in their personal lives and professional endeavors and hence their quality of life.

Jeremy Chavez

In 2018, Jeremy (1999) stood on stage for the first time and thought to himself: “I’ll never do that again.” A year later, out of boredom, he tried the poetry slam again and, to his own surprise, became U20 Swiss champion. Since then, he has been an integral part of the spoken word scene and performs from Brig to Hamburg, Thun to Vienna, across the cabaret stages in German-speaking countries. Since 2021 he has also been on the u20 Slam Aargau organizing committee, where he teaches young people the art of writing and speaking as part of the promotion of young talent. He lives in Basel and studies history and German at the university.

Margherita Pallottino

Researcher - Austrian Institute for Artificial Intelligence

Margherita Pallottino is a linguist specializing in the syntax of Arabic dialects. She currently teaches at the University of Geneva, and she is an FNS Fellow at the Austrian Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI) in Vienna. Her life journey has taken her to the Middle East and North Africa, where she has spent significant time for both work and personal interest. She has also been a member of the Italian national rowing team and earned the title of NCAA champion twice with the University of Washington. Margherita is committed to advancing educational and professional opportunities for women, and her advocacy led her to become an active member of Soroptimist International Switzerland.

Roberta Boscolo

Climate and Energy Lead - WMO

Dr. Boscolo has over twenty years of experience in climate services, focusing on the Water-Energy-Food nexus in regions including Africa, South America, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia. She develops weather, water, and climate services to support energy resilience and renewable energy. Her role includes membership on the scientific advisory board for several European Commission projects. Dr. Boscolo's work bridges climate science with socioeconomic sectors, especially energy. She partners with stakeholders such as international organizations, public and private sectors, academia, civil society, and media. She holds a degree in Physics and an MSc in Physical Oceanography. Subsequently she obtained a Diploma in Advanced Study from the University of Geneva in Leading International Organizations and a Certificate on Analysis and Management of Energy and Climate Change Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Sabine Specht

Head of Filarial Disease - Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative

Sabine joined DNDi in October 2017. She leads the development and disease area strategy and manages the filarial projects throughout all stages of the clinical development process for new treatments for filarial infections. She has a long track record working in the field of filarial diseases and comes to DNDi from the Institute for Laboratory Animal Science, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich, CH. Prior to that she spent 12 years as a senior scientist in basic and applied research at the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Parasitology (IMMIP), University Hospital Bonn, Germany.

Shruti Lal

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

I'm Shruti Lal and I've been writing since I was around the age of 8. I started out with silly little rhymes and grew up to emotional pieces that held my heart. I've mostly been writing poetry pertaining to my own life experiences, and I'm working on expanding on my style. Performing and writing really is the only way I've felt like saying something important (lmao even after writing 5000 academic words), and I hope to continue doing this.Being in Geneva sometimes has made me feel like everything we're studying and doing is not really making the world any better, but when I read poetry, it doesn't matter which part of this world its coming from, the burden feels lighter when it is shared. Not all poetry has to make sense, it just has to make you feel.

Shruti Satish

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

Hailing from Chicago with South Indian roots from Chennai, Shruti Satish is a first-year IRPS master's student at the Geneva Graduate Institute. She serves as her cohort's class representative and is President of the Peacebuilding Initiative. Shruti enjoys travelling, meeting new people, and exploring diverse cultures worldwide.

Snigdha Agarwal Srinivas

Student - Geneva Graduate Institute

Snigdha Agarwal Srinivas is a second-year MINT student in the Conflict, Peace, and Security track. A pianist and a poet, she is passionate about peace building and deconstructing the role of emotions in conflict. She has experience in a variety of settings from academic consulting firms to local non-profit and hopes to play an active role in pushing the boundaries of humanitarian policy formulation.

Thomas M. Berger

Senior Medical Advisor - NEO for Namibia

Thomas M. Berger is a Swiss paediatrician and neonatologist. His postgraduate training began in Switzerland and continued in the USA (residency in paediatrics at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; fellowship in neonatology at the Harvard Joint Program in Neonatology, Boston, MA; fellowship in paediatric critical care at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC). After returning to Switzerland, he led the Neonatal and Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital in Lucerne for almost 20 years. In 2017, together with his wife Sabine (a paediatric nurse), he founded NEO FOR NAMIBIA – Helping Babies Survive. This Swiss NGO helps to improve neonatal care in Namibia by providing affordable and robust equipment, ensuring thorough training of local health care professionals, and measuring impact with appropriate statistics.

Zuma Munkombwe

Technical Officer for Vaccine Assessment - WHO

Dr. Zuma Munkombwe is a technical officer for vaccine assessment at the World Health Organization. With over twenty years in regulation of medical products, he is passionate about the safety and quality of medicines used in developing countries. He grew up in the rural farming community of Zambia learning to appreciate natural vegetation from an early age. As an ardent farmer, he has experienced firsthand the effects of climate change with frequent droughts and flooding. He believes climate change puts not only agriculture at risk but also poses a risk of transmission of diseases from animals to humans. Potential future epidemics/pandemics will be fueled by the ‘jump’ of animal pathogens from ecological sources to humans. Dr Munkombwe is cognizant that one major way to reverse the trend is to restore forests in places where deforestation is rampant, and he has developed a passion for planting trees to among other benefits protect and reinvigorate local wildlife populations.