The 4 Moderators
Julia Strandquist
Nationality: Swedish. Present residency: Ljungby, Sweden. Year of birth: 1996.
“Coming back to the International Youth Conference will be wonderful, and I’m so excited to come back as moderator. I hope to be able to create a safe and fun space for all the participants where they feel that they can voice their opinions and develop their ideas and thoughts. Through this experience, I hope I will also enhance, develop, and come up with new fresh ideas and new arguments as well as grow as a leader and mentor. It is always great to meet people from all over the world and discuss pressing issues, such as how to enhance democracy and contribute to an open society. I hope to meet passionate participants and engage in fruitful and enjoyable discussions. I will make sure to listen and make everyone feel included, encourage people to speak their minds and ideas, and hopefully create a positive and social environment. Through my positive outlook and curiosity, I hope this will be an experience just as positive as my experience of the conference. As a youth fellow and former participant in the conference, I have continued to be passionate about creating an open and democratic society. Since I participated in 2020, the world has continued to develop in a more anti-democratic nature which has only contributed to my passion and dedication to work for a more democratic society. With my personal experiences, academic knowledge, and professional experience I aim to contribute with more perspectives and questions that can enhance the participants’ arguments and ideas to truly come up with proposals that can boost democracy globally.”
Philippine Dutailly
Nationality: French. Present residency: Limoges, France. Year of birth: 1998.
“Thanks to the conference, I will meet new people with different background, different culture and different ideas. This will make me grow as a citizen by challenging my beliefs, by making me learn new things and by increasing my ability to listen to people and to act together for the better. Meeting new people is synonymous with learning new things and seeing things with a new perspective. I am therefore really looking forward to exchanging with all the participants and listening to their stories, their beliefs and their interactions. Making sure that the conference is a safe space where everyone feels at ease to share their opinions and backgrounds is of upmost importance to me. I will do my best to welcome everyone and ease the discussions.”
Urban Strandberg
Nationality: Swedish. Present residency: Gothenburg, Sweden. Year of birth: 1966.
“Born in 1966 and quite young when starting to take an interest in societal issues and politics, some of my formative milestones include the fall of dictatorships in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Argentina, to mention a few notable examples. The fall of the autocratic regimes of Eastern Europe in 1989 was the most powerful change-maker in my mind. That sister and brother Europeans in Eastern Europe were eventually offered a chance to live and dwell in an open society was of tremendous importance for me. Now cultural life, media, academia, business enterprising, bureaucracies and legal systems, as well as representative government, could be organized on the grounds of legality and rule of law. Now social institutions could be developed to fairly support humans individually and in groups in their life projects. The political battles could now be about ideological valuations and interest-based standpoints, not a fight between an open society and an autocratic one. People would still have disagreements but would agree on the richness and potential of an open society. Now, more than 30 years later, I am scared and worried that regimes, political parties, and individual citizens in Europe and overseas are attracted to old autocratic values. My hope for the conference is that all the lovely participants will contribute fresh arguments and ideas on how to sustain the resilience of open society values and its social institutions. I will bring my enthusiastic personality, my curiosity of other people and their ideas, and my ability to bring the very best out of other people.”
