William Webster
Executive Director of CCI

William is one of the founders and Executive Director of Civic Concepts International, where he oversees international youth projects. After working with youth from Congressional Youth Leadership Council, he brought with him from Washington DC the idea of starting a youth leadership campaign in Central Europe based on multicultural understanding and the promotion of democratic ideas. William founded the International Youth Leadership Conference and Civic Concepts International as a way to make this initiative a reality.

Lore Breitmeyer-Jones
Financial and Legal Director

Lore serves as the Financial and Legal Executive of Civic Concepts International, the organization which hosts IYLC. Lore graduated with an economics degree from Georgetown University (SFS ’90) and came to Prague in 1992 to open her first business, RED HOT & BLUES RESTAURANT, which she is still successfully running to date. Lore is also the proud mother of a twelve year old girl, Katie, who hopes to attend the 25th IYLC in Winter 2013.

Ismayil Khayredinov
Conference Director

Ismayil Khayredinov holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics and Cybernetics from Travrida Vernadskiy National University (Simferopol, Ukraine). In 2006, he was closely involved with IREX Ukraine Media Partnership Program and was part of 4 US-based internships. He was previously, an intern at the Canadian House of Commons (2004, Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Program) and an exchange student in the United States (2002, Future Leaders Exchange Program). He was an IYLC participant in winter 2005 and served as Logistics Coordinator for the 9th, 10th, and 12th IYLCs. Ismayil has been a facilitator at the 14th and 15th IYLC, and is now looking forward to managing his first conference in the capacity of the Conference Director.

Tatiana Hrušková
Programs Coordinator

Tana has worked as a Programs Coordinator for CCI since September 2006. She is from Slovakia, but has been living in Prague for over five years, where she is currently fulfilling a bachelor degree at Faculty Of Humanities at Charles University. With a background in the study of Politics and International Relations she is currently focusing on media and film theory. She loves traveling and meeting new people. For this reason she decided to take a break from her studies in 2002 and spent some time working in England, which was a great experience. Other than traveling she has a passion for film.

Maryna Puzdrova
Project Assistant

Maryna has been in the CCI team since autumn 2006 and she is a Project Assistant. She studies at the Humanities Department at Charles University in Prague. Maryna was born in Belarus, where she began her studies at the Culture Studies Department and she is currently in Prague to continue her studies. She has also studied in the USA. Maryna likes travelling, experiencing different cultures, languages and meeting people. She has a lot of hobbies and believes she can be successful in anything she really enjoys. Maryna considers being in the team a great honour and is looking forward to meeting the new participants.

Tomas Lapacek
Project Assistant

Tomas has been studying international relations and international law at the Faculty of Social Science at the Charles University in Prague for five years. He also studied in the UK taking courses in Foreign Policy Analysis at the University of Reading. Tomas participated in organizing several conferences for NGO and business representatives within the Framework Programmes of the EU as well as the Forum 2000 Conference held in Prague this year. He is also currently serving as the president of the Czech-Slovak Political Science Students' Union. Although being new to the IYLC team he believes he will contribute to the successful management and creating the spirit of the upcoming conference.

Farah Jamal
I have recently completed my Bachelor of Arts in Honours Political Science with Research Specialization in Conflict Sensitive Programming and Social Science Theories. I am very passionate about my field of study and excited to see what the coming year has to offer. Professionally, I have worked as an Assistant Resource Specialist for World Accord a local NGO working in Central America and South East Asia. I am currently the research assistant in the Economics department at Wilfrid Laurier University researching US-Canada supply chains from the perspective of the trucking industry.
I attended the 14th International Youth Leadership Conference last July, which was a remarkable experience and I hope to relive it with the students of the January 2008 conference. I enjoy traveling and meeting people from various cultures. To date, I have traveled to East Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Italy, Czech Republic, England, Portugal, France and Spain. I also enjoy reading classic literature and modern fiction. Dancing is by far my greatest pleasure; I have taken hip-hop and Indian classical lessons for some years.
"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."

