Keynote Speaker
TO BE ANNOUNCED SHORTLY!
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS FROM PAST SHAWMUN CONFERENCES
“Throughout my personal and professional life, I have worked to make my multicultural background an asset, not a burden. At the core lies a belief that we are all important members of society [and] our differences will shape a stronger tomorrow.”
LAILA BOKHARI
Harvard Kennedy School of Government,
Formerly State Secretary/Deputy Minister
with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Bokhari is a political scientist, diplomat and politician with a long career as a research fellow on political violence, terrorism and radicalization. She was a member of the 22 July Commission of Norway (Breivik case enquiry). Before this appointment she held a diplomatic posting at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan (covering domestic and regional political/security affairs). She has worked as a research fellow and project manager with the terrorism project TERRA at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). She has also worked with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), the UN Security Council’s al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team (1267 Committee) and the CTITF in New York, as well as for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR). She has been a visiting fellow with the International centre for the study of radicalisation and political violence (ICSR), King’s College, London, the NATO Defence Against Terrorism Centre in Ankara and the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), Pakistan. She has also worked a number of years in the Middle East, as an observer, a writer and a student of Arabic and Middle East politics at Bir Zeit University in Palestine. She holds a BA in International Relations and International Development from the University of Kent at Canterbury, the UK, and a MA in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam.
Bokhari has consulted on terrorism, radicalisation and political developments in Europe, South/Central Asia and the Middle East with NATO, OSCE, UN, several governments and the private sector. Bokhari was a member of the Norwegian Government Commission on Security Policy from 2006-2009, and completed the senior management course at the Norwegian Defence Academy (Sjefskurset, FHS) spring 2013. She has been a member of the advisory board to the Council on Foreign Relations´ initiative to establish a Global Fund on Counter Terrorism and Radicalisation (later GCERF), and a board member of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
Born in the UK of a Norwegian mother and Pakistani father, her childhood was spent between Norway, Pakistan and the UK. Bokhari is a known analyst, speaker and commentator on security, terrorism and international affairs. She is a regular columnist on international affairs and security, and has published widely, including the book Holy Wrath. My journey through Pakistan (Gyldendal 2010), in Bjørgo and Horgan (eds) Leaving Terrorism Behind (Routledge, 2009), in Stephen P. Cohen (ed) The Future of Pakistan (Brookings 2011) and in Adam Dolnik(ed) Conducting field work in terrorism. A guide (Routledge 2013).
Her latest book The Legacy of my Father (Arven etter far) was published in September 2015 (Gyldendal publishers, Norway).
Follow Laila Bokhari’s up-to-the-moment Twitter feed for her view on current events.
ELAINE GIBBONS
Vice President, Global Engagement and Communications PATH
Elaine Gibbons is Vice President for Global Engagement and Communications at PATH, where she leads a team that engages donors, partners, and peers in mobilizing resources to solve the world’s most challenging health problems.
With more than 15 years of experience leading international teams and executing major strategic initiatives, Ms. Gibbons joined PATH in 2013. She created PATH’s global corporate engagement strategy and hired a team to develop industry engagements rooted in corporate responsibility and shared value. A thought leader on multisector partnerships, Ms. Gibbons is a founding member of the Forum on Public-Private Partnerships at the National Academy of Medicine.
A native of the United Kingdom, Ms. Gibbons earned her BA from Nottingham Trent University. She is a passionate human rights advocate, a lifelong member of Amnesty International, and a board member of WithinReach.
Learn more about PATH - "Driving transformative innovation to save lives".
“The need is there. The move is happening. We have to continue to ensure that we are ready as organizations to create these shared structures and develop impact and value as a result of that. But it’s hard, ‘Roll your sleeves up.’ work.”
Dennis Edney, Q.C.
We were honoured to host Sir Dennis Edney as our Keynote Speaker. Currently, he is likely most well known for his high profile, pro bono defense of Guantanamo Bay detainee (since the age of 16), Omar Khadr. Mr. Edney has had many achievements in his life including receiving Alberta's Top 50 Most Important People in 2008, the human rights medal in 2009, and the honorary title of Queen's Counsel for exceptional merit and contribution to the legal profession.
Mr. Edney spoke movingly about meeting Mr. Khadr as a young man and understanding himself as the sole window to the outside world throughout Mr. Khadr's ten years in virtual solitude. Lending an enormous of amount of humanity to a very high profile and controversial case, Mr. Edney gave us all the opportunity to challenge ourselves to think deeper and more broadly and with both conviction and empathy.
Please find a full interview with Dennis Edney at CBC Ideas.
“In all the years I went to Guantanamo, he was always chained to the floor. And so I saw my job as trying to keep him alive, and I talked to him about hope. And I used to keep pointing to the steel door and I said ‘Behind that door is light.’”
INGRID VANDERVELdT
Ingrid Vanderveldt (iV) is a tech entrepreneur, media personality, investor and philanthropist. She is the Founder and Chairman of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 (EBW2020), MintHER™ (The Engine Powering a Billion Women by 2020) and Vanderveldt Global Investments.
