Masterclass Speakers
We've got an amazing lineup of Masterclass speakers for January Jumpstart. Learn more about them below.
Dr. Francis Fukuyama
Dr. Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Director of the Susan Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy (MIP) at Stanford, and a professor of Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, was published in Sept. 2018. Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), and Aarhus University (Denmark), and the Pardee Rand Graduate School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and at the Center for Global Development. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the Pardee Rand Graduate School and the Volcker Alliance. He is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Timothy Snyder
Dr. Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages. He has written and co-edited many books and essays, with his work appearing in forty languages and receiving a number of prizes, including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, the Literature Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Václav Havel Foundation prize, the Foundation for Polish Science prize in the social sciences, the Leipzig Award for European Understanding, the Dutch Auschwitz Committee award, and the Hannah Arendt Prize in Political Thought. Snyder was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford, has received the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships, and holds state orders from Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland. He has appeared in documentaries, on network television, and in major films. His books have inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, films, sculpture, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play, and an opera. His words are quoted in political demonstrations around the world, most recently in Hong Kong. He is researching a family history of nationalism and finishing a philosophical book about freedom.
Sevaun Palvetzian
Sevaun Palvetzian is a seasoned executive with a track-record of building relationships across a diverse set of players to achieve results. She has built and led high performing teams as an executive in each of the public, private and NGO/charitable sectors. As Chief Communications Officer for one of Canada’s leading companies, Sevaun led communications and ESG/corporate responsibility across Rogers’ multiple platforms including wireless, cable, business services, TV, radio and sports. She was CEO of CivicAction, a leading not-for-profit that boosts civic engagement and builds better cities by unlocking the collective bench strength of all people and sectors. During a decade of senior executive leadership within the Ontario Government she launched a strategy to attract future generations of leaders which included the award-winning Learn and Work Program for at-risk youth and led the team responsible for the new Trillium Park at Ontario Place. Recognized as one of Canada’s most influential voices on civic engagement, urban issues and corporate responsibility, she is frequently called upon by the media for commentary and was named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women by WXN. An active member of the community, Sevaun has served in an advisory capacity to the Mayor of Toronto and former Premier of Ontario; and as a director on several boards including Waterfront Toronto, NEXT Canada, NPower Canada and the Ivey Business School Leadership Council.
John Lorinc
John Lorinc is a journalist and editor. He reports on urban affairs, politics, business, technology, and local history for a range of media, including the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Walrus, Maclean's, and Spacing, where he is senior editor. John is the author of three books, including The New City (Penguin, 2006), and hascoedited four other anthologies for Coach House Books: The Ward (2015), Subdivided (2016), Any Other Way (2017), and The Ward Uncovered (2018). John is the recipient of the 2019/2020 Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy. His book, Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology, and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias, won the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy in December.
Kofi Hope
Kofi Hope is a Rhodes Scholar and has a Doctorate in Politics from Oxford University. He is the co-founder of Monumental at Toronto based strategic advisory firm. Currently he writes a monthly opinion column for the Toronto Star newspaper and is an emeritus Bousfield Scholar and adjunct professor at UofT’s School of Geography and Planning. He serves as a Senior Fellow at the Wellesley Institute and is a board member at the Atkinson Foundation. In 2017 he was winner of the Jane Jacobs Prize and in 2018 a Rising Star in Toronto Life’s Power List. Kofi was the co-founder and former Executive Director of the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals. In 2005 he established the Black Youth Coalition Against Violence, advocating for real solutions to gun violence and being named one of the Top 10 People to Watch in Toronto in 2006 by the Toronto Star.
David Myles
David Myles is a Canadian songwriter and musician (born and) based in Fredericton, New Brunswick. His music has often been labeled folk jazz, although he prefers simply to call it "roots" music. An independent artist who self-releases his albums, Myles has been able to gain an increasingly large audience, in part because of his active touring schedule and in part because of his cross-genre musical collaborations. Over these past years of isolation, Myles has continued to seek connection via his “not-so-late night talk show” Myles From Home on YouTube, which has since become a popular podcast by the same name. The podcast is just another feather in the multifaceted cap of Myles’ career, which includes numerous awards and accolades, a robust artist profile stateside, a 2018 children’s book called Santa Never Brings Me a Banjo, and the biggest-selling rap single in the history of Canadian music, “Inner Ninja,” a cross-genre musical collaboration with rapper Classified.
Kara Hardin
I am the Principal and Founder of Kara Hardin Mental Health Consulting. I work with individuals as well as organizations as a Mental Health Educator, Registered Psychotherapist, and Coach. I believe strongly in people, and in working with others to use their experiences of mental health and illness to understand their performance, find their power, and develop with care.
As a former practising corporate and securities lawyer, I am particularly versed in the challenges of high pressure and low decision-making latitude careers. My approach to each client and project is strength-based, compassionate, inclusive, feminist, and experiential.
