On Thursday, 26 September 2024, the Kofi Annan Foundation, in partnership with the International Peace Institute, Open Society Foundations, and International Crisis Group, will cohost the second Kofi Annan Lecture featuring Maria Ressa, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and CEO of Rappler.
“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth.”
– An excerpt from Maria Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture in 2021
The Lecture
The Lecture will be presented live from New York on Thursday, September 26th, and streamed live. Remarks will begin at 1:15 pm EDT / 7:15 pm CEST.
The Kofi Annan Lecture will be live-streamed via the IPI website and IPI’s Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and YouTube accounts.
About Maria Ressa
Maria Ressa co-founded Rappler, the top digital-only news site leading the fight for press freedom in the Philippines. As Rappler’s CEO, Maria has endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government, forced to post bail ten times to stay free. Rappler’s battle for truth and democracy is the subject of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary A Thousand Cuts.
For her courage and journalistic integrity, Maria has received numerous accolades. In October 2021, she was one of two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
In 2022, the United Nations Secretary-General appointed her to the Leadership Panel of the Internet Governance Forum and she serves as its Vice-Chair.
She is a Professor of Professional Practice at the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where she leads projects related to artificial intelligence and democracy.
Maria authored Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of Al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia and From Bin Laden to Facebook. Her most recent book, How to Stand Up to a Dictator, was released in November 2022 and has been translated into more than 20 languages. Maria focuses critical attention on the breakdown of our global information ecosystem and how interconnected communities of action can hold the line to protect democratic values.
“Maria Ressa’s dedication to safeguarding freedom of expression and promoting transparency stands as a beacon of hope for advocates of democracy worldwide.”
– Corinne Momal-Vanian, Kofi Annan Foundation Executive Director
About the Kofi Annan Lecture Series
The Kofi Annan Lecture Series allows speakers to set out new ideas and agendas for international cooperation and diplomacy, recalling Kofi Annan’s role in championing rules-based cooperation and sustainable solutions.
Read the op-ed “Kofi Annan’s Lessons in Global Leadership”, authored by the Kofi Annan Lecture partners and published by Project Syndicate.
