Eugenio Bregolat is Ambassador of Spain in Andorra.                                 His expertise include China and Russia as well as politics and diplomacy.

Bregolat joined the Spanish Foreign Service in 1971 and he has been Ambassador to Indonesia (1982-87), China (1987-91 and 1999-2003), Canada (1991-92), Russia (1992-1997) and Andorra (2006-).

In 1974-78 he  was Commercial Counsellor in the Soviet Union and in 1978-82 he served as Foreing Policy Adviser to Prime Ministers Adolfo Suárez and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo.

Bregolat was Political Director in the Ministry of  Foreing Affairs in 1997-1999 and Ambassador in Charge of Foreing Relations at the Forum de las Culturas, Barcelona, in  2003-2004.

Bregolat has degree in law from the University of Barcelona and he studied  foreign affairs at the University of Virginia in 1966-1967.

In 2007 he published “La segunda revolución China” (“The second Chinese Revolution”). Bregolat is also regular contributor to “La Vanguardia”, Barcelona, and “El Imparcial” (a digital newspaper), Madrid.

Fabian Novak is director of the Institute of International Studies (IDEI) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, Lima. He formerly served as Peru’s Vice-Minister of Defense Policy.

Dr. Novak is a specialist on international economic law. He holds a doctorate in law (2009), a professional degree in law (1992) and a master’s degree (1997). Since 1992 he has served as head professor of public international law at the Pontifical Catholic University, and since February 2009, director of the Institute of International Studies.

He is a current member (2009-12) of the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Consultative Committee of the Peruvian Ministry of Defense.

He has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University, the University of Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro State University and many other academic institutions in South America.

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington DC, is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain. He has advised Prince Charles and been consulted on the subject of Islam by numerous leaders including President George W. Bush, General David Petraeus and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. He  is described as “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam” by the BBC.

Dr. Ahmed was appointed in September 2008 as the first Distinguished Chair for Middle East/Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, in addition to the Ibn Khaldun Chair at American University. From Fall 2009 onwards he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Affiliate at the US Naval Academy and he has been Non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution for several years.

He is regularly interviewed by CNN, NPR BBC, and Fox News, and has appeared several times on Oprah. He is the author of over a dozen award-winning books, including Discovering Islam, which was the basis of the BBC six-part TV series called ‘Living Islam.’ His critically acclaimed book Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization, has resulted in a full length documentary, Journey into America, shown at several film festivals  and the book, Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam (Brookings Press, July 2010).

Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider is currently a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Non-resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, leading the Arts and Culture Initiative within the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. She was the US Ambassador to the Netherlands from 1998-2001 and a professor of Art History at Georgetown University for many years.

She also founded and co-directs Muslims on Screen and Television (MOST) to give more accurate portrayals of Muslims in the media and is currently developing with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and Georgetown University, the Global Initiative for Cultural Diplomacy (GICD) to raise awareness and encourage scholarship in that field. Dr. Schneider publishes and speaks frequently on topic related to arts, culture, and media and international affairs, particularly the Muslim world. Her writings range from blogs for the Huffington Post to policy papers for the Brookings Institution. Her talks include a TED presentation on the global impact of American Idol as well as speeches on the role of arts and culture in the U.S. –Islamic world relationship in venues from Kurdistan to Cairo and has been interviewed in many news outlets including CNN and PBS’s Newshour.

Dr. Schneider received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Dr. Friedrich Wu is Adjunct Associate Professor of International Political Economy at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Before his academic appointment, he served as Director of Economics (2001-2005) at Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry.

In this capacity, he was the principal government spokesman for the official releases of annual and quarterly GDP economic estimates and forecasts, as well as the government’s chief representative for the APEC Economic Committee. Before entering government service, Dr Wu was Head/Vice President of Economic Research for 16 years (1985-2001) at the Singapore-based DBS Bank, the largest banking group in the island-republic and in Southeast Asia, and the 4th largest banking group in Hong Kong. Originally from Hong Kong, Dr. Wu received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) with a dissertation on the political economy of China’s “open door” policy.  Before joining DBS Bank, Dr. Wu did research and consulting work with Frost & Sullivan (USA) and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore).

Dr. Wu is a regular conference/seminar speaker and his comments on Asian economic, financial and political issues have been frequently quoted by international media such as Business Week, The Economist, The Financial Times, Fortune, International Herald Tribune, Japan Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. His 70-plus publications on these subjects have appeared in many book chapters, peer-reviewed international academic journals, trade magazines, and newspaper columns.

From 1991-2005, Dr. Wu was a member of the Singapore National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, which represents Singapore at the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council – a tripartite multilateral organization that comprises distinguished business leaders, senior government officials and prominent academics.

Jillian York is a San Francisco-based writer, researcher, and activist whose work focuses on a range of issues related to freedom of expression, with special emphasis on the Arab world.

Ms. York is the Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

Prior to this, she worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, where she coordinated and conducted research for several projects related to free expression online, including the OpenNet Initiative. She is also the co-founder of the award-winning site Talk Morocco, a platform for essayists to expound on topics related to Morocco, with a particular emphasis on free expression. In addition to her work at EFF, she writes for Global Voices Online, and contributes content to Global Voices Advocacy.

Ms. York is a frequent conference speaker on free expression in the Middle East and North Africa, and has been quoted in numerous publications, including CNN, The Los Angeles Times, France 24, Al Jazeera, ABC News, and The Globe and Mail. She has also written for Al Jazeera English and The Guardian, among other publications.