EPALE Community Conference 2021 - All the Speakers
Tamsin Rose is a facilitator, speaker and trainer with an interest in sparking new ideas to address big societal challenges. With three decades of experience in communications, and advocacy and network building, her clients range from small non-profits to international institutions and everything in between. She led a European platform of public health NGOs, managed an EU programme to twin cities in West and Eastern Europe and now connects citizen experiences to the Brussels policy bubble.
Sophia Eriksson Waterschoot is Director for Youth, Education and Erasmus+ at the European Commission's Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture. She is in charge of European cooperation on higher education, schools and youth policy, including Europe's flagship programmes Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps. She has previously held various positions within the European Commission in the field of strategy and investment in education, labour market policy, European Semester and European cohesion funds.
Manuela Geleng works for the European Commission where she is currently the Director for Jobs and Skills in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. She is responsible for Future of Work related activities, Youth Employment, the implementation of the Skills Agenda and Vocational Education and Training policies.
Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at MIT and co-founder of the Presencing Institute. He chairs the MIT IDEAS programme for cross-sector innovation and introduced the concept of “presencing” – learning from the emerging future. He is the author or co-author of the books Theory U, Presence, and The Essentials of Theory U. He won the Jamieson Prize for Teaching Excellence at MIT and the European Leonardo Corporate Learning Award. In 2021 he received the Elevating Humanity Award from the Organizational Development Network. Find out more.
Alison Crabb, working in the European Commission since 1999, currently heads the Skills Agenda Unit in DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. Her team is working with Member States, social partners and other stakeholders to help adults across Europe upgrade their skills and make skills and qualifications more easily understood across borders. Her previous work in the Commission includes both policy and funds management in vocational education and training, adult learning, and school education. Find out more.
Andreas Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He initiated and oversees the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other international instruments that have created a global platform for policymakers, researchers and educators across nations and cultures to innovate and transform educational policies and practices. He holds an honorary Professorship at the University of Heidelberg. Find out more.
Cecilia (Thea) V. Soriano is the Regional Policy and Advocacy Coordinator of the Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE). She coordinates ASPBAE members’ participation in regional intergovernmental meetings to advance civil society’s agenda in education. She helps to advocate for national education coalitions in Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Indonesia. She is a founding Board Member of the Civil Society Network for Education Reforms (E-Net Philippines). Find out more.
Ivor Baatjes is Director of the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, CIPSET and served as Chair of the Education Policy Consortium (EPC). He currently supports MOJA with the content management of the digital platform. He has worked in all the subsectors of the post-school education and training sector. His research interests include adult and community education; higher education; workers’ education; and learning in social movements. Find out more.
Jakub Walczyk is an educator, coordinator and curator of inclusive projects. At the ZAMEK Culture Centre in Poznań he runs the project “Sensitive Images”, a programme presenting social, critical and activist cinema. It consists of a series of popularisation events (lectures/debates/workshops) focusing on human rights. All events are organised with respect for the needs of people with sensory disabilities. He also collaborates with the University of the Arts Poznan as a lecturer. Find out more.
Silvie Moors studied Dutch and English at the University of Antwerp. For 10 years, she worked as a project officer at the Nationaal Centrum voor Jeugdliteratuur and at Stichting Lezen (Iedereen leest). In 2007, she founded her own literary organisation, DE DAGEN, which focused on the promotion of reading and on vulnerable groups. She specialised in Shared Reading: together with about 50 volunteers, she read literature from across the world in hospitals, psychiatric institutions, community centers, and schools. Find out more.
Miquel Alandete is a language teacher. He has worked as a teacher trainer, multilingual consultant, educational advisor, cultural promoter, translator and interpreter. He has been working at the Picassent – Valencia EPA Presentación Sáez adult prison school since 2016. Find out more.
Sibilla Drews is a teacher by profession and has been working for European Education Programmes since 2001. The adult education team she is heading in the German National Agency includes Erasmus+, the EPALE NSS and the Coordinator for the European Agenda for Adult Learning.
Divina Frau-Meigs is professor of Media and ICT Sociology at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle. She is a specialist in Cultural Diversity, Internet Governance and Media and Information Literacy (MIL) as well as a researcher in the media uses and practices of young people and information disorders. She is an expert for UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the European Union. She is co-author and co-editor of more than 30 books and more than 300 scholarly articles and book chapters. Find out more.
Salvatore Scalzo has been working for about ten years at the European Commission. He is currently a policy and legal officer in the Unit Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy Development and Coordination of the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology where he is working on the proposed EU legal framework on AI. Salvatore Scalzo graduated with a MSc Degree in European Studies from La Sapienza University in Rome and with a research-oriented Master Programme Analysing Europe from Maastricht University in The Netherlands. Find out more.
Ivana Stanojev has worked since 2017 as a Project and Communications Associate at Knowledge Innovation Centre, where she is involved in Erasmus projects within the education field (equal opportunities, social justice, and access to Higher Education). Before joining KIC, Ivana worked for 10 years as a project coordinator and a researcher for various Serbian and international NGOs and Government agencies, on projects dealing with democratisation, inclusive governance and citizens’ participation. Find out more.
