Alexis Serfaty

INFLUENCER

• Organization: Transatlantic Policy Network
• Department: Policy
• Title: Fellow

Alexis Serfaty was recently named inaugural Fellow to the Transatlantic Policy Network (TPN). With significant experience in transatlantic relations across a range of business, political, and security issues, Alexis concurrently serves as a Policy & Research Fellow, Organizing for America Virginia and Chairs the YPFP Europe & Eurasia Discussion Group.

Alexis is the former Policy Director for the European-American Business Council and has held a variety of positions in the private and public sectors, including with the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee and the French Foreign Ministry’s Policy Planning Office in Paris. He is the author of publications for Bloomberg, the Daily Caller, and EU Observer, among others.

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Ali Wyne

INFLUENCER

• Organization: Harvard Kennedy School
• Department: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
• Title: Researcher

Ali Wyne (born in 1987) is a researcher at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008 with bachelor’s degrees in Management Science and Political Science, and, as a senior, received the Institute’s highest honor for students, the Karl Taylor Compton Prize. Prior to joining the Belfer Center, Ali was a Junior Fellow in the China Program (now the Asia Program) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Ali is a member of Chatham House, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs (CENSA), and Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. He serves as a discussant at Bloggingheads.tv, a contributing analyst for Wikistrat, a Next America Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a Delphi Fellow at Big Think, for which he writes the “Power Games” blog.

Ali’s writings have been published in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, World Politics Review, and Global Asia, among other outlets. He contributed an essay, “Public Opinion and Power,” to the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (London: Routledge, 2008), and is contributing another, “American Power and Influence in the New Century,” to the forthcoming American Strategy and Purpose: Reflections on Foreign Policy and National Security in an Era of Change (Washington, DC: CENSA, 2013). He is also a co-editor, with Graham Allison and Robert Blackwill, of the forthcoming Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012).

In 2011, Ali delivered the welcome address at the 41st St. Gallen Symposium.

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Aashika Damodar

INNOVATOR

• Organization: Survivors Connect
• Department: Anti-Human Trafficking, Human Rights
• Title: Founder, Director

Aashika Damodar is social entrepreneur, artist, tech-enthusiast, and long-standing anti-trafficking activist. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in Anthropology & Political Science. Her honors thesis on the politics of the “trafficked victim” won the Ronald Frankenberg Prize for the best thesis in Critical Medical Anthropology, the Sylvia Forman Prize from the American Anthropological Association, and was recently published in the 2010 Project Censored Journal. She was awarded the UN Association Community Human Rights Award, Zimmerman Fellowship and Freedom Award in 2008 for her anti-trafficking work.

Aashika is the founder of an NGO called Survivors Connect, a non-profit working to develop and extend innovative technology platforms for the anti-trafficking movement, which has assisted grassroots organizations in Vietnam, Ghana, Haiti, Guatemala, and more. Most recently, she is starting up a social enterprise called Breaking Heels, which sells survivor inspired fashion (and height adjustable heels) to combat commercial sexual exploitation. She completed her MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in 2011, and will start her DPhil in Criminology at the University of Oxford fall of 2013.

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Rajeeb Dey

INNOVATOR

• Organization: Enternships.com
• Department: Management
• Title: Founder

Rajeeb Dey is the Founder/CEO of Enternships.com – a portal that connects students and graduates to work placements in start-ups & SMEs – for which he was named the “02 X Young Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2009 and the world’s youngest Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2012. He is also the Co-Founder of StartUp Britain – a national entrepreneurship campaign launched by Prime Minister David Cameron in March 2011. Rajeeb's first venture was the English Secondary Students' Association (ESSA) now known as Student Voice aged 17 – an organisation which empowers school students by giving them a voice in their education – for which he was awarded the Goldman Sachs Global Leaders Award and YouthActionNet Global Fellowship.

Rajeeb is a Trustee of UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, an Advisory Board Member of Channel 4 (Education), and the UKTI Sub-Saharan Africa Taskforce. Rajeeb graduated with First Class Honours in Economics & Management from the University of Oxford.

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Daniella Foster

INNOVATOR

• Organization: U.S. Department of State
• Department: Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
• Title: Director of Public Private Partnerships

Daniella Foster serves as Director of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) at the U.S. Department of State, where she oversees the establishment of partnerships which commit skills and capital to enhance diplomatic, economic, and social outcomes in over 165 countries. A respected authority on PPP strategy and formulation, she spearheaded over 95 percent growth in agreements with the private sector, authored, and conducted PPP trainings, and was selected as a Next Generation Fellow. She co-founded the Emergent Leaders Network, a non-profit that provides scholarships and mentoring to community college students.

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Dan Futrell

INNOVATOR

• Organization: Blackwell Timepieces
• Department: Executive
• Title: Co-Founder & CEO

Dan Futrell is currently working to start a business that helps provide service dogs to wounded veterans, having recently completed a Masters in Public Policy at Harvard University.

Prior to this, Dan served five years' in the U.S. Army as a Stryker Platoon Leader, Company Commander, and an Aide with 27 months deployed to Iraq. His most significant work includes partnering with the emerging “Sons of Iraq” movement as they dismantled a violent al Qaeda cell and restored peace to a small Baghdad neighborhood. During his service, Dan was awarded the Ranger tab, Combat Infantryman's Badge, and two Bronze Star Medals.

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Blair Glencorse

INNOVATOR

• Organization: Accountability Lab
• Department: Executive
• Title: Founder & Executive Director

Blair Glencorse is Founder and Executive Director of the Accountability Lab, a new organization that works to make power-holders more responsible to citizens in the developing world. Previously, Blair worked on issues of state and market-building in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East across a variety of organizations including the World Bank. He is a frequent commentator on international development around the world, and during the Arab Awakenings was chosen as a UN Fellow for the Middle East and North Africa. In 2012, he was awarded the Johns Hopkins Outstanding Recent Graduate Award for his work on governance and accountability.

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Hassanatu Blake

INNOVATOR

• Organization: Focal Point Global (FPG)
• Department: Non-profit
• Title: Founder/Executive Director

Hassanatu Blake is Co-Founder of Focal Point Global (FPG), a 501c3 nonprofit organization that empowers the world’s youth to tackle social issues through global education and technology. Since 2010, FPG has mobilized nearly 50 youth in the U.S., Namibia, and Cameroon to address HIV and child trafficking.

She is also focused on improving global health. She has worked with NIH, CDC, and USAID; and written for Blackdoctor.org and Bushfaller Magazine. Recently, she worked with BroadReach Healthcare to strengthen management and leadership skills of health professionals in Zambia.

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