Theme: We are the World - Identifying Identity

Over the last 30 years the world got more and more accessible not only for the elite and explorers, but for all of us. Information travels from one end of the world to the other in seconds. 5 billion people have access to the internet – and are “connected”- we are the world. But what does this mean for us as humans, organizations, cultures and their identity? What role does identity play at all in personal or organizational development or peace in the world? Personal identity, social identity, cultural identity, digital identity, corporate identity…. And how have they changed over the last decades?

Es Saadi Gardens and Resort Hotel
Avenue Ibrahim El Mazini
Marrakesh, Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz, 40000
Morocco

Art Academy

The Art Academy Marrakesh is the No. 1 Dance and Music School in Marrakesh. The students have created a unique dance piece just for TEDxMarrakesh around the topic of identity. In different styles they show the different angles of Identity - a creative approach!

Camelia Meftoul

Student

Camélia Meftoul is a 22-year old student studying Civil Engineering at the University of Southern California. She grew up in Casablanca, in an eminently culturally diverse environment, before moving to Los Angeles at 17 to pursue her studies. Her experiences shaped her unique perspective on the world and have created a strong will to understand the notion of identity. As a young woman in STEM, Camélia has stayed very active in her community, where she has held executive positions at the University of Southern California chapters of international organizations, including Vice-President of the Construction Management Association of America, Geotechnical Team Capitan of the American Society of Civil Engineers and Membership Chair of Alpha Omega Epsilon. In an effort to promote STEM fields, Camélia has mentored girls in middle-schools by shedding light to females in Engineering, and hopes to encourage more Moroccan girls to follow such careers and become the powerful leaders of tomorrow.

Dakota Gruener

Executive Director

Dakota Gruener is the Executive Director of ID2020, a global public-private partnership shaping the future of digital identity. As Executive Director, she leads overall strategy, builds critical partnerships with public and private-sector stakeholders, and continually focuses the organization on reaching the "last girl." Dakota comes to ID2020 from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, where she served as an aide-de-camp to the CEO. Gavi is an innovative global public-private partnership that acts as the central coordinating body for childhood vaccinations in the developing world, and which reaches nearly 60% of the world's children with live-saving vaccines. Dakota graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in Providence, RI with dual degrees in Biology and Political Science, is a former management consultant with Oliver Wyman, and is a proud Californian.

Florian Langenscheidt

Author

Florian did studies in German Literature, Journalism and Philosophy in Munich; Ph.D. on advertising and studies in Publishing at Harvard University, Cambridge; two years in publishing in NY; Master of Business Administration at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France; from 2002 to 2009 member of the supervisory board at the Bibliographisches Institut & F.A.Brockhaus AG (publishing house of Brockhaus, Meyer, Duden; 1988-2001); since 2002 member of the supervisory board; publisher and personally liable associate of the Langenscheidt Publishing Group (with father and brother; until 1994); author of books incl. "1000 Glücksmomente" (Heyne, 2010, "Langenscheidts Handbuch zum Glück" (Heyne, 2012) and newspaper and magazine articles. Editor of over 20 books, speaker of the board of trustees of "Deutscher Gründerpreis", member of the World-Wide Fund for Nature's (WWF) board of trustees; initiator and head of the executive board of the global children's organisation "Children for a Better World".

Harald Neidhardt

Visionary

"We live in times of unprecedented change & opportunity. Together, we can create a new generation of European leadership for a better tomorrow." Harald is passionate about meaning in technology, the future of exponential technologies and its opportunities for society, brands and entrepreneurs – especially in Europe. Together with a select group of an inspiring futurist faculty, leading innovators and creative minds, he is launching a new platform and community for European innovation leaders to help co-create a vision for desirable futures. For MLOVE, Harald created M – the MLOVE Forum, as an unconventional event series that brings together innovators for inspiring events at amazing locations. Harald is a Singularity University alumnus and has spoken on Innovation at events, including TEDx, SXSW, SingularityU Summit (NL/USA), Wired, Next, MWC/4YFN and is a speaker at corporate executive events.

