Speakers

Evangelina Bernas is the Philippine Ambassador to Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia since 2023, and Permanent Representative to the UN and other international organizations in Vienna. She was chair of the board of trustees of the National Museum of the Philippines, and president/chair of the Congressional Spouses Foundation. She was Policy Head of the WWF’s Coral Triangle international team that assisted the six governments in the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries, and Food Security in forming their multilateral partnership to manage the Coral Triangle. She worked on regional technology and business policy for eleven years, particularly in ASEAN and APEC.

Peter Brezáni has been working at the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association since 2003. He is an analyst at the Economic and Development Policy program. In his research, he focuses on Northeast Asia and development policy. He is also the editor of the Yearbook of Slovakia’s Foreign Policy and other non-periodical publications. He was a co-editor of the quarterly International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs. He also works as a project manager and coordinator. He graduated from the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics in Bratislava (2002).

Veronika Blablová is a Research Fellow at the Prague Office of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia. Veronika's research looks at Chinese information operations in Central Europe and beyond, China's influence in academia, and China's strategies in the field of technology, particularly artificial intelligence. She graduated in Security and Strategic Studies from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, where she is currently pursuing her PhD. She is also an Analyst at EpochAI, a research institute investigating the trajectories and trends of artificial intelligence, and Junior Associate Fellow at NATO Defense College.

Wendy Chang's research interest is on the intersection of technology, politics, and the economy. In the age of artificial intelligence and increased geopolitical tensions worldwide, she researches how developments in AI, semiconductors, robotics, and more can transform China's digital economy and affect its relationship to the world. As a Taiwanese-American, she also watches cross-Strait relations closely. Prior to joining MERICS, Wendy worked as a senior software engineer at companies in Berlin and San Francisco, building systems to ingest and analyze text data. She holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science from MIT. 

Chiang Min-yen is the Deputy Director for Economic Security at the Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), where he leads open-source intelligence (OSINT)–based and data-driven policy research. His work explores critical supply chain security issues amid the ongoing tech geopolitics.

Alfred Gerstl is president of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS). Furthermore, he is head of the EU-funded project “The EU in the volatile Indo-Pacific Region” (EUVIP) and Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Studies at Palacky University in Olomouc (Czech Republic). He is an International Relations specialist with a focus on the Indo-Pacific, notably Southeast Asia including ASEAN, and interested in security cooperation, hedging strategies, the role of the EU and Central Eastern Europe in the region and China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Alfred taught at various universities in Australia, Austria, Czechia, Germany, and Russia. 

Assoc. Prof. Jiří Háze, Ph.D., is Head of the Department of Microelectronics at Brno University of Technology and Director of the Advanced Chip Design Research Center (ACDRC) since January 2026. His expertise focuses on the design, modelling, and fabrication of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, including sensor applications. With over 20 years of experience, he has led major academic and industry collaborations, including extensive cooperation with Taiwanese universities and industry partners. He has authored numerous scientific publications and contributed to international semiconductor initiatives, bridging academia and industry in microelectronics, chip design, and advanced sensing technologies.

David Hutt is a journalist and columnist who focuses on Southeast Asian politics, Europe-Asia relations, and New Cold War geopolitics. He is “Southeast Asia Columnist” for the Diplomat and associate editor at Contemporary Southeast Asia. He writes for several other international newspapers.

Heiner Janus is a Project Lead and Senior Researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn, Germany, where he leads the institute’s research project on the effectiveness of development policy. His research focuses on bureaucratic politics in development, international development cooperation, and development effectiveness.

Kristina Kironska is a socially engaged interdisciplinary academic with experience in Taiwan Affairs, CEE-China/Taiwan Relations, Myanmar Studies, human rights, election observation, and advocacy. She spent many years living in Taiwan, including lecturing at the University of Taipei. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at the Palacky University Olomouc (Czechia), where she co-coordinates an EU-funded project "The EU in the Volatile Indo-Pacific Region". She is also the Advocacy Director at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies and serves as the Chair of the Board of Amnesty International Slovakia and as a Board Member of the European Association of Taiwan Studies.

Michaela Mathisrud Královičová is the founder and CEO of Infinity Standard, a company connecting European businesses with Asian markets through end-to-end trade solutions. With over 10 years of experience in international trade and hands-on experience in China and Southeast Asia, she helps European companies source, manufacture, and scale through Asia while minimizing risks and costly mistakes. Her work covers supplier sourcing, quality control, logistics, and strategic advisory. She is also the co-founder of Infinity Forwarding and SolidRock, focusing on international logistics and distribution of industrial technologies from Asia. Her expertise lies in translating cultural and market differences into practical business decisions, enabling companies enter and grow in Asian markets effectively and sustainably.

Shyam Krishnakumar is Executive Director and Co-Founder of The Pranava Institute (TPI), a New Delhi-based think tank that works at the intersection of technology, public policy, society, and design to build sustainable technological futures. At TPI, Shyam leads the Digital Economy, Technology, and Geopolitics vertical that engages with key regulatory and geopolitical questions around emerging technologies, including India's emerging semiconductor ecosystem, AI in the public sector and deepening EU India Digital Cooperation. 

