André Heller, born in 1947 in Vienna, is one of the most successful multimedia artists in the world. His realisations include garden artworks, chambers of wonder, prose publications and processions, as well as revitalising the art of circus and varieté; his recordings as singer and songwriter have sold in the millions. Large-scale flying and floating sculptures, the Luna Luna avant-garde amusement park, moving pictures, pyrotechnic spectaculars and mazes, theatre pieces and shows directed for stages ranging from Broadway to Vienna’s venerable Burg theatre, from India to China and all the way to South America and Africa have drawn crowds of audiences. André Heller lives in Vienna, Morocco, Lombardy and on his frequent travels.

Politician, Member of Austrian Parliament (SPÖ) and self-employed attorney

Born in Vienna. Studied law at the University of Vienna, after which she completed a master’s programme in international law and the law of Arab countries at the Sorbonne in Paris. Worked as a self-employed attorney between 2012 and 2016. As for her political posts, she served as State Secretary in the Austrian Federal Chancellery, district councillor in Vienna, member of the Federal Council and as a member of the Vienna Provincial Parliament.

Key Researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights Vienna

Helmut Sax is a Key researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna. His main areas of work address human rights of children and of victims of trafficking in human beings; current research interests include rights-based child protection systems and protection of children from violence and exploitation, child trafficking and children on the move, children's rights at school, juvenile justice, and the generational dimension of human rights.

Mayor of the City of Rzeszów, Poland

Finalists of the Innovation in Politics Awards 2017 and 2018 with the municipal initiatives "Introducing smart city: citizens’ engagement" and "Podkarpacka's Council of Women".

Austrian Actress

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Director, Global Partners and Programmes at Guanghzou Institute for Urban Innovation

Nicholas You is a veteran urban specialist and thought leader. He served as the senior policy and planning advisor to UN-Habitat and as the manager of the Habitat II Conference. He is the founder and honorary chair of the UN-Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee, and chairs several public and private think tanks. He regularly advises government, industry and civil society organizations on urban sustainability, strategic planning, knowledge management and green finance.

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Human Rights Commissioner of the City of Vienna

Shams Asadi is the Human Rights Commissioner of the City of Vienna. She studied architecture and urban planning. She has many years of practical and academic experience in urban regeneration and urban development with a focus on European and international affairs. The human rights dimension of urban development accompanied her from beginning of her professional life and since 2010 human rights are the main subject of her career.

Advisor, COSPE Onlus

Gianluca Solera (1966) is an activist and a writer. He was a militant in the first Italian green movements and he studied regional and urban planning. He spent ten years as a political adviser to the Greens in the European Parliament, and eight years as coordinator of the civil society networks of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures. His last book is Citizen Activism and Mediterranean Identity. Beyond Eurocentrism (2017, Palgrave Macmillan). He has a blog on society, politics and interculturalism in the Mediterranean, where he also writes about the new forms of resistance taking place in Italy and the Mediterranean. Since 2014, he has worked with the development & cooperation NGO COSPE, dealing with democracy and participation projects. Founder of SabirFest - festival of Mediterranean Citizenship and Culture which has reached its fifth edition - in 2018 created Maydan, an association of Mediterranean citizens, including activists, intellectuals, artists, entrepreneurs and researchers, believing that the peoples of the region share a common destiny, and engaged in the construction of Mediterranean citizenship.

• https://gianlucasolera.it
• www.maydan-association.org
• www.sabirfest.it
• www.cospe.org

Secretary General of Amnesty International Austria