Stijn Aelbers is Internews’ Senior Humanitarian Advisor. He has been working to improve access to information for communities in crisis for more than a decade and has supported Internews programming in response to natural disasters, conflict, and pandemics. Before working for Internews, Stijn was a senior journalist and Editor for the Belgian public broadcaster, as well as supporting UNFPA projects in Uganda. Stijn supports Internews to improve community engagement, communication with affected communities and accountability in humanitarian crises. Among other things, he was involved in Rumour Tracking and misinformation projects in the Mediterranean Refugee Response, Nepal, Haiti, Bangladesh and during the COVID-19 Pandemic. He has implemented and supervised information ecosystem assessments to understand the information dynamics in affected communities and has spearheaded the development of the Trust Analytical Framework to understand why people trust or distrust certain information and how people make those decisions. He’s also part of the global advisory team of Signpost, an initiative led by IRC, MercyCorps, Nethope and Internews, providing information for people on the move. He’s an active member of the H2H-Network, CDAC-Network and he is regularly engaged with the IASC-Task Force on Accountability.

Chris Barrie retired from full time service in 2002 after 42 years in the RAN. In the last four years of service he served as the Australian Chief of the Defence Force (CDF). His service was honoured in Australia, the United States and Singapore. Since 2002, he has worked on strategic leadership issues as consultant, teacher and mentor at Oxford University, the National Defense University in Washington DC, and at the Australian National University. In 2015 he was an author of a report titled “Climate Change, Security and the ADF”. He is a co-founder of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group from 2021. Chris is the Australian chair of the Global Military Advisory Council on Climate Change.

Dr. Bragg is a former Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the United Nations (2008-2013). As the ASG, she was the deputy head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Prior to her secondment to the UN, she has spent 24 years in the federal public service of Canada. During this time, she served in multiple departments, including the Canadian International Development Agency, where she was the responsible for the International Humanitarian Assistance, Peace and Security Program from 2004 to 2008. As Canada’s senior official, she was a member of the Advisory Group of the UN Central Emergency Response Fund and the Board of Directors of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre. She represented Canada on the Executive Committee and Executive Board of the UN High Commission for Refugees and the World Food Program. In 2016-2020, she was appointed member of the Governing Council of University of Toronto.

Dr. Bragg continues to contribute to humanitarian affairs and academic advancement through her participation in major national and multi-national humanitarian initiatives, governance and advisory bodies. For the past 10 years, she was Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Humanitarian Action, University College Dublin, and is a frequently invited speaker in universities in Europe and Asia. In total, she has visited over 100 countries and been involved in response to close to 30 humanitarian crises and situations.

Dr. Bragg received her degrees from University of Toronto (B.Sc. Psychology), University of Cambridge (M.Phil. Criminology) and the State University of New York at Albany (Ph.D. Criminal Justice).

Isabelle has been engaged in the humanitarian sector since 1987.

Her first field experience was in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. She subsequently spent 12 years in the field in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kenya and Somalia.

Back in France in 1999, she first worked for four years with the Samu Social de Paris before joining ACF in January 2005 as Desk Officer.

In March 2013 she was promoted to a Regional Director position.
She has been the Director of Operations of ACF- France between August 2016 and April 2021.
Isabelle has joined OCHA Afghanistan in June 2021.

Dr Alistair D. B. Cook is Coordinator of the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interests focus on the Asia-Pacific, and Myanmar in particular, on humanitarian affairs, disaster governance, foreign policy and regional cooperation. He currently serves as the President of the Asia-Pacific Region of the International Studies Association 2018 – 2021. He has recently published Knowledge Management and Humanitarian Organisations in the Asia-Pacific: Practices, Challenges, and Future Pathways (with Mely Caballero-Anthony and Christopher Chen in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, First view 2020), Disaster governance and prospects of inter-regional partnership in the Asia-Pacific (with Christopher Chen in The Pacific Review, 2020), and Conceptualising humanitarian civil-military partnerships in the Asia-Pacific: (Re-)ordering cooperation (with Sangeetha Yogendran in Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2020). His forthcoming publications include Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: A Decade of Perspectives (with Tamara Nair by World Scientific Press, in press) and Humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific: Engaging the Debate in Policy and Practice (with Lina Gong by Springer, in press). | Email: [email protected] | Twitter: @beancook

Mr. England has worked in the international aid sector for three decades, including extended periods in Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania. During his career, Mr. England has been responsible for analysis and policy development, inter-agency coordination, security and crisis management, as well as emergency, humanitarian and development programme delivery. His expertise ranges from humanitarian diplomacy to the management of large-scale protection and assistance programmes for vulnerable populations in transitional or unstable environments. He has led strategic partnership, coordination and capacity sharing initiatives with local structures – government, Red Cross and others.

