Democracy, Violent Extremism & Tech-Enabled Harms

Rubén is the Director of Programmes at Club de Madrid, a Senior Research Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute and a visiting professor of International Relations in various Spanish universities. Since 2004, he has worked at Club de Madrid in the supervision, design and implementation of different projects in countries like Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru and South Africa. He is also involved in thematic programmes including Social Inclusion, Women Political Participation and Terrorism, Democracy and Human Rights. At Club de Madrid, he has been the Programme Coordinator from 2010 to 2023. He previously worked as Programme Officer and Assistant to the Programme Director. He has a BA in Journalism and is a PhD candidate in International Relations. He is preparing the presentation of his doctoral thesis on the nonviolent politics of the Indian nationalist movement and the African-American civil rights movement.

Brett Kubicek joined the Canadian public service in 2005 after completing his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University, as well as a BA from the University of British Columbia. He is currently Chief Advisor Research and Strategy for the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, housed at the Department of Public Safety. The Canada Centre was established in 2017 to lead the federal government’s efforts to counter radicalization to violence, online and offline, a role which is separate from but complementary to national security and criminal justice approaches to countering violent extremism. From 2007 to 2016 he served as Public Safety’s liaison for the National Justice Statistics Initiative, and from 2011 to 2016 he was also the manager responsible for Public Safety’s Kanishka Project, a five-year $10M Government of Canada initiative investing in research on terrorism and counterterrorism, where the focus was on building evidence for preventative approaches.

Anthony has been working in Lebanon for the past 19 years piloting and promoting applied theories for Engaging Men in Ending Violence Against Women and Transformative Masculinities in the MENA region. He is a psychologist and also holds a Master’s degree in Gender Studies. Some of his notable achievements in his work thus far are as follows: Managed the 1st ever White Ribbon Campaign in MENA; Develops and oversees Research on Masculinities in Conflict settings in Lebanon; Creates and Advises on Advocacy campaigns designed for Men and Boys; Developed several Gender Equality Training workbooks and manuals on Masculinities  in MENA; established the 1st psychological rehabilitation clinic for men with abusive behaviors in MENA; and He participated in expert panels for the CEDAW commission as well as on the 1st Human Rights Council Resolution for Engaging Men and Boys to end GBV.

Sara Qasem is a Palestinian poet, community advocate and educator based in Ōtautahi, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her writing moves between memory, testimony and resistance– exploring what it means to carry homeland, grief and belonging across diaspora. Through poetry, essays and public speaking, Sara works to ensure diasporic stories are neither silenced nor forgotten, believing that language can serve as both archive and lifeline.

Sara’s work has been published and performed across Aotearoa– frequently speaking on issues of identity, community and justice. Alongside her creative practice, she contributes to advocacy and policy conversations through her work connected to The Christchurch Call and wider community initiatives addressing hate and violence.

Guided by her experience as a Palestinian and Muslim woman, Sara writes toward collective memory and survival, holding space for grief while working to ensure the conditions that enable hatred and violence are not repeated.

Shruthi specializes in strategy for democracy & civil rights.  For the past decade, she led the gender equity practice at Dalberg Advisors, where she worked with multilateral clients (e.g., the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General, Spotlight Initiative), civil society organizations (e.g., the National Domestic Workers Alliance, FUTURES Without Violence, the Global Fund for Widows) and philanthropic organizations (several large and small family offices and institutional philanthropies).  She serves on the board of Equimundo, Women Donors Network, and Rise Up Together.

Felicity Mulford leads work tackling Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) and partners with academics to test AI systems. Through this work, Felicity combines her commitment to gender equality and gender-informed tech development with data-driven insights to strengthen evidence and empower communities.

At the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), she leads a TFGBV programme in Ethiopia (evidence gathering, community building, and designing youth-led toolkits) and research on gendered abuse in the 2024 US elections. She spearheads the organisation’s annual “16 Days of Activism Against GBV” campaigns and the “Gender Lens” initiative – a dedicated hub for investigating and exposing Gender-Based Violence through digital investigations.

Felicity is a Hillary Rodham Clinton Global Challenges Scholar and worked with international lawyers to investigate war crimes. She holds a BA and two MAs (International Relations & Law), with multiple publications and academic awards. Beyond work, Felicity manages a music event to raise funds for various charities.

Odanga Madung is a Kenyan data journalist and researcher whose work examines how digital platforms reshape power, democracy, and public accountability. He is the co-founder and Managing Director of Odipo Dev, a Nairobi-based media and impact think tank, and has written for outlets including The Guardian, WIRED and CNN on disinformation, platform governance, and the political economy of attention. His focus is strengthening the integrity of the information environment and understanding how media systems shape democratic outcomes—particularly from the vantage point of the Global South.

He was also a Mozilla Fellow and has helped surface and challenge disinformation-for-hire ecosystems and advance real-world accountability conversations with major tech platforms. He’s also currently on the boards of DW Akademie and Amnesty International Kenya.

Vidhya Ramalingam is Founder and CEO of Moonshot, an organization empowering people to thrive online. Under her leadership, Moonshot has pioneered a proven model to offer lifesaving services online to people considering violence; collaborations with tech companies like Spotify and Google to ensure safer user experiences; and critical support to institutions and individuals facing online abuse. Moonshot has twice been named to Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies list. Vidhya is also recognized internationally for her role leading policy responses to terrorism. Following the 2011 attacks in Norway, she led the European Union’s first intergovernmental initiative on white supremacist terrorism. She has been recognized by Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and sits on Spotify’s Safety Advisory Council. Watch her TED talk: The real-world danger of online myths.

Andrew Pel is Head of Campaigns at Moonshot, where he develops evidence-based interventions for online harms. His work addresses violent misogyny, extremism, disinformation, and other challenges young men face online. In Canada, Andrew leads multi-sectoral programs that connect individuals engaging with violent extremist content to confidential support services. He also develops gender-based violence and suicide prevention campaigns that connect people in crisis to local responders. More recently, Andrew ran a global media literacy initiative for Google, reaching over 200 million people across Europe and Indonesia and helping citizens recognize online manipulation tactics. Andrew is committed to translating research into solutions that engage men and boys in positive, pro-social ways.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a Professor in the Schools of Public Affairs and Education at the American University, where she is also the founding director and chief vision officer in the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). She writes frequently for the public, most recently in Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism,  as an opinion columnist for MS Now, and in recent by-lines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Politico, and more.Her current book-in-progress, on how gender is dividing a new generation, reports on qualitative research with young men across five countries.

Sasha Havlicek is a social and policy entrepreneur who, for the last two decades, has incubated and scaled global initiatives to counter the rise of weaponised hate, disinformation and extremism, on- and offline. As founding CEO of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, she has led the build-out of ISD’s advanced digital analytics capability designed to detect and mitigate information threats to democracy, public safety and national security. Spearheading ISD’s extensive partnerships with governments, cities, businesses and communities, Sasha oversees teams delivering research, policy advisory, training, digital literacy and communications programming around the world.

Sasha has advised a range of governments at the highest levels, has testified before US Congress and the UK Parliament, and is a regular commentator in the media (CNN, BBC, Channel 4 News and other networks). She is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Global Internet Forum on Counter-Terrorism, the Christchurch Call and the Global Partnership for Action against Tech Facilitated Gender Based Violence. She is a founding board member of the Forum on Information and Democracy and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition on Internet Safety.