The 4 Moderators
Mirjam Vallström
Nationality: Swedish. Present residency: Malaga, Spain. Year of birth: 1998.
“I am sure the IYC will be an exceptional opportunity to connect, learn and grow for everyone involved. The magic is made by those who participate, and for this very reason, I am immensely curious and eager to get started. As a moderator, I hope I will be able to boost and guide the participants when needed, but above all, support the teamwork when the participants turn their fresh ideas into real and impactful arguments. I will make sure I contribute to an inclusive, positive and productive environment. Coming from the north of Europe and working in the very south, I am familiar with two widely different ways of thinking and working in diverse groups has turned into second nature to me. As a youth fellow and former participant of the IYC, I have become more conscious than ever of the threats our democratic society faces, and thus, the need for solutions. Of course, I will contribute with all of my personal experience, but even more importantly, I intend to truly listen.”
Jonathan Geib
Nationality: United States. Present residency: Kungsbacka, Sweden. Year of birth: 1979.
“How can the political will and lateral thinking required to deal with increasingly intractable societal problems—including novel threats to a democratic and open society—be catalyzed through creative participatory frameworks such as the IYTT? In the moment of this year’s conference, how do diverse knowledge perspectives and life experiences meet in dialogue, how are they coordinated between, and how are they generative of new ideas? As a researcher with a focus on urban participatory processes, but equally as a world citizen, I am eager to be part of supporting this complex process as a moderator. I bring a fundamental curiosity and striving for cross-border engagement, creative thinking, and complex issues. My own perspective has been radically enriched and expanded over the years through the influence of great teachers, colleagues, and collaborators, travels abroad, colleagues from around the world in an international masters program in Belgium, and an EU-supported network PhD project which brought me to Sweden nearly seven years ago. And what an opportunity, now, as the stakes have risen so steeply, to listen to young European perspectives in dialogue! I look forward to—in this singular moment—drawing on my varied experiences in order to support the experiences of participants and their contributions to the collective process.”
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.”
