A native of Toronto, Daniel Aldana Cohen
obtained a BA in the History of Ideas and International Development
Studies from McGill University in Montreal, where he was the editor
of the independent student newspaper, The McGill Daily. He
has raced the 800 metres at the Canadian Junior Championships,
canoed into James Bay, and camped amid Inca ruins. He has lived and
studied in Paris and the South of France and worked as a freelance
journalist in Venezuela and Bolivia.
Ahmed Kayssi holds dual bachelor's degrees in
engineering chemistry and business German and is currently pursuing
an MSc in physiology at Queen's University. He hopes to become a
doctor and participate in the country's healthcare debate. However,
as a native Iraqi who lived in Egypt and Saudi Arabia before
calling Montreal home, one of his passions is to raise awareness of
the place newcomers have within Canada. At his university, he
founded the Arab Students Association and organized and moderated
panel discussions on free speech and Canada-US relations.
Cynthia Mackenzie is a passionate human rights
activist who is currently pursuing her doctorate in political
science in Melbourne, Australia. She has worked on human rights
projects around the world, from sex-worker outreach in Calgary and
refugee advocacy in Vancouver to community development in India and
Costa Rica and urban environmental projects in Cuba. She has been
actively involved in Canada's public policy debate with Canada25
and for her work, Volunteer Calgary named her a Leader of Tomorrow
and Maclean's has called her one of Canada's 100 Faces of
the Future.
Kris Frederickson is a proud Metis from
Stonewall, MB, who holds BSc and MSc degrees in biosystems
engineering from the University of Manitoba where he researched
water treatment techniques for Aboriginal communities. He has
spoken frequently to Aboriginal youth about pursuing post-secondary
education. He holds a Manitoba Aboriginal Youth Achievement Award,
a National Metis Youth Role Model award, and a prestigious National
Aboriginal Achievement Award, which he earned in 2004. Kris
currently works as a water management engineer and co-chairs 2335,
an initiative of the United Way of Calgary.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been an outspoken
environmental and social activist since she was a child. At the age
of nine, she founded ECO, the Environmental Children's
Organization. Three years later, she and other members of ECO
attended the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a UN conference
addressing the fate of the world's natural resources, where she
delivered a powerful plenary speech that was later turned into her
first book, Tell the World. Shortly after, at the age of
thirteen, she was awarded the United Nations Environment
Programme's Global 500 award. She graduated with a BS in ecology
and evolutionary biology from Yale and is pursuing a graduate
degree in ethnobotany at the University of Victoria. She also
co-founded the Skyfish Project, an Internet-based think tank that
encourages youth to speak out for their future and adopt a
sustainable lifestyle.
Dr. Samantha Nutt is a co-founder and Executive
Director of War Child Canada. She is a medical doctor with more
than thirteen years of experience working in war zones. Since the
beginning of her career, Dr. Nutt has focussed on
providing assistance to war-affected women and children. While
working at War Child Canada, the United Nations and several other
non-governmental organizations, Dr. Nutt has
travelled to some of the world's most violent flashpoints including
Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia,
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Burundi, northern Uganda, Ethiopia and the
Thai-Burmese border. In addition to her position at War Child
Canada, Dr. Nutt is also on staff at Women's College Hospital in
Toronto and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto
in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.