Over the past 20 years, Mr England served at the leadership level of International Committee of the Red Cross (the ICRC) country and regional operations. This included periods as Permanent Observer/Head of Delegation to the United Nations in New York, Head of Delegation in Kinshasa for the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Head of the Regional Delegations covering various countries in South and Southeast Asia, managed out of New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur respectively. Mr England also served in a number of management support roles for delegations under pressure notably as Head of Operations both in Washington DC, USA, and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he led national operations as well as the Tigray crisis response. He served as Deputy Head of Delegation in both Sierra Leone and Iraq.

Mr England has also worked with the United Nations as a Regional Manager for UNICEF-Uganda, with the Australian Red Cross as Pacific Regional Manager, and with the NGO International Social Service-Hong Kong Branch as Senior Centre Coordinator within their Migration Programme.

Mr England hails from New Zealand. He holds specialized humanitarian law, protection and security management certificates, as well as a Masters in Education. He is a trainer and mentor to young humanitarians, contributes to think tank and academic debates on humanitarian issues and is fluent in French.

Dr Guo Yang earned his Ph.D. in international law from China University of Politic Science & Law. He served as legal officer/diplomat for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1998 to 2005, and worked for the Regional Delegation for East Asia of the International Committee of the Red Cross as legal advisor and senior political advisor from 2005 to 2019. Currently, he is Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Red Cross Foundation. Dr Guo has worked extensively on law enforcement cooperation, promotion of international humanitarian law, as well as humanitarian action, policy, and diplomacy.  

Philomena Gnanapragasam is the CEO and Secretariat-Director of the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) formed under the auspices of UNESCO.

Prior to joining AIBD Philomena was Station Manager of Malaysia’s Pioneer English Radio Station, Traxxfm of the National Broadcasting Department (RTM). She has significant experience in both radio and television programming. She was also Senior News Editor for Prime time television.

Under her management leadership, Traxxfm won several international awards. The latest being the Blue Ribbon Award from World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2016 and she was instrumental in rebranding the English Radio Station. She also played as the key strategist in media planning for the 13th General Elections in Malaysia for RTM.

Philomena also has vast experience working abroad, particularly in Deutche Welle, Germany in 1995 and in Radio Australia in 2003. She is an accredited cross-cultural trainer from Deutche Welle and has conducted multiple media trainings in the Asia Pacific region.

As an industry expert, she is consulted by several universities and advises on the media curriculum for communication studies. She truly aims at inspiring young people to take media to the next level while aspiring to empower audiences. Her motto is “Always Inspire and Give Your Best”.

She is currently reinvigorating AIBDs mandate as an intergovernmental body focusing on media policies and pressing issues in the region.

She fully encourages the use of new tools and immersive technologies to enhance the continuity, popularity and relevance of traditional media. She is also advocating importance of spectrum space for sustaining traditional media in the region.

Dr Lina Gong is a Research Fellow with the Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Programme at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Her research interests include humanitarian studies, global governance, and non-traditional security studies in East Asia. She has published various journal articles, book chapters and edited books related to these areas. Her recent publications include two special journal issues “Humanitarian Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific, one edited book Humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific: Humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific, and one special journal issue “Southeast Asian Nontraditional Security Engagement”.

Ritwik Gupta is an artificial intelligence researcher focusing on humanitarian assistance and disaster response. His work focuses on reducing the amount of time, effort, and danger first responders face when heading into chaotic, unpredictable events such as natural disasters and wars. His research on topics such as automated building damage assessment and detection of illegal fishing vessels have been deployed worldwide for numerous events such as the Australian bushfires, the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake, and at task forces to curb IUU fishing. Ritwik is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Berkeley in Artificial Intelligence and Public Policy where he leads Berkeley’s AI Research Climate Initiative and also serves as the Deputy Technical Director for Autonomy at the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. He has been detailed as an Advisor for AI Policy to the Department of Justice and previously led a research lab at Carnegie Mellon University on AI for disaster response.

