Shain Shapiro

Susannah Tasanee Martin Tantemsapya

Solamalemalo Dr Hai-Yuean Tualima

Samba Yonga

Mr Abid Hussain is the Director, Diversity at Arts Council England (ACE) where he leads the Arts Council's work on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, delivering more equitable access to creativity and culture. He is responsible for delivery of the Arts Council's equality objectives and equality action plan.  

Mr Hussain is the programme lead for All In - a UK and Ireland-wide scheme established to improve access to arts and cultural events for people with disabilities, developed in partnership with Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales, and Creative Scotland.  

He is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Programme (IVLP) and the Salzburg Global Seminar and holds an MBA from Aston University in the UK.   

Mr Hussain has extensive experience working with cultural agencies, government and academia internationally and has contributed to several international conferences and academic texts and journals in his field of expertise.  

Ms Cislé Jacobs specialises in intellectual property law as a legal and cultural professional and currently serves as Chairperson for the National Arts Council of Namibia. As a certified Intellectual Property (IP) Agent in Namibia, she advises creatives, entrepreneurs and institutions including the National Theatre of Namibia and the Namibia Society of Composers and Authors of Music. Ms Jacobs is an IP and Legal Compliance Expert Facilitator at Basecamp Business Incubators Namibia, has worked as an EU/UNESCO National Expert, contributing to the revision of copyright legislation and served as a technical expert for the National Arts Fund Draft Bill and Regulations 2024. She is author of The Intellectual Property Regime in Namibia (2017) and Copyright Law: Contracts and Protective Procedures for Musicians (2021). Ms Jacobs holds a Master of Laws in Intellectual Property Law from the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from the University of Namibia.  

Mr Emile Kairua is Secretary and Head of Ministry, Ministry of Cultural Development, Cook Islands. He has an extensive background in marketing and public relations, driving business development efforts in tourism and travel related businesses in the Cook Islands.    

Prior to joining the Ministry, Mr Kairua has held various positions including being on the first Māori Language Commission. He has worked as Producer and Director of Kairoi, a five-hour a week cultural TV programme at Cook Islands Broadcasting. Subsequently, he served as General Manager and Managing Director at Cook Islands Broadcasting. Mr Kairua has previously worked as Product and Marketing Manager for Island Hopper Vacations and at The Edgewater Resort and Spa, serving as the Director of Sales and Marketing, Cultural Ambassador, and General Manager. 

Dr Hae-Bo Kim is the Advising Director of the Policy and Strategy Division at the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture (SFAC). Since joining SFAC in 2004, he has overseen business management, arts education, research and policy development, arts grants, cultural space development and festival production. He regularly contributes to the SFAC Issue Paper Culture + Policy.  

As Director of the Korea Regional Culture Policy Institute (KRCPI), affiliated with the National Assembly of Foundations for Arts and Culture (NAFAC), Dr Kim leads collaborative research across 17 metropolitan cultural foundations. He recently led research on regional cultural development titled Research on Strategies to Enhance Regional Attractiveness and Vitality through Locality and Culture, for the Presidential Committee for Decentralization and Balanced Development (PCDBD).  

Dr Kim lectures on culture and technology and cultural policy at the University of Seoul, exploring topics like cultural globalisation, algorithmic culture and emotional economics. He holds a PhD in Sociology from University of Seoul (UOS).  

RAY LC is an artist and researcher whose practice investigates how humans adapt to new methods of interaction in creative expression involving artificial intelligence (AI) and machines. RAY LC holds a PhD in Neuroscience from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design, New York. He is currently Assistant Professor of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong and is the Founder of the Studio for Narrative Spaces.  

RAY LC’s artistic practice is informed by his neuroscience research Nature Communications and human-computer interaction. He has exhibited his work internationally, including at the New York Hall of Science, KYOTO Design Lab, Ars Electronica Linz, Osage Gallery, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and ISEA. His work has received awards from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Hong Kong Arts Development Council and NY Foundation for the Arts.

Ms Marie Le Sourd has been Secretary General of On the Move, the international cultural mobility information network, since 2012. Prior to this position, Ms Le Sourd worked at the Asia-Europe Foundation (Cultural Department) in Singapore from 1999 to 2006 and directed the French Cultural Centre in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from 2006 to 2011.

Ms Micaela Mantegna is a lawyer, researcher and council member of the World Economic Forum. She is also known as 'Abogamer', specialising in video game law and advocacy, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) ethics, extended reality (XR) policy, and the intersection of AI with creativity, culture and copyright law. A 2022 TED Fellow, her talk on metaverse ethics has reached over 1.5 million views. She has held affiliations with the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and currently with MetaLAB (Harvard, Berlin, Basel), while serving as both a Salzburg Global Fellow and Datasphere Initiative Fellow. Ms Mantegna’s published works include ARTficial: creativity, AI and copyright (2022) and is working on Braindancing in the Metaverse: a capitalism of cognitive surveillance forthcoming in 2025, examining digital capitalism's impact on creativity, neuroscience, intellectual property, AI ethics and aesthetics.  

