10th December 2025
You are invited to a bold online discussion – honest, critical, and focused on the future of aid and humanitarianism.
Cuts, polycrises and grief have characterised 2025 – humanitarians remain at the heart of a fractured system. Now we ask, what is next? What can we re-build together?
Join us on 10 December 2025 at 14.00 GMT for a dynamic panel discussion with an intersectional perspective.
Part of our Humanitarian Xchange series, this event will not be a conventional round table: our speakers will confront the realities of humanitarian work and explore new possibilities – from the evolving landscape of emergency response and localisation, to future-focused financing and the potential of blockchain.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions.
Speakers
- Alex Bornstein, Executive Director, Zcash Foundation
- Karri Goeldner Byrne, Senior advisor – value creation (independent)
- Thomas Hill, Country Director Nigeria, Norwegian Refugee Council [co-facilitator]
- Themrise Khan, Development professional (independent)
- Pawel Mania, Director, Humanitarian Leadership Academy [co-facilitator]
- Youri Saadallah, Global Emergency Director, Norwegian Refugee Council
- Angela Umoru-David, Programme Director, HumAngle Foundation
Who this event is for
This event is for anyone with an interest or stake in humanitarian work and the collective challenges we face. With a critical, forward-thinking lens, we’ll question current practices, challenge conventional thinking, and explore new approaches together.
The event will be in English and Zoom translated captions will be enabled.
About the speakers
Alex Bornstein
Alex Bornstein is the Executive Director of the Zcash Foundation, stewarding open-source, privacy-preserving financial infrastructure. He leads the Shielded Aid Initiative, designing humanitarian digital cash systems that ensure both privacy and auditable accountability. Drawing on his humanitarian aid and nonprofit leadership background, Alex approaches privacy as a duty of care—essential for dignity, compliance, and safety in digital aid delivery. His goal is to make privacy the simplest choice for aid organizations and the people they serve.
Karri Goeldner Byrne
Karri Byrne brings three decades of leadership to complex humanitarian and development challenges, specializing in leveraging market systems approaches in fragile contexts. Her career has centered on helping households and businesses address complex economic challenges and build resilience in crisis environments. She co-designed pioneering market analysis tools, including the EMMA Toolkit and was recently given the University of Iowa’s International Impact Award for her work. Ms. Byrne maintains her commitment to defining sector best practice as a member of the Advisory Committees for the Markets in Crises Community of Practice.
Thomas Hill
Thomas Hill is Country Director Nigeria for the Norwegian Refugee Council. With over two decades of leadership in non-profits and NGOs, he has worked at the intersection of humanitarian response, community development, and public service, helping to build resilient systems that support people in times of need and address entrenched issues. Thomas is passionate about strengthening local capacity, fostering partnerships across sectors, and applying global lessons locally to improve community well-being and preparedness, while applying domestic best practice to international efforts. He is especially interested in how collaborative leadership and shared responsibility can create safer, more inclusive, and future-ready communities.
Themrise Khan
Themrise Khan is an independent development professional and researcher with almost 30 years of practitioner and policy-based experience in international development, aid effectiveness, gender, and global migration. She has worked with a vast spectrum of multilateral and bilateral organizations, INGOs and civil society organizations primarily in Pakistan, Canada and globally. She has a number of publications and articles on aid, humanitarianism and development to her credit. She is co-editor of the book; White Saviorism in International Development. Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences (Daraja Press, Canada, 2023). Her on-going research is focussed on envisioning an alternative ecosystem in global development and humanitarianism which envisions a Global South autonomous from aid. She blogs, speaks and writes actively on notions of national autonomy, North-South power imbalances in development and humanitarianism, race relations and immigrant citizenship and integration and migrant and refugee rights. She is based in Ottawa, Canada.
Pawel Mania
Pawel Mania is Director at the Humanitarian Leadership Academy. He brings more than 15 years of experience working across international development and humanitarian sectors. Pawel is an expert in research and evaluation, having worked previously at the British Council and Committee on Foreign Affairs at the European Parliament across various research, MEAL, policy and advocacy roles. He has supported humanitarian programming in Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Pakistan. Pawel holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Sussex, and University of Copenhagen and graduated from the University of Gdansk.
Youri Saadallah
Youri Saadallah is the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Global Emergency Response Director. In this capacity, he is responsible for the strategic and operational oversight of NRC’s humanitarian responses across the globe, ensuring that NRC is able to adapt to new and emerging crises, activate at scale, innovate and meaningfully contribute to sector-wide analysis and dialogue.
Youri leads a diverse and multi-disciplinary team of technical specialists, senior operations managers, surge teams, analysts and support staff who provide NRC with its rapid response capability. The Emergency Response Section works cross-functionally, supporting the entire organisation through all phases of emergency response and leads on the establishment of new country start-ups responding to critical humanitarian situations. He also represents NRC in the Emergency Directors Group of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee.
Angela Umoru
Angela Umoru-David is the Programme Director of HumAngle Foundation, Nigeria. Leading the organisation’s work in advocacy, research, transitional justice in conflict-affected communities and capacity development for journalists and civic actors, she is responsible for project design and programme management, and supporting engagement with external stakeholders to ensure the successful operation of the Foundation.
About the Humanitarian Xchange (HX)
This online event is taking place as part of our Humanitarian Xchange (HX) initiative: a groundbreaking global event series designed to cultivate a collaborative, forward-thinking environment for addressing humanitarian challenges and driving transformative change.
The inaugural Humanitarian Xchange event was held in 2024 in London, UK and was named Best Charity Event/Event for Positive Change in the Conference and Event Awards. From London to Gaziantep, Sarajevo to Baghdad, Kampala, and Port Sudan with the support of Google.org, HX is bringing together passionate individuals and organisations worldwide.
Contact
If you have any questions about this event, please contact:
info@humanitarian.academy