Rahmawati (Ama) Husein is as an Advisory Board member of the Indonesian National Disaster Management Agency. She is also a vice chair of Muhammadiyah Disaster Management Center (MDMC), a unit of Muhammadiyah Organization, one of the largest FBOs/NGOs/CBOs in Indonesia with 35 million members, which respond to 50-75 disasters/crisis annually. Currently,  she serves as a committee member of Indonesian Humanitarian Alliance for Rohingya Refugees both in Myanmar and Bangladesh as well as an executive board of Humanitarian Forum Indonesia(HFI), an interfaith-based organization forum and a member of Humanitarian Country Team (HCT). She is also an assistant professor of the Jusuf Kalla School of Government, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, where she teaches urban and development planning, disaster management, and research methods. She has been working in disaster/humanitarian related works for more than15 years. Since 2018, she was selected as an Advisory Group of United Nation Central Emergency Respond Fund.

Professor Randolph Kent is the director of the Humanitarian Futures initiative and website. He also is a Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College, London, and is working with the Royal United Services Institute on an initiative called the Futures Project.

Janet Lim was formerly the Assistant High Commissioner in charge of operations at the UNHCR, until her retirement in 2015.

During her 34 years with the United Nations, she has served in various positions both in UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva and in the field. Her field assignments have included leading UNHCR’s country and emergency operations in different parts of the world, including Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Western Sahara, Syria and Turkey. In Geneva, she served in senior positions which included being Director of the Emergency and Security Services, Director of the Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, before becoming the Assistant High Commissioner (Operations). During her UN career she had also been seconded to UNAIDS and to UNAMA, the peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.

After her retirement, she had a stint as an Executive in Residence with the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) and has been and still is a Fellow at the School of Social Sciences in the Singapore Management University (SMU).She also served on the Board of a couple of INGOs.

She was appointed a member of a UN constituted Board of Inquiry into specific incidents in NW Syria from Sept 2019-Mar 2020.

In recent years, she has been engaged in a wide range of philanthropic projects in Singapore and in the region, as administrator of an estate dedicated to charitable organisations.

Ms. Lim graduated from the University of Singapore in 1975 with a Bachelor of Social Science (honors). After a stint in the Administrative Service of the Singapore Civil Service, she pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, majoring in Development studies, before joining the United Nations.

After serving 35 years in the IPS (Indian Police Service), Dr. PM Nair, (MA & PhD in Sociology and LLB), retired from the Government as Director General (National Head) of the four agencies of Govt. of India, viz., the National Disaster Response Force, the Civil Defence, the Home Guards and the Fire Services.

In this position, he has attended several aspects of disaster preparation management, response mitigation, disaster prevention, etc.  The tasks included humanitarian affairs including planning, application and policy formulation.  Civil, military partnership in disaster was one of the significant activity in the job profile.

Dr. Nair has been serving as Head of the Police force in several districts in India where he was called upon to attend to the matters of Civil and military partnership in different types of disasters including floods, earthquake, riots and so on. While serving as the Inspector General of CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) in Jammu & Kashmir, he was called upon to attend to the entire response and mitigation activities in India in the context of the Afghanistan-centred massive earthquake, as well as heavy snow fall, leading to several calamities.

As the head of the National disaster response system, he had brought out a ‘National Grid’ on disaster response and mitigation by identifying the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders in a matrix which could bring in seamless responsibility sharing and synergic actions.

Dr. Nair has brought in several significant changes in the response systems including gender sensitization and child sensitization responses.  The theory and practice adopted by him was synergic partnership of all stakeholders, transforming them from stakeholders to duty holders.  This helped the communities in a significant way in building disaster resilience.  Dr. Nair is also an international expert on human trafficking matters, having served with UNODC and  several Government agencies in India including Police, CBI, etc. as well as the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations.  He has personally rescued thousands of victims of trafficking and facilitated rescue of more than 60,000 victims of trafficking. This includes victims from disaster scenario also.  He has personally trained more than 110,000 stakeholders in the process.  After leaving the Govt., he worked as Professor with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, for six years carrying out research, teaching and training in all related matters including disaster preparedness and mitigation.  Presently, he is an Advisor and Expert Resource faculty with several Universities/ premier institutions in India.

The President of India has awarded Dr. PM Nair with the Medal for Meritorious Service and the Medal for Distinguished Services.  He has been recipient of several commendations and letters of Appreciation from the Supreme Court and Government of India.

BG Ng Pak Shun joined the Republic of Singapore Air Force in 2000 as an Air Warfare Officer (Air Battle Management). BG Ng graduated from the French Command & Staff Course in 2012 and the Indonesian Joint Command & Staff Course in 2018. During his career, he held various command and staff appointments, including Senior Assistant Director of Research and Enterprise Division at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Commanding Officer of 200 Squadron, and Deputy Director of Defence Policy Office at the Ministry of Defence. He was appointed Head of Air Training Department in Jan 2019 and Head of Air Plans Department in Feb 2020, prior to his appointment as Commander Air Defence and Operations Command in Jan 2021.

