When: Tuesday 16 June
Where: Triennale di Milano
See the information in the programme.

Thania Paffenholz 
PhD, Senior Fellow Graduate Institute International and Development Studies and Founder Inclusive Peace.

Thania Paffenholz is an award-winning and widely published peace researcher, international peace process adviser and mediator, thought leader, and public speaker. Her pioneering and critical work on peace processes — particularly on the role of civil society, women, participatory approaches, and sustainable outcomes — has had a transformative influence on peace research, mediation, and peacebuilding policy and practice worldwide. 

In her practical work, she has contributed to more than 25 peace and political transition processes across the globe, engaging with conflict parties, mediators, governments, international organisations, armed groups, and civil society actors. 

She has helped shape international and national policy frameworks, resolutions, and strategic reviews, and continues to serve as a key adviser to governments and international institutions. 

Over the past two decades, she has held leadership positions in leading think-and-do tanks. She has worked with research institutes and universities internationally, served as a peacebuilding adviser to the European Union in the Horn of Africa, and held positions with the United Nations in various field missions. 

Thania holds a PhD in Mediation and Peace Studies, has published extensively, serves on international boards and panels, and teaches at universities and training institutions worldwide. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She holds Tanzanian, Swiss, and German citizenship.

The Citizen Token System (CTS) addresses a fundamental gap in participatory design: the difference between consultation procedures and actual decision-making power. Developed and tested in Ukrainian communities during wartime (2022-2025), CTS demonstrates how token based governance protocols can achieve 40× efficiency multipliers in public value generation while transferring real budgetary control to residents. This case examines what happens when participation is backed by genuine power and intrinsic motivation and what this might suggest about how participatory approaches could evolve beyond procedural forms toward more transformative, power-sharing practices.

When: Wednesday 17 June
Where: Bovisa Durando Campus
See the information in the programme.

Vadim Georgienko
Social entrepreneur, Creator of the Citizen Token System (CTS).

Vadym Georgienko is a social entrepreneur and civic systems architect working at the intersection of governance, technology, and community development. He focuses on designing innovative participatory frameworks and mechanisms based on his multi-year experience across municipal government, national policy, civil society, business, and IT. One of his earlier major international recognitions came from the Council of Europe in 2007 for best practices in youth participation and good governance among 47 countries.

Since 2021, he leads CTS Partnership Network, piloting the Citizen Token System in Ukrainian communities under wartime conditions, where it has generated measurable gains in public value through self-sustaining civic cycles. He mentors local implementation teams and works with international partners exploring how contribution-based governance can be applied and adapted across different domains.

Lucas Mertehikian
PhD, Director of the Humanities Institute at the New York Botanical Garden.

Lucas Mertehikian teaches courses on Plant Humanities at the Master in Landscape Architecture, at Pratt Institute, and is a Researcher at the New York Botanical Garden, where he also served as Director of the Humanities Institute. Before joining NYBG, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington DC, where he is still involved with the development of the Plant Humanities Lab. He is the co-editor of Imagining a New Natural History (Florida University Press, 2026) and Unpredictable Gardens (Brill, 2027), and his writing has appeared in journals in Latin America and the United States. He collaborated with Brazilian-Italian artist Debora Hirsch on the video-installation Vanishing Trees, which opened at Palazzo Citterio in January 2026.

Communication is a matter of infinite nuances. It is not easy, and it gets more difficult in a diverse context. How to survive in such an environment is certainly a matter of skills, but also curiosity and adaptability. 

When: Friday 19 June
Where: Bovisa Durando Campus
See the information in the programme.

Vera Gheno 
Sociolinguist

Vera Gheno is a sociolinguist and a translator from Hungarian. She collaborated with the Accademia della Crusca for 20 years. After 18 years as a contract professor at various universities, she has worked as a researcher at the University of Florence since the end of 2021. Her publications include Femminili singolari. Il femminismo è nelle parole (2021, effequ) and Grammamanti. Immaginare future con le parole (2024, Einaudi). Nessunə è normale (June 17, 2025, UTET) is her seventeenth monograph. She hosts the podcast “Amare Parole” for Il Post. Her research interests include digital communication, gender issues, diversity, equity, and inclusion.