Nils Eyk-Zimmerman is a political scientist at the University of Potsdam as well as a consultant, project manager and author in the fields of active citizenship, civil society, digital transformation, both non-formal and lifelong. He has coordinated international cooperation programmes in the field of active citizenship and capacity building activities for civil society for different organisations, in particular in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Find out more.
Nenja Wolbers works as a project coordinator for digital inclusion at the Digital Opportunities Foundation. In addition to European projects to promote media literacy, she works on the digitisation of rural areas. As Vice Chair of the Board at ALL DIGITAL, empowering all citizens to use the internet to their advantage is important to her. Find out more.
Philippe Seidel Leroy works for AGE Platform Europe, the EU’s largest network of organisations of and for older people. He is responsible for AGE’s policy activities in the fields of employment of older workers and social protection, as well as gender equality. He also coordinates AGE’s relations with the European Parliament. Find out more.
Dagmar Hirche has held leading positions in the service industry for 40 years and has been chairwoman of the NGO she co-founded, Wege aus der Einsamkeit e.V. She demands that digital education not stop with older people and advocates for digital participation being a matter of course for people over 65. She has received several awards for her social commitment such as LinkedIn Top Voices DACH 2020. Her motto is: “The glass is always half full and never completely empty”. Find out more.
Iveta Cirule is co-founder and a Board Member of the non-governmental organisation Project Net focusing on education challenges, with particular regards to adult and life-long education. Since 2019 she has been the founder and promoter of social innovation initiatives at the Senior University in Latvia. Her motto “Turn ideas into action” epitomises her philosophy for all the activities she undertakes! Find out more.
Dina Soeiro is a professor at Coimbra Higher Education School – Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, where she teaches Adult Education and Educational Gerontology using an on-Service Learning approach. As an EAEA Board member since 2019, she uses her voice to advocate for non-formal adult education in Europe. She contributes to the provision of equal learning opportunities for the elderly, enhances intergenerational learning and promotes awareness of the importance of adult learning and education at an advanced age. Find out more.
Wendy Scheder Black is the Director for Adult Education Services at Pima Community College. Wendy has been building partnerships across the college and community to develop innovative Integrated Education and Training (IET) models that lead to dramatically improved student completion rates and academic success within career training programs. She is currently focused on establishing new IET models that increase access to relevant industry-recognized training in a post-pandemic world.
Michael Thiel is Project Manager at VHS Lernportal, where his main responsibility is content development and supervision of the editorial staff. He studied Media Studies, German Literature and Political Science at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. There he got in touch with digital learning in different settings and began to explore the world of e-learning via internships and freelancing editing jobs. Before he joined the DVV he worked as an editor and concept developer in various projects which focused on the promotion of digital skills. Find out more.
Karin Küßner is head of the Contact Point of the National Decade for Literacy and Basic Skills (NCP), located at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training in Bonn. The NCP has the task to support stakeholders and practitioners in the field of literacy and basic skills to develop and promote sustainable concepts to address adults with difficulties in reading and writing and to disseminate good practice of learning opportunities. Furthermore, the NCP cooperates with Ministries, Partner of the national Decade and a scientific advisory board. Find out more.
Balázs Németh is a researcher on European adult and lifelong learning policy development and comparative adult education. He is an associate professor and reader in Adult Learning and Education at the University of Pécs and a founding member of the Hungarian Universities Lifelong Learning Network (MELLearN). Find out more.
Özge Sönmez has 15 years of experience working with national and international stakeholders at the intersection of environmental awareness, poverty alleviation, and education. Ten years ago, she co-founded YUVA, an NGO, generating holistic solutions to environmental, educational, and social issues in Turkey and around the world. She leads the Human Development and Earth Citizenship Programs at YUVA. Find out more.
Erdem Vardar has extensive experience in advocacy and development fields as project coordinator, executive and adult educator. He worked for organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International and has acted as Country Director of DVV International. In 2010, he founded YUVA aiming to bring together concepts of ecology, human rights and poverty alleviation. He still acts as chairman and director of the association. Find out more.
Angeliki Giannakopoulou holds a joint BEng and MEng degree from the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of the University of Patras and a Certificate of Specialisation in Mental-Health and Counselling by the University of Ioannina. She is currently a European Project Manager and Proposal writer at DAFNI KEK and Cyclisis NGO. Find out more.
Francisca Borges is Project Manager at the EPATV (Escola Profissional Amar Terra Verde) since 2020; graduated in French and Portuguese teaching, obtained at the University of Minho, in Braga, Portugal, and has a Diploma of General University Studies in foreign languages, literatures and civilizations (DEUG – LLCE), obtained at the University of Limoges, in France; trainer in VET courses and Portuguese and French teacher since 2004; trainer in the Qualifica Center of the EPATV(Adult Education Center) since 2016. She has been working on Erasmus+ projects since 2018, within projects related to social inclusion, gender issues, and safe places for learning. Find out more.