BG Ng assumed his current appointments as Group Chief, Policy & Strategy and Group Chief, Plans & Transformation in Mar 2022.

He was awarded the SAF Good Service Medal; Long Service Award (10 years); Long Service Award (15 years); Long Service Award (20 years) and Public Service Administration (Military)(Silver).

BG Ng is a recipient of the SAF Overseas Scholarship, and graduated with a master’s degree in international relations and bachelor’s degrees in economics and public policy studies from the University of Chicago. He then received a bachelor’s degree in translation & interpretation (English/Chinese) from the Singapore University of Social Sciences, and a master’s degree in sciences historiques, philologiques et religieuses from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He is a recipient of the SAF Postgraduate Award, and most recently graduated with a Master of Business Administration from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Sloan School of Management.

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong is Executive Deputy Chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is concurrently Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) and Head of International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at RSIS. Mr Ong continues to hold the position of Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also Singapore’s Non-Resident High Commissioner to Pakistan and Non-Resident Ambassador to Iran.

Mr Ong was High Commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia from July 2011 to October 2014. He served as Secretary-General of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), based in Jakarta, Indonesia, for five years from January 2003.

He was Singapore’s High Commissioner to India and concurrently Ambassador to Nepal from 1996 to 1998. From September 1998 to December 2002, he was Press Secretary to the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Goh Chok Tong. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

COL Tan Eng Han Fredie is presently the Deputy Chief Guards Officer in the Guards Formation, Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). He is also concurrently the Director of Changi Regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Coordination Centre (Changi RHCC).

Enlisted into the SAF on 27 September 1996, COL Tan was commissioned as an Infantry Officer on 26 September 1997, and completed the Guards Officers Conversion Course in 1998. He has served in numerous command and staff appointments in the SAF over the last 26 years.

COL Tan’s key command appointments included Commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion Singapore Guards, and Commander of a NS Infantry Brigade. His staff appointments included Head Plans & Doctrine, and Head General Staff in the Guards Formation. He was also Head of Overseas Training Policy and Plans in the Singapore Army General Staff, and Head of Doctrine Development Group in HQ Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). Prior to his present appointment, COL Tan was the Head of SAF Centre for Leadership Development in SAFTI Military Institute.

COL Tan attained a Bachelor of Commerce (Management) from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He also completed a Master of Arts (Instructional Design and
Technology) from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a Fellow of the Australian War College, and graduated from the Defence and Strategic Studies Course with a Master of International Relations from Deakin University, Australia.

COL Tan was awarded the SAF Tsunami Relief Operation medal for his role as the Deputy Ops Officer in Operation FLYING EAGLE, the SAF’s largest HADR deployment in the aftermath of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. As Director RHCC, COL Tan looks forward to strengthen the regional and global HADR networks, as well as the disaster relief preparedness of the SAF with its partners..

COL Tan is happily married to Chin Chin, with three children Adelaide, Aden and Ancel.

Professor Hideshi Tokuchi served as the nation’s first-ever Vice-Minister of Defense for International Affairs from 2014 to 2015 after completing several senior assignments in the Ministry of Defense, including the Director-General of Defense Policy Bureau, of Budget and Equipment Bureau, of Personnel and Education Bureau, and of Operations Bureau.

He has been the President of the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS), an independent think-tank in Tokyo, since June 2021. He is teaching security studies at a number of universities in Tokyo as well.

He earned his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Tokyo in 1979, and his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (M.A.L.D.) degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1986.

Dr. Xu Shiling is a lecturer of humanitarian policy at the International Academy of the Red Cross & Red Crescent in Soochow University. She teaches humanitarian architecture and principles and climate as humanitarian topic for both college students and practitioners. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Peking University in 2008 and Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2015.

Before joining Soochow University in 2020, Shiling was an analyst at the UNDP-China Risk Governance Innovation Research Project and the Innovation Center for Risk Governance at Beijing Normal University. She has been a pro bono in disaster information management and emergency decision-making support and co-founder of Zhuoming Info Aid since 2010.

From 2018 to 2020, she wrote a monthly column on observation of civil society organizations in disaster response and international humanitarian dynamics for the journal China Disaster Reduction (《中国减灾》). In 2023, Shiling completed and published translation of Humanitarian Ethics. A Moral Guide to Aid in Wars and Disasters by Hugo Slim.