Siena Anstis
Siena Anstis is a senior legal advisor with the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy (University of Toronto). Her work at the Citizen Lab focuses on issues at the intersection of technology, human rights, and international law, with a particular interest in transnational repression. Prior to joining the Citizen Lab, she worked as a litigation associate at Morrison & Foerster in New York City and clerked for the Honourable Mr. Justice Cromwell at the Supreme Court of Canada and at the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism & Anthropology from Concordia University (2009), a Bachelor of Laws/Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University (2014) and a Master of Laws (First Class) from the University of Cambridge (2020). She was called to the Ontario bar in 2015 and the New York bar in 2014. Her scholarly work has been published in a range of publications, including the McGill Law Journal, the Canadian Bar Review, and the Oxford Journal of Human Rights Practice.
Noura Aljizawi
Noura Aljizawi is a Senior Researcher at the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto. Her work takes an in-depth look at the intersection of technology, human rights, and global security; with a focus on targeted digital threats against civil society, digital authoritarianism, and digital transnational repression. Originally from Homs, Syria, she was a prominent figure in the Syrian uprising, she played a key role in the peaceful movement, and has written and spoken publicly about her experience of abduction, detention, and torture. Ultimately, she was forced to flee to Turkey, where she became vice president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. She was elected to a role on the organization’s Geneva negotiation panel and participated in peace talks in 2014. While still in Turkey, she founded Start Point, a nongovernmental organization detected to human rights and psychosocial support for Syrian women and girls who had been detained and tortured. She subsequently moved to Canada and completed her Master’s degree in Global Affairs from the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Noura serves as a board member of the Center of Victims on Torture CVT. She also sits on the steering committee of Just Tech and Migration Community and is a member of the Expert Group of Humanitarian Dialogue HD of the digital conflict program. She is an Excellence Through Innovation Award winner for her contribution to Security Planner, an easy-to-use platform with tested, peer-reviewed recommendations for staying safe online.
Remi Desa
Remi Desa is a technology entrepreneur and the CEO of Pantemonium. Born in Canada and raised in Kenya, he returned to Canada to study electrical engineering and management science at University of Waterloo. Remi’s focus on improving public transit stems from his own life experience which has showed him how integral quality transportation is to leading a productive and satisfying life. He has a passion for finding efficiencies and has over 15 years of experience working in operations and logistics.
Mark Robbins
Mark is the head of Venture Projects at the Transport Canada Innovation Centre, the R&D branch of the department. Mark’s work focuses on the cutting edge of technology in the transportation domain across modes with a particular focus on drones, robotics and artificial intelligence. Mark has previously held roles across government and non-government organizations including the Institute on Governance, the Conference Board of Canada, the University of Toronto, IBM and the United Nations.
Andrew Byrne
Andre is the VP, Global Public Policy for Uber. He joined Uber in 2014 to lead public policy and government affairs in the UK and stepped up to do the same across EMEA in 2017. In February 2018 he moved to head up the global policy team in San Francisco. Andrew leads Uber’s relationships with countries, cities and regulators across over 70 countries and more than 10,000 cities.
Before Uber, Andrew was head of technology for one of London's leading political consultancies. During his seven year tenure he advised the CEO and Boards of BSkyB, Microsoft, John Lewis, and Airbus, amongst many others.
Andrew holds a BA in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Durham, a MA in Conflict, Development and Security from King's College and an MA in Russian History from Birkbeck.
Ignacio Tartavull
Ignacio Tartavull is the founder and CEO of Tiny Mile. Previously, he built autonomous cars at Uber ATG, and did neuroscience research at Princeton University.
Shauna Brail
Shauna Brail is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto Mississauga. As an economic geographer and urban planner, her research focuses on the transformation of cities as a result of economic, social, and cultural change.
Brail’s current research examines the disruptions taking place in urban mobility, particularly focused on the emergence and shifting strategies of ride-hailing firms and associated impacts on cities. She is the Co-Principal Investigator of a five-year insight grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada – Taking Canada for a Ride: Digital Ride-Hailing and Its Impact on Canadian Cities.
Brail is a Senior Associate at the Innovation Policy Lab in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and a faculty affiliate at the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute. She has held the following administrative roles at the University of Toronto: Director, Urban Studies Program; Associate Director, Partnerships & Outreach, School of Cities; Interim Director, Master of Urban Innovation; and Presidential Advisor on Urban Engagement.
As a champion of experiential learning, she led the development of academic internships and community engaged learning in the Urban Studies Program for over a decade, working with students, university administrators and partners at urban-focused institutions across the city.
Prior to joining the University, she worked in management consulting and in the Ontario provincial government. She holds a BA in Urban Studies/Geography (UofT), an MA in Urban Planning (UBC), and a PhD in Geography (UofT).