Helena Westin

Board Professional

Helena Westin is an expert in brands and communication as tools for change and leadership. From her base in Stockholm, Sweden, Helena has a long career both in the highly commercial business sector and as an activist for human rights. She is one of the founders of Pride in Sweden, a movement that today is the largest event in northern Europe. Her business career involves high profile positions as one of the first female CEO’s of an international ad agency, the today iconic agency af Paradiset DDB. Famous for the global campaigns for Diesel Jeans in the 90’s. But she has also worked both in the media and publishing sector and in tele com with a focus on digital business development for Aftonbladet/Shibsted, and mobile operator 3 (owned by Investor and Hutchinson). Today Helena is a board professional with a broad range of companies from the Swedish Televison, to design agency Identity Works, fintech company Cinnober Financial Technology to Stockholm Head Hunting + Dynamic Code.

Ilkka Havala

Futurist

Ilkka Halava is Futurist, Foresight Coach and CEO of Prime Frontier Oy and Future Works Oy and a Board Member of Helsinki Futures Specialists. He is a professional and luminous speaker, Finland’s most popular keynote speaker in 2017. With socio-cultural and applied futures research tools he makes decision-making understandable in future evolution. He guides composers of new models, concepts and breakthroughs to find their own goals - and to achieve them. Extreme Business Makeover - No Box Required. Ilkka is a warm-hearted radical addicted to learning. He has true understanding of systems which, put together with his media mastery, allows him to drive development in society as much as in products, business and concepts.

Jamal Amiar

Journalist

Media trainer and analyst, consultancy in institutional and internal communication. More than 25 years of experience as business events and conferences organizer and facilitator, and media content producer (Print, web, radio and television). Professor of journalism, media business and writing skills at The Fahd School of Communication, Translation and Journalism. Assistant-Professor of French literature at renowned US Colleges, Bennington College, Vermont, and Williams College, Massachussets.

Katrin Witt

Meditation and Yoga teacher

Based in Germany and Marrakesh, Katrin Witt is a Corporate Communications Consultant and Yoga Teacher. Within her career in the consulting agency world where she advised a broad range of clients reaching from public authority to companies which she always loved and still does as communication is a trade of course. But each and any client needs a different approach wich still makes every project exciting and inspiring as it it always a question of identifying identification. Parallely to that career Katrin stepped into Yoga where she found peace and strength from the very beginning – serenity and gratitude followed. The desire being able to pass that to others has initiated her asking for a break in her job to do the first yoga teacher training in 2013 in India. With the then even more aroused interest in yoga and holistic life approaches, Gemini Katrin sorted things new to be able to integrate both professions in her life.

Magdalena Kowalczyk

TV Personality

Magdalena Kowalczyk is a Swedish TV-personality and podcast host with a Master of Science in marketing from Stockholm School of Economics. She is also a world championship gold medalist in Thai boxing and one of the first ever professional female fighters in Europe. Magdalena is on the executive board of the IFMA (International Federation of Muaythai Amateurs) and an inspiring entrepreneur who creates outdoor gyms all around Sweden. On TV you can see her both helping people in financial crisis as well as being the charismatic Gladiator named Athena.

Maryam Montague

Feminist, Activist, Journalist

Maryam Montague is passionate about women’s and girls’ rights. As a humanitarian aid worker, she has traveled the world working on diverse assignments, including running nation-wide women’s political advocacy campaigns, developing women sensitive voter education programs, and training women to run for political office. She is the founder and director of Project Soar, a non profit organization training 1000+ teen girls to be feminist leaders in Morocco and Uganda. She is also the founder of Agent GirlPower, the Arab world’s first feminist apparel brand in Arabic and English. She has been featured in over 100+ media outlets, including CNN and the BBC, and was recently the subject of the New York Times Saturday Profile as a person changing the world around her.

Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui

Musician

Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui, better known as Oum, is a Moroccan singer-songwriter. Considered an ambassador of Moroccan culture she mices hassani, jazz, gospel, soul, afrobeat and Sufi music influences in her songs. Oum, who grew up in Marrakech is a soul singer. Yet, her style remains unique since it's highly inspired by influences such as the Hassani poetry (Moroccan desert culture) and African rhythms. Oum studied at the National School of Architecture in Rabat for six years. Her first album Lik 'Oum was released in May 2009. In September 2015, she released her fourth album: Zarabi which means "carpets" and it is a tribute to the carpet weavers of the village of M’Hamid El Ghizlane. Her song Taragalte from the album Soul of Morocco was used in the 2018 movie “Beirut”.

