Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to speak at international Athens Democracy Forum

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be among the international speakers at the 10th annual congress "Athens Democracy Forum 2022" to be inaugurated by the Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou today at Zappeion Megaron, Athens, Greece.

The prestigious event has an impressive line-up of international speakers including the President of the European Commission Ursula Von Der Leyen, H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Ban Ki-moon, 8th United Nations Secretary General and Chair, and Novelist and Political Thinker Ece Temelkuran among others.

Past speakers have included former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Yuval Noah Harari, Stacey Abrams, Irina Bokova, Eduard Heger, Michael D. Higgins, Donald Tusk, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Ai WeiWei, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and many more.

The inauguration will take place at 18:30, and the forum will take place from September 28 to 30. It is organized by The Democracy & Culture Foundation and will take place in person and as a free virtual event.

The Athens Democracy Forum was convened by The New York Times from 2013 to 2018. In order to facilitate the future growth and development of the conference, it was decided to form a nonprofit structure around the Forum and remove it from the commercial structure of The New York Times conference division.

In 2019, Achilles Tsaltas, former vice president of international conferences at The New York Times, set up a nonprofit organization, the Democracy & Culture Foundation, to take the event forward. A fully dedicated team was established to run the Athens Democracy Forum as an independent entity that remains strongly linked to The New York Times ethos and programming.