Ms. Vanderveldt is a powerful speaker who carefully, enthusiastically and with an endearing charm shared her path from struggling school kid to bold businesswoman who has handily run $100 million funds for the UN among others. Adapting through a misdiagnosed disability to be guided by several essentials concepts, Ms. Vanderveldt conveyed both how positivity, perseverance and a healthy lack of patience has the potential to take you however far you want to go and how the route to creating a global sustainable future flows through empowering women and uncovering opportunities to uplift people.
Watch Ingrid Vanderveldt's entire keynote address to ShawMUN.
“The power of choice is, I realized that I could have chosen that I was going to live my life being what everybody said I was or I was going to choose that I was special and unique and that I was going to go out and do big things in the world.”
SONIA FURSTENAU, MLA
Sonia Furstenau is now the MLA for Cowichan Valley wherein the Shawnigan Lake School campus resides. But her story in our area began 15 years ago as a summer visitor and grew ever the more prominent in the face of a local controversy - the threatening of the Shawnigan Lake watershed and, potentially, the safe future of our entire community. Through advocacy, community engagement, deft work down legal avenues, and plain old, tireless 'boots on the ground' gumption, Ms. Furstenau, alongside droves of equally devoted supporters, secured the overturning of a permit for the contaminated landfill ensuring clean, safe drinking water for residents.
Watch Sonia Furstenau's PowHER Talk, "Saving Our Water, Saving Ourselves".
“In standing up... against a great injustice we found ourselves standing together and cultivating tolerance, compassion, and dignity while we affirmed our own human rights, in particular our right to clean, safe water.”
Johannah Bernstein (2019)
Johannah Bernstein is an international environmental advocate and educator. Her entire professional life has been devoted to the cause of global sustainability.
Johannah’s first degree in Human Ecology was obtained from the College of the Atlantic (1983). Her law degrees were subsequently obtained at Canada’s Osgoode Hall Law School (1986) and the University of Oxford (1987).
Since 1991, Johannah has advised national governments, international NGOs, and UN organisations on a wide range of global sustainability issues. Johannah has also been equipping young change-makers from around the world with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to be true forces for peace and sustainability.
Drawing on her international diplomacy experience, Johannah has developed novel approaches to her university teaching on global environmental politics, international environmental law, peace and conflict, global governance reform. Johannah has developed pedagogic approaches, which are embedded in the principles of 21st century learning, combining the Socratic process and reinforced by project, phenomenon and problem-based learning approaches and negotiation simulation activities. Johannah has taught courses on global environmental politics, international environmental law, ethics, peace and conflict, and global governance reform at the under-graduate and graduate levels at many universities in the world.
In 2017, Johannah completed a seven-month long study for Pearson College, on the challenges and opportunities for deepening experiential education in the curricular, and co-curricular and residential spheres of the UWC educational experience. This study has provided the entire United World College (UWC) movement with concrete recommendations for integrating cutting-edge experiential teaching methodologies within the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme.
Elin Kelsey, PhD
Elin Kelsey, PhD, is a leading spokesperson, scholar and educator in the area of evidence-based hope. Elin’s work focuses on the reciprocal relationship between humans and the rest of nature, particularly in relation to the emotional implications of the narrative of environmental doom and gloom on children and adults. Her influence can be seen in the hopeful, solutions-focus of her clients including the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and other powerful institutions where she has served as a visiting fellow including the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Passionate about bringing science-based stories of hope and multi-species resilience to the public, Kelsey is a popular keynote speaker and media commentator. In 2014, she co-created #OceanOptimism, a twitter campaign to crowd-source marine conservation solutions which has reached more than 95 million shares to date. In 2019 she served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University in the Graduate School of Education, bringing a critical emphasis on hope to an interdisciplinary think tank on environmental issues. As an Adjunct Faculty member of the University of Victoria School of Environmental Studies, she is spearheading the development of a solutions-oriented paradigm for educating environmental scientists and social scientists. She is a feature writer for Hakai Magazine and a best-selling Children’s Book Author.
Andrew Ference (2021)
NHL Environmental sustainability
Andrew Ference (2021)
NHL Director of Social Impact
“Andrew Ference, was an eighth-round selection (208th overall) by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, Ference played for the Penguins, Calgary Flames, Boston Bruins (with whom he won a Stanley Cup in 2011) and Edmonton Oilers (during which he served as team captain). A native of Sherwood Park, Alberta, he also represented Canada at the 1999 World Junior Hockey Championship.
Mr. Ferrence is responsible for helping to advance the League's social impact, community based grassroots and fan development growth efforts. Leveraging his 16-year professional hockey career and relationships across many stakeholder groups, Mr. Ference develops new strategies to drive on- and off-ice youth participation and fandom efforts, particularly focused on bringing new audiences to the game through deeper engagement efforts that are anchored by Declaration of Principles.
"During his playing career, Andrew Ference demonstrated his commitment to excellence both on and off the ice serving as an innovative ambassador for the sport and the League in building vibrant communities through social impact," said Davis. "We are thrilled to have him join our team."
Throughout his professional hockey career, Ference's personal interest in environmental sustainability and health and wellness has led him to key leadership positions in both fields. He has been a member of the Green Sports Alliance's board of directors since 2016, a partner with Fifth Season Ventures since 2015, and founded the November Project Canada free fitness movement in 2013. In 2014, Ference received the King Clancy Award, given to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.” (NHL, 2018)