Closing Plenary

Speakers

• Alexander Betts

  Speaker

  Professor and Director, University of Oxford

  Alexander Betts is Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, and a Senior Research Fellow at Green-Templeton College. Among his 10 books, he is author (with Paul Collier) of Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. He has written for the Guardian, the New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. He has given TED talks with nearly 3 million views. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, was named in Foreign Policy magazine's top 100 Global thinkers of 2016, and has been named in Thinkers50's list of emerging business influencers. He is founder of the Humanitarian Innovation Project.

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• Sonita Alizadeh

  Speaker

  Artist & Activist, The Strongheart Group

  With a poet's soul and activist's passion, Sonita Alizadeh uses her rap lyrics and powerful voice to fight child marriage. At the age of 16, Sonita was a refugee in Iran and distraught over her own impending forced marriage, set to happen in her native Afghanistan. In an effort to express her pain and share the experience of so many of her friends, she wrote “Daughters for Sale” and created a homemade music video. With a posting on YouTube, the song instantly caught fire and was shared around the world. Through the Strongheart Group, Sonita came to the U.S. where she is now a high school student at Wasatch Academy. With the support of Strongheart, Sonita is now an international spokesperson for the rights of girls to choose their own destiny. She believes that together we can end forced marriage in one generation and is working to make that a reality. Her story is told in the award winning documentary “Sonita,” which premiered in the US at Sundance 2016. Sonita was named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s Global Thinkers of 2015, one of BBC's 100 Women of 2015, and has been featured by CNN, NPR, BBC, Buzzfeed News, and over 150 publications in 20 countries. You can learn more about her campaign to end child marriage at www.sonita.org.

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• Tabitha Jackson

  Speaker

  Director, Documentary Film Program, Sundance Institute

  Tabitha Jackson was appointed Director of the Documentary Film Program (DFP) at Sundance Institute in late 2013. The DFP is dedicated to supporting nonfiction filmmakers worldwide in the production of cinematic documentaries that tell compelling stories, push the boundaries of the form, or address contemporary issues including social justice and human rights. In supporting such work, the DFP encourages the diverse exchange of ideas by artists as a critical pathway to developing an open society. Recently supported films have included Cameraperson, Hooligan Sparrow, Whose Streets?, The Look of Silence, I Am Not Your Negro, and CITIZENFOUR. With almost 25 years experience in the field, Jackson is an award-winning Commissioning Editor, director, and producer of non-fiction work. Prior to joining Sundance she most recently served as Head of Arts and Performance at Channel 4 Television in London, where she supported and championed the independent and alternative voice and sought to find fresh and innovative ways of storytelling. She also executive produced a number of projects for Film 4 including Mark Cousins’ cinematic odyssey The Story of Film, Clio Barnard’s hybrid The Arbor, Sophie Fiennes’ essay The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, Bart Layton’s thriller The Imposter, and Iain and Jane’s recent Sundance-winning Nick Cave biography 20,000 Days on Earth.

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• Stephan Chambers

  Speaker

  Director, The Marshall Institute, London School of Economics

  Stephan Chambers is the inaugural director of the Marshall Institute at LSE and Director of the 100x Impact Accelerator. He serves on the steering groups for the Just Transition Finance Lab and the LSE Grantham Research Institute. At LSE he also sits on the governing board for the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity and is Professor in Practice at the Department of Management and Course Director for the Executive Masters in Social Business and Entrepreneurship. Before joining the Marshall Institute Stephan Chambers was the Co-Founder of the Skoll World Forum. From 2000 to 2014 he directed the University of Oxford’s MBA and was the founding Director of Oxford University's Executive MBA programme.

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