European Young Leaders

Alberto is an academic, author and activist. He’s currently Jean Monnet Professor of EU Law at HEC Paris and Global Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Due to his commitment to bridge the gap between academic research and policy action, Alberto pioneered innovative forms of civic engagement and campaigning in the EU transnational space via his civic start up The Good Lobby and his campaigns contributed to democratizing the EU. His last book, ‘Lobbying for Change: Find Your Voice to Create a Better Society’ provides a timely analysis and guide to levelling the democratic playing field by empowering ordinary citizens to speak up and inform policy decisions at local, national and international level. A Harvard graduate, he’s a regular contributor to Le Monde, Bloomberg, Politico Europe, Forbes, and Il Sole 24 Ore, and his scholarly and public interest work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, the Financial Times as well Science and Nature. The World Economic Forum nominated him Young Global Leader in 2015.

Adriano is the CEO and Co-founder of Watchup, a Silicon Valley-based start-up that brings the power of video journalism to the post-PC era with an Apple app that lets you build your daily newscast out of the world’s most trusted news channels. He is a former EiR at StartX, the Stanford student start-up accelerator. Previously, he co-founded and ran from 2001 to 2009 Cafebabel.com, a pan-European online media outlet entirely translated in 6 languages that has thousands of contributors. In 2007, he was selected as a young leader in the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Adriano is a Political Science and International Relations graduate from LUISS University in Rome.

Irene is currently a Member of the Italian Parliament sitting on the Committee on Public and Private Employment and on the Committee on Infancy and Childhood. Irene also teaches Management and Organisation Design at the Carlos III University in Madrid. Prior to this, she worked as an expert for the EU Commission on creativity and innovation as an advisor to the Ministry of Education, research and innovation on smart cities and social innovation policies. She is Member of the Board of Italia Futura, an advocacy think tank, for which she coordinated campaigns and benchmarked several European countries and international policies. Irene holds a PhD in Public Policy and a MSPPM from Carnegie Mellon University.