Qaisar Mahmood

Writer

Qaisar Mahmood, born in Lahore, Pakistan, is a Swedish writer. He grew up in Lahore with his mother and sister, while his father lived in Sweden for some years as a labor immigrant. When Qaisar Mahmood was seven years old, the rest of the family followed the father and they settled in Tensta, Stockholm. Mahmood is educate Political magistrate degree in Political Science at Stockholm University in 1999. He was the Secretary General of the Integration Policy Committee that the bourgeois government laid down when it took office in 2006. Qaisar Mahmood has worked at the Office of the Auditor General, the Swedish Local Government, the Government Offices and the Integration Board. He is currently (2017) employed as Head of Department of the Riksantikvarieämbetet. In 2012 he published the book Hunting for Swedish (Nature & Culture), describing a 900 mile journey on motorcycles through Sweden to seek Swedish and Swedish identity. His first ficition novel ”Halva liv” (Unfinshied life) 2016.

Saeida Rouass

Writer

Saeida Rouass is a British novelist of Moroccan heritage. She is the author of Eighteen Days of Spring in Winter and Assembly of the Dead, set in Marrakesh in 1906 and based on the true story of The Moorish Jack the Ripper. She is currently working on Library of Untruths, set in 1912 Fes when Morocco became a French Protectorate, and the sequel to Assembly of the Dead. She has worked for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the Middle East and North Africa region, East Africa and Asia as a Trainer and Programme Manager. She has written for the Independent, Newsweek and culture and literature magazines.

Safiyeh Salehi Mobarakeh

CEO

Safiyeh Salehi Mobarakeh – Chair of the Board & co-founder, ZINC Foundation Being an intercultural connector with a passion for identifying synergies, Safiyeh specialises in liaising between The Netherlands and the MENA region. Her involvement and interest in the blockchain and social impact innovation realm lead her to co-founding ZINC Foundation with Tey Al Rjula and Khalid Maliki. Safiyeh acts as ZINC Foundation’s spokesperson and ambassador, combining her extensive relevant network, liaison qualities and public speaking background to generate awareness and create sustainable partnerships for the foundation.

Thomas Druyen

Researcher, Director, Professor

Thomas Druyen is one of the most reknown wealth and billionaire researchers in Europe. With his visionary way of thinking he is considered an expert on the complex effects of demographic change all over the world. His most recent research is in the field of future psychology and future management. It is about the better and preventive use and emotional understanding of digitization, globalization and artificial intelligence for business, politics and society. Druyen studied law, sociology, journalism and philology as well as anthropology at the University of Colombo and the University of Münster. From 2006 to 2010 he served there as director of the Forum for Research on Wealthibility. Since 2007 he has been a full professor at Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität in Vienna, in 2009 he has been appointed Director of the Institute for Wealthibility and Wealth Psychology, and since 2015 he is also serving as Founder and Director of the Institute for Future Psychology and Future Management.

Yassine Motaouakkil

Student

Yassine Motaouakkil is a young man at the intersection of multiple worlds and disciplines. Born in Morocco, fluent in French, English and Arabic, he constantly inhabits three different cultural milieus. At ease in all three, he took it upon himself to not only discover what united and differentiated these narratives and moral systems but also what was involved in their genesis. To set out on such an endeavour, he majored in Biology, with minors in math and chemistry, and participated in laboratory work on developmental systems. Outside of the STEM environment, he scoured the university library reading the great works ranging from the softer sciences, psychology and sociology, to the more romantically inclined disciplines like literature. He has extracted from his readings and experiences the following: our societies and lives are best lived as individuals with free will. The collective is best served by people actualizing their potential as they aim to surpass themselves.

Zoreh Tabatabai

Consultant / Activist

Zohreh Tabatabai has spent many years in high profile positions during her 30 years at the UN. As the chief coordinator of the UN’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, she created new strategies for assembling public-private partnerships to assure the success of the event, as well as insuring the continuation of such partnerships beyond the event itself. Over 100 heads of state travelled to New York to participate in the commemoration and celebration of the united Nation’s anniversary which Zohreh and her team coordinated. During her 20 years at UN headquarters, Ms. Tabatabai also served as Focal Point for Women and as Chief of the Public Services Section. Most recently she served at the International Labor Organization (ILO) as a senior member of the Director General’s Cabinet and as the Director of Communications, heading a team of 150 people. Throughout her tenure in the UN, she pioneered methods for bringing in outside partners to work on extending the UN’s visibility and effectiveness.