2022 World Fellow Kyriacos Koupparis

2022 World Fellow Kyriacos Koupparis

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Kyriacos Koupparis is Head of Frontier Innovations at the United Nations World Food Programme’s Innovation Accelerator. In this role, he leads a team that explores how emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and robotics – can be harnessed to catalyze impact within the context of humanitarian assistance and food security.

Previously, he worked for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as Senior Innovation Advisor where he designed and administered multi-million dollar programs to advance social and environmental prosperity across the globe. He spent the last 15 years working at the nexus between innovation and international development – first as a biomedical researcher working on drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases and further on in his career by managing programs to build better communities in emerging markets through science, technology, innovation and partnerships. He has worked in more than 20 countries throughout Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia through his various roles at the U.S. Department of State, USAID, and the United Nations.

Kyriacos is a native of Cyprus, was born in Johannesburg, and spent his adult years in the USA. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. He is a graduate of the Management of Technology program at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Wayne State University.

2022 World Fellow Huong Dang

2022 World Fellow Huong Dang

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Huong Dang is a social entrepreneur and founder of HopeBox, an NGO based in Vietnam that provides employment, training, and opportunities to victims of gender-based violence. Prior to this she worked as Director of Partnerships and Strategy of KOTO, an organization that aids and empowers at-risk and disadvantaged youth in Vietnam. From a humble beginning as a street kid, Huong made her way to Melbourne via a scholarship and was honored as Victoria’s International Student of the Year. In 2021, Huong was recognized as the winner of Women of the Future under the category of Social Entrepreneur. She is passionate about social enterprise and education and believes that innovative approaches can solve social problems. She completed a Master of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia.

23: The Colonial, the Post-Colonial, the Global

23: The Colonial, the Post-Colonial, the Global

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How does all this tie together? Class 23 brings the effects of the past century of imperialism into sharp focus.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.

Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day. What does it mean for a nation to exist? Is this a matter of structures, actions, or both? Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy? In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine? Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge? For that matter, how does any modern nation emerge? Why some and not others? Can nations be chosen, and can choices be decisive? If so, whose, and how? Ukraine was the country most touched by Soviet and Nazi terror: what can we learn about those systems, then, from Ukraine? Is the post-colonial, multilingual Ukrainian nation a holdover from the past, or does it hold some promise for the future?

Course reading list
Video version of this course available on YouTube.

22: Ukrainian Ideas in the 21st Century

22: Ukrainian Ideas in the 21st Century

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Class 22 brings us closer to the modern day and looks at the role of culture.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.

Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day. What does it mean for a nation to exist? Is this a matter of structures, actions, or both? Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy? In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine? Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge? For that matter, how does any modern nation emerge? Why some and not others? Can nations be chosen, and can choices be decisive? If so, whose, and how? Ukraine was the country most touched by Soviet and Nazi terror: what can we learn about those systems, then, from Ukraine? Is the post-colonial, multilingual Ukrainian nation a holdover from the past, or does it hold some promise for the future?

Course reading list
Video version of this course available on YouTube.

21: Comparative Russian Imperialism

21: Comparative Russian Imperialism

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Class 21 features guest lecturer, Professor Arne Westad, comparing Russian imperialism with other empires in recent centuries.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.

Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day. What does it mean for a nation to exist? Is this a matter of structures, actions, or both? Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy? In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine? Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge? For that matter, how does any modern nation emerge? Why some and not others? Can nations be chosen, and can choices be decisive? If so, whose, and how? Ukraine was the country most touched by Soviet and Nazi terror: what can we learn about those systems, then, from Ukraine? Is the post-colonial, multilingual Ukrainian nation a holdover from the past, or does it hold some promise for the future?

Course reading list
Video version of this course available on YouTube.