Dr Tomás Peters is a cultural sociologist based in Santiago, Chile and is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Communications and Image, University of Chile. Dr Peters holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from Birkbeck, University of London and his main areas of research include sociology of art, Latin American studies and cultural policy. Dr Peters has previously held a visiting researcher position at the Ibero-American Institute Berlin and has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Guadalajara, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Iztapalapa.

Mr Zikri Rahman is a writer, translator, independent researcher, and curator. Mr Zikri is currently a Researcher for Malaysia, Arts Equator’s Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database and an experienced Programme Coordinator at Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, an independent archive dedicated to documenting the people’s history of Malaysia and Singapore. In 2011, Mr Zikri co-founded Buku Jalanan, a grassroots street library movement aimed at decentralising and democratising knowledge and cultural production and initiated LiteraCity, a literary and cultural mapping project of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Mr Zikri has contributed to projects including the DEMO: An Oral History of Protest in Malaysia project for Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, the Southeast Asian Arts Censorship Database for Arts Equator and is the co-editor for Where are the people? People’s theater in Inter-Asian Societies (2022).  

Ms Chaymaa Ramzy Zaatout has more than 17 years' international experience in arts management, production and consultancy across the Middle East and North Africa regions. She holds a BA in Business Administration from Alexandria University, Egypt and is an international fellow of Arts Management and Strategic Planning in the Arts from the DeVos Institute, Washington DC, USA and the Business School of the Arts, University of Maryland, USA.  

Her work focuses on strategic development in the arts and education, designing programmes that engage communities and build partnerships. She has a strong history of working with public, private and civil society partners across the creative sectors, particularly in arts, education, and creative economy research.  

Ms Ramzy Zaatout is the Founder of Creative Invest as well as Executive Director of Shelter Art Space, Egypt, and previously served as Art Manager at the Anna Lindh Foundation, Egypt.  

Dr Shain Shapiro is an author and global thought leader working at the intersection of music, culture and urban policy. He is currently Founder and Executive Chairman of Sound Diplomacy and Executive Director of the Center for Music Ecosystems.   

In his book This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better, Dr Shapiro explores fresh approaches to valuing music in cities and places. He writes extensively about music’s role in cities, tourism, the night-time economy, real estate and recovery. His work includes a comprehensive guide to music and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developed in partnership with the United Nations (UN).   

Dr Shapiro delivered the first TEDx talk on music's role in cities and speaks at global conventions, including South by Southwest (SXSW) and the UN World Urban Forum. He earned his PhD from the University of London.  

Ms Susannah Tantemsapya is the founder and Executive Director of Creative Migration and Bangkok 1899, based in Los Angeles and Bangkok. She is the producer of Creatives for Climate Action - Thailand (CCAT), a member of the convening team for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Entertainment and Culture for Climate Action (ECCA) initiative, a non-profit advisor for the Entertainment + Culture Pavilion, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Hollywood Climate Summit. She is a global ambassador and fellow at the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), was included in Tatler's Gen.T Asia List (2019), is a founding member of Soho House Bangkok, and an advisor for Brackish Water Los Angeles (Getty: Pacific Standard Time 2024).   

Ms Tantemsapya holds a BA in Photojournalism from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill. She has participated in the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and architecture workshop at Arcosanti, which has shaped her commitment to environmental preservation.

Solamalemalo Dr Hai-Yuean Tualima is an expert in traditional knowledge and intellectual property in the Pacific. Currently she is a Senior Law Lecturer at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. Her PhD research in Samoa, using Talanoa Research Methodology, offers practical solutions for the protection and preservation of traditional knowledge.   

In 2023, Solamalemalo led Pacific country negotiations on the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Treaty on intellectual property, genetic resources, and traditional knowledge. She was the first Pacific Islander appointed as a WIPO Indigenous Fellow (2015-2017), where she worked on advancing global negotiations on these issues.   

Solamalemalo formally established the first National Human Rights Institution in Samoa (2013). She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, and Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and Master of Laws (LLM) with First Class Honours from the University of Waikato. She was admitted as Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand (2010), and to the bar in Samoa, (2014).  

Ms Samba Yonga is a journalist, communications specialist and cultural curator based in Lusaka, Zambia. She is co-founder and Museum Director of the Women’s History Museum of Zambia, an institution established to research and restore African Indigenous narratives, knowledge and living histories of women using digital technologies.  

Her curatorial work and research centres on preserving African cultural heritage as part of decolonial practice. Ms Yonga works to centre Indigenous knowledge systems alongside communities to support the process of correcting knowledge asymmetries to validate the knowledge production process of local communities. She is also involved in future-modelling design for museums and sites of memory for cultural heritage across Africa.  

Ms Yonga is the founder and managing partner of Ku-Atenga Media, a communications agency that designs strategies to impact development for Africans, by Africans.