Keynote Speaker
“Throughout my personal and professional life, I have worked to make my multicultural background an asset, not a burden. At the core lies a belief that we are all important members of society [and] our differences will shape a stronger tomorrow.”
LAILA BOKHARI
Harvard Kennedy School of Government,
Formerly State Secretary/Deputy Minister
with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Bokhari is a political scientist, diplomat and politician with a long career as a research fellow on political violence, terrorism and radicalization. She was a member of the 22 July Commission of Norway (Breivik case enquiry). Before this appointment she held a diplomatic posting at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan (covering domestic and regional political/security affairs). She has worked as a research fellow and project manager with the terrorism project TERRA at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). She has also worked with the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), the UN Security Council’s al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team (1267 Committee) and the CTITF in New York, as well as for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR). She has been a visiting fellow with the International centre for the study of radicalisation and political violence (ICSR), King’s College, London, the NATO Defence Against Terrorism Centre in Ankara and the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI), Pakistan. She has also worked a number of years in the Middle East, as an observer, a writer and a student of Arabic and Middle East politics at Bir Zeit University in Palestine. She holds a BA in International Relations and International Development from the University of Kent at Canterbury, the UK, and a MA in International Relations from the University of Amsterdam.
Bokhari has consulted on terrorism, radicalisation and political developments in Europe, South/Central Asia and the Middle East with NATO, OSCE, UN, several governments and the private sector. Bokhari was a member of the Norwegian Government Commission on Security Policy from 2006-2009, and completed the senior management course at the Norwegian Defence Academy (Sjefskurset, FHS) spring 2013. She has been a member of the advisory board to the Council on Foreign Relations´ initiative to establish a Global Fund on Counter Terrorism and Radicalisation (later GCERF), and a board member of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
Born in the UK of a Norwegian mother and Pakistani father, her childhood was spent between Norway, Pakistan and the UK. Bokhari is a known analyst, speaker and commentator on security, terrorism and international affairs. She is a regular columnist on international affairs and security, and has published widely, including the book Holy Wrath. My journey through Pakistan (Gyldendal 2010), in Bjørgo and Horgan (eds) Leaving Terrorism Behind (Routledge, 2009), in Stephen P. Cohen (ed) The Future of Pakistan (Brookings 2011) and in Adam Dolnik(ed) Conducting field work in terrorism. A guide (Routledge 2013).
Her latest book The Legacy of my Father (Arven etter far) was published in September 2015 (Gyldendal publishers, Norway).
Follow Laila Bokhari’s up-to-the-moment Twitter feed for her view on current events.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS FROM PAST SHAWMUN CONFERENCES
ELAINE GIBBONS
Vice President, Global Engagement and Communications PATH
Elaine Gibbons is Vice President for Global Engagement and Communications at PATH, where she leads a team that engages donors, partners, and peers in mobilizing resources to solve the world’s most challenging health problems.
With more than 15 years of experience leading international teams and executing major strategic initiatives, Ms. Gibbons joined PATH in 2013. She created PATH’s global corporate engagement strategy and hired a team to develop industry engagements rooted in corporate responsibility and shared value. A thought leader on multisector partnerships, Ms. Gibbons is a founding member of the Forum on Public-Private Partnerships at the National Academy of Medicine.
A native of the United Kingdom, Ms. Gibbons earned her BA from Nottingham Trent University. She is a passionate human rights advocate, a lifelong member of Amnesty International, and a board member of WithinReach.
Learn more about PATH - "Driving transformative innovation to save lives".
“The need is there. The move is happening. We have to continue to ensure that we are ready as organizations to create these shared structures and develop impact and value as a result of that. But it’s hard, ‘Roll your sleeves up.’ work.”
Dennis Edney, Q.C.
We were honoured to host Sir Dennis Edney as our Keynote Speaker. Currently, he is likely most well known for his high profile, pro bono defense of Guantanamo Bay detainee (since the age of 16), Omar Khadr. Mr. Edney has had many achievements in his life including receiving Alberta's Top 50 Most Important People in 2008, the human rights medal in 2009, and the honorary title of Queen's Counsel for exceptional merit and contribution to the legal profession.
Mr. Edney spoke movingly about meeting Mr. Khadr as a young man and understanding himself as the sole window to the outside world throughout Mr. Khadr's ten years in virtual solitude. Lending an enormous of amount of humanity to a very high profile and controversial case, Mr. Edney gave us all the opportunity to challenge ourselves to think deeper and more broadly and with both conviction and empathy.
Please find a full interview with Dennis Edney at CBC Ideas.
“In all the years I went to Guantanamo, he was always chained to the floor. And so I saw my job as trying to keep him alive, and I talked to him about hope. And I used to keep pointing to the steel door and I said ‘Behind that door is light.’”
INGRID VANDERVELdT
Ingrid Vanderveldt (iV) is a tech entrepreneur, media personality, investor and philanthropist. She is the Founder and Chairman of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 (EBW2020), MintHER™ (The Engine Powering a Billion Women by 2020) and Vanderveldt Global Investments.
Ms. Vanderveldt is a powerful speaker who carefully, enthusiastically and with an endearing charm shared her path from struggling school kid to bold businesswoman who has handily run $100 million funds for the UN among others. Adapting through a misdiagnosed disability to be guided by several essentials concepts, Ms. Vanderveldt conveyed both how positivity, perseverance and a healthy lack of patience has the potential to take you however far you want to go and how the route to creating a global sustainable future flows through empowering women and uncovering opportunities to uplift people.
Watch Ingrid Vanderveldt's entire keynote address to ShawMUN.
“The power of choice is, I realized that I could have chosen that I was going to live my life being what everybody said I was or I was going to choose that I was special and unique and that I was going to go out and do big things in the world.”
SONIA FURSTENAU, MLA
Sonia Furstenau is now the MLA for Cowichan Valley wherein the Shawnigan Lake School campus resides. But her story in our area began 15 years ago as a summer visitor and grew ever the more prominent in the face of a local controversy - the threatening of the Shawnigan Lake watershed and, potentially, the safe future of our entire community. Through advocacy, community engagement, deft work down legal avenues, and plain old, tireless 'boots on the ground' gumption, Ms. Furstenau, alongside droves of equally devoted supporters, secured the overturning of a permit for the contaminated landfill ensuring clean, safe drinking water for residents.
Watch Sonia Furstenau's PowHER Talk, "Saving Our Water, Saving Ourselves".
“In standing up... against a great injustice we found ourselves standing together and cultivating tolerance, compassion, and dignity while we affirmed our own human rights, in particular our right to clean, safe water.”