The 4 Moderators
Rabia Abba Omar
Nationality: South African. Present residency: Stellenbosch, South Africa. Year of birth: 1995.
Bringing the International Youth Think Tank to Africa is an incredible opportunity to gather like-minded, democracy-interested, active youth to discuss how we can change our countries, our continent, and our world, together. It is a great honor to be part of the team that is working on this conference and to be a moderator within the sessions. I look forward to learning with and from the conference participants and speakers that we will be privileged to hear from. I am excited to be part of the process, from digging deep and mining from our own experiences and knowledgebases, to learning together, and finally to building policy proposals that are focused and can have tangible impact on democracy and democratic renewal. I also look forward to seeing people grow, connect, and develop their own networks through the different social and workshop programming we will offer. The problems we face cannot be tackled alone, we must work together and in community with one another.
Mathes Rausch
Nationality: German, Present residency: Geneva, Austria, Year of Birth: 1996, IYTT Youth Fellow since 2021
In a year that is widely labeled as the year of elections in which over two billion people across 50 countries, including South Africa are heading to the polls, the IYTT International Youth Conference (IYC) and Nobel Symposium could not be timelier. Civic engagement is at the heart of well-functioning democracies and through its citizen-centric and bottom-up policy development process the IYC and Nobel Symposiums offers a platform to young people to develop their ideas into tangible democracy-strengthening policy proposals. As a conference moderator, I am extremely excited to not just guide the participants through this process but to actively engage in discussions with conference participants and Nobel Laureates to listen to their experiences, and to learn from their perspectives and ideas on how to strengthen civic engagement and democratic structures. Through my experience as an IYTT fellow since 2021 as well as my background in international affairs, including work experience at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, I hope to contribute to the participants’ policy proposals.
Bia Turnbull
Nationality: South African, Present residency: Frankfurt, Germany, Year of birth: 1997, IYTT Youth Fellow since 2022
Becoming a fellow of the IYTT has been a transformative and empowering experience, one I am now excited to share as a moderator for the IYC conference and Nobel Symposium in my beautiful homeland, South Africa. Although this year marks 30 years of democracy in South Africa, we see a declining desire among youth to engage civically. The fervor and determination that drove our parents and grandparents in 1994 to fight for and embrace political participation are fading. I thus hope to revive the hopes and dreams of our parents and grandparents and seize the crucial timing of 19 elections across the African continent this year. While leaders do not heed our calls to tackle the climate crisis, fight oppression, and end genocide and conflict from Sudan to the DRC to Palestine, I further, believe this Nobel Symposium is our opportunity to foster not only civic participation but also hope and peace. Our voices are more crucial than ever. As a moderator, I aim to inspire our new generation of fellows to find their voices and act against the challenges eroding democracies and peace. I also look forward to learning new perspectives, ideas, and proposals of the next generation of youth fellows and becoming inspired by them myself. I thus, eagerly await meeting the extraordinary 24 young fellows who will become the change we need, creating a world where everyone can live freely, fairly, and peacefully.
Urban Strandberg
Nationality: Swedish, Present residency: Gothenburg, Sweden, Year of birth: 1966, IYTT Manager and Co-founder
Born in 1966, the most transformative events for me as a young person were the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the dictatorships in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Argentina, as well as the fall of the Soviet Union and the autocratic regimes of Eastern Europe. Now, decades after these foundational regime changes, that stirred the hope for democracy, openness, peace, and popular well-being, I am scared and worried that corruption and autocratic values gain traction, and that too many governments fail to provide a decent life for people. My hope for the conference is that all the amazing 24 African conference participants will contribute novel arguments and ideas on how to realize a democratic, peaceful, and equitable future. 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.