Grace Keesing

Grace Keesing was born in Sydney, Australia. She is currently attending the Australian National University in Canberra as the recipient of one of only eight Australia wide national undergraduate scholarships. She has completed two years of a combined Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce degree, and deferred her studies in 2007 in order to travel the world. As part of her travels she attended the 14th IYLC in July 2007, which she found to be a fantastic and life changing experience.
Grace is passionate about her studies in Law, particularly International Law, and hopes to become a barrister. She pursues her strong commitment to upholding international human rights by working as a volunteer activist for Amnesty International and through her involvement with the Australian Red Cross. Her other interests include debating, soccer and rowing, and she has represented her state in the 2003 and 2004 National Rowing Championships, and represented her university in the 2006 University Rowing Championships.
Grace looks forward to returning to the beautiful city of Prague for what will no doubt be another amazing conference.

Matt Gillespie

Matt is a recent graduate of Queen's University Belfast, where he attained a degree in English and Politics. His research and study interests include the politics of sustainable development, state building after intrastate war, linguistics and the perception of crime in the media. A graduate of the 12th IYLC in January 2007 and a facilitator at the 14th IYLC in July 2007, Matt has worked as a policy intern for the US House of Representatives Committee on Small Business in Washington DC, working on US-China economic relations and helped prepare the 7th Annual US-China Inter-Parliamentary Exchange in 2005. Also, he worked as a manager for the only international leadership, peace, professional development and internship programme in the world, the Washington-Ireland Program for Service and Leadership (WIP). Based in Washington in 2006, Matt ran events such as Congressional speaking breakfast on Capitol Hill as well as coordinating all the program logistics. He worked for Co-operation Ireland administering a US State Department grant sheme in 2007 and was WIP Alumni Director in that time. He is just about to take off round the world for six months travelling, and hope to meet many of you again on his way round! In his spare time he enjoys playing guitar, running community outreach programmes, reading and taking little trips around Europe.

Patricia Stallings

Patricia participated in the IYLC in the winter of 2006 under the sponsorship of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, USA. Her experience in Prague was her first trip outside of the US! She graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2006 with BS (Honors) in Policy & Management, Environmental Policy as an additional major, Engineering Studies minor and Pre-law concentration. Since graduation, she has worked in London, England for UBS Investment Bank as an in-house consultant in their global IT implementation project. She is currently studying for her MSc in Management, Organizations and Governance at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is primarily interested in Organizational Change and Strategy with a Social Science perspective.
In her spare time, she loves spending time with friends, traveling around the world, exploring London and mentoring young adults so they too will concentrate on their studies and follow their ambitions.

Sheraan Amod

Sheraan Amod is a young South African entrepreneur who holds a BSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cape Town. He has worked in diverse environments ranging from large corporations to successful start-ups as well as NGOs (including Unilever, Immedia and Diplo Foundation), and started his own innovative marketing company- Trafik Student Networks- at the age of 18. He was recently awarded an International Telecommunication Union fellowship to attend the 2nd UN Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007. Although he titles himself as a "Technology Evangelist" with special focuses on new media and wireless telecoms, he is a Renaissance man too; wildly passionate about leadership, diplomacy and world affairs while also enjoying travelling, bodybuilding, learning languages and writing. As a past CCI facilitator at the IYLA in Cape Town, as well as an alumni of the IYLC in Prague along with numerous other leadership conferences and networks (including Brightest Young Minds), Sheraan recognizes the importance of networking and learning while developing cross-cultural experiences. He's learnt that leadership, people skills and communication are key to career advancement- and these traits are actively nurtured at CCI conferences. Sheraan is currently the leader of a multi-disciplinary think tank, Corvus Future Design, and looks forward to starting an MSc in Engineering Management, along with a new media technology company early in 2008. He is always open to connecting with people, and can be reached at sheraan@amod.co.za , or found on Facebook.

Victoria Mbogo

Victoria was born in Kenya but raised in the multi-cultural city of London. Currently she is a final year Law student at Swansea University, where she has gained grounding in both British Law and International public and criminal law. In addition she is a great advocate for justice and sees the law as a great vehicle for change especially in the international arena. Victoria was a former participant of the 11th IYLC, she valued the experience greatly a highlight being the European Parliament. An area she is particularly interested in is African development where she hopes to be practically involved in the development of leadership and effective governance. In her spare time she loves singing, dancing and improving her squash game. As a past facilitator at the 14th IYLC she considers herself privileged to be able to return to Prague once more and is looking forward to what lies in store.