Masterclass Conversation Techniques in Debate

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer is a poet and writer. He has distinguished himself in almost every conceivable genre and is recognized as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary Dutch literature. He has more than 40 titles to his name, including poetry, novels, short stories, plays and essays. In 2014 he was awarded the Libris Literature Prize for his book La Superba. In addition to an ode to Genoa and its inhabitants, La Superba is primarily an impressive ode to the imagination.
His great novel Grand Hotel Europa was published at the end of 2018 about love in times of mass tourism, European identity, nostalgia and the end of an era. The book has sold over 200,000 copies and the translation rights have been sold to 20 countries.
His most recent work Quarantine is a compilation of the almost live report for the newspapers about corona from badly hit northern Italy during the first months of the pandemic.

Prof. Caroline Pauwels started the second term as rector of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in the academic year 2020-2021. She studied philosophy and communication sciences and has been associated with the communication sciences department since 1989. She obtained her PhD in 1995 for research that focused on the audiovisual policy of the European Union (EU). Subsequently, she specialized in European and national media policy issues and the economy of the media sector. From 2000 to 2016, Caroline Pauwels was director of the SMIT research center (iMinds / IMEC). She was awarded the domestic Francqui Chair by the University of Ghent in 2014 and was holder of the Jean Monnet Chair between 2012 and 2016. She also sits or sat on various boards of directors, until recently as government commissioner at the VRT and she is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts.

Jonathan Holslag is a lecturer in international politics at the VUB and as a political scientist associated with the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders. He is also Special Adviser to the First Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans. Holslag's academic work focuses on geopolitics, security and the role of Europe in the changing international order. He is a visiting lecturer at several foreign universities and at NATO's highest training college for generals. Together with Brieuc Van Damme, he founded the Vrijdaggroep in 2013, a think tank of young Belgian talents who work towards innovative answers to social challenges.
His research area covers China's economic, political and military developments, the geopolitical context within the Asian continent, China's relations with Africa and the partnership with Europe. Since 2014 he has been a Rockefeller Fellow of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and a Nobel Fellow at the Nobel Institute in Oslo.

Liesbeth Levy studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. After her studies she worked at debate centers de Rode Hoed and de Balie in Amsterdam. In Rotterdam she was head of debate at the Rotterdam Art Foundation and artistic director of debate center De Unie. During Rotterdam 2001, the European Capital of Culture, she was a staff member of debate and discourse and was responsible for the project "Sermons for Other's Parish". Since 2014, Liesbeth Levy has been director of LOKAAL, the center for democracy in Rotterdam and responsible for, among other things, the G1000 Rotterdam in 2017 and the youth top 010 in 2020. On March 4, 2020 she obtained her PhD at the University of Humanistics in Utrecht for a study into the effects of the government's use of dialogue as an instrument of pacification. She asks herself whether this does justice to the original philosophical meaning of the concept of dialogue - dialogue as a morally charged source of knowledge.

Warda El-Kaddouri studied Language and Literature at Ghent University and European Studies at KU Leuven. In 2015 she was elected as a UN youth representative. She holds a PhD in German literature on religion and identity and writes columns for MO * and De Morgen, among others, in which she talks about inclusion, sustainability, racism and discrimination. El-Kaddouri now lives in Amsterdam, where she works as a freelance journalist and researcher for De Groene Amsterdammer, among others. In January 2020 she was appointed as a Focuser by deBuren, Filosofie Magazine and Pilar. De Scherpsteller is an inspiring and emerging thinker who will be given a forum for two years with the task of focusing on social developments.

Khalid Benhaddou  is een Belgische imam. Hij is de hoofdimam van de El Fath-moskee in Gent en is een eigentijdse stem in de Vlaamse moslimwereld. Hij is islamleerkracht, voorzitter van het Platform van Vlaamse imams en directeur van CIRRA, een expertise- en onderzoekscentrum rond levensbeschouwing en diversiteit in Vlaanderen. In 2006 werd Benhaddou op achttienjarige leeftijd de jongste Vlaamse imam tot op dat moment. Hij zet in op de strijd tegen radicalisering van moslims in de westerse wereld. Als verbindingsfiguur poogt hij polariserende tendensen in de samenleving tegen te gaan. Hij poogt westerse waarden van de verlichting te verzoenen met de waarden uit de Koran. Mensenrechten kunnen volgens hem een referentiekader zijn voor maatschappelijke consensus en de basis zijn voor alle religies, en religie kan sociale normen brengen in een samenleving met zijn wetten.Hij is bestuurder bij het Vlaams Vredesinstituut en lid van de Commissie voor Medische Ethiek van het Universitair Ziekenhuis Gent. In 2019 werd hij aangeduid als opdrachthouder Diversiteit aan de Universiteit Gent.Khalid is een vaak geziene gast in duidingsprogramma’s als De Afspraak, Terzake en De Zevende Dag.