Iveta has been dealing with hybrid threats since the application of the very first project focused on countering hybrid threats in Slovakia with GLOBSEC. Later, she moved to the Government Office of the Slovak Republic, where she served as a director of the Situation Centre, an analytical unit monitoring the security environment. She was appointed as a national point of contact for countering hybrid threats, cooperating with international bodies such as the Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Currently, she is a freelancer supporting the communities whose mission is to protect democracy.

Jyun-yi Lee is currently Associate Research Fellow at the Division of National Security Research, Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR). He got his B.A. and M.A. in political science from National Taiwan University and received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. Before joining the INDSR, he had taught at National Chung Cheng University, and worked at a think tank under now the National Science and Technology Council. After joining the INDSR in 2018, he is responsible for non-traditional security, hybrid threats, grey zone conflicts and lawfare. 

Miriam Lexmann (Slovakia/EPP) is a Quaestor of the European Parliament. Her work spans AFET, INTA and EMPL committees. Miriam is a co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC). In 2021, she was among the five MEPs sanctioned by Beijing for exposing the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party and its gross human rights violations. Prior to taking her seat in the EP, Miriam worked in a non-governmental sector and focused on protection of freedom and democracy in the world. She is a former Slovak diplomat, worked as an advisor in the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

Dimitar Lilkov is a Senior Research Officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, focusing on energy and climate, as well as digital policy. Specific fields of expertise cover the European Energy Union, energy security, and decarbonisation policies. On the digital front, the respective research topics include novel European regulation in the online domain, privacy, disinformation, as well as technological competition with the People’s Republic of China. 

Liu I-Chen is a Programme Officer at ARTICLE 19, where he leads strategic collaborations between FIMI defenders from Taiwan, the EU, and Ukraine against the convergence of information threats coming from Russia and PRC. His mission is to turn complex threat intelligence into bottom-up social resilience and robust policy recommendations for democratic actors.

Andrej Matišák has been working as a foreign policy journalist for more than 20 years, and since 2006, he has been with the Pravda newspaper in Slovakia. He covers European politics, international relations, and global security. Between 2015 and 2016, he was the editor of the Defence Matters project, an online discussion platform focused on defense topics, which was a joint initiative between four media outlets from four EU countries with the support of NATO. He is also the creator of The Global Agora podcast.

Stephen R. Nagy is a professor of politics and international studies at the International Christian University. Concurrently, he holds appointments as a senior fellow and China project lead at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs. The titles of his forthcoming books are “Japan as an Adapter Middle Power State: Navigating Ideological and Systemic Divides” and "Get Over it and Move On: How to run a global business in the emerging world order.

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Kara Němečková is a Research Fellow at the Prague Office of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia. Kara's research looks at EU-China relations, China's influence in Europe and Africa, and foreign interference. She holds a Master's degree in International Security from the School of International Affairs at Sciences Po. As part of her studies, she spent one year at Fudan University in Shanghai. She also interned in the Asia Program of Institut Montaigne in Paris. 

Daniel Ondruš is the Director of the Foreign Trade Department at the Slovak Investment and Trade Development Agency (SARIO). He works in the field of export promotion and supports the international expansion of Slovak companies into foreign markets. He has experience in organizing business missions, including those accompanying high-level government officials during their official visits abroad.

Ms. Sandra Oudkirk is the Civilian Deputy and Foreign Policy Advisor to U.S. European Command. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with over 30 years of experience, she recently served as Director of the American Institute in Taiwan from 2021-2024, managing the unofficial U.S. relationship with Taiwan to advance global prosperity and preserve peace in the Indo-Pacific. Ms. Oudkirk has held various roles in Washington and overseas, including in Beijing and Istanbul. A graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, she speaks Mandarin Chinese and Turkish.

Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden. Dr. Panda is also a Professor at the Department of Regional and Global Studies at the University of Warsaw; and a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies in the Netherlands. As a senior expert on China, East Asia, and Indo-Pacific affairs, Prof. Panda has testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission at the US Congress on ‘China and South Asia’. He is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia.

Dr Josie-Marie Perkuhn leads the joint postdoc research project Taiwan as a Pioneer at Trier University and is a non-resident fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK). She graduated in Political Science and Chinese Studies and received her PhD from Heidelberg University in 2018. Her current research focuses on responses to the challenges of the 21st Century, such as Digitalization, Energy and Climate, and Global Health. Her research portfolio includes Security & Strategy, Peace Studies, and China’s role in international relations and the Arctic. In 2023, she was nominated to the German-Taiwan Dialogue Platform (GDTP).

Karol Piovarcsy is a finance professional and entrepreneur with extensive experience across Europe and Asia. He is the Founder and CEO of Euro-Asia Asset Management in Singapore, a financial services boutique and wealth management firm. He previously held senior roles at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore and Hong Kong, and served as Managing Director of Saxo Bank in Prague. 

Ivo Schutte is a permanent EU official,  currently serving as Head of Division, Asia Regional Affairs and Indo-Pacific at the European External Action Service (EEAS). He has previously served as Deputy Head of Division in the South Asia and the Western Balkans Divisions, and has prior to that served in the European Commission’s department for EU Enlargement, focusing primarily on EU-Turkey relations and, since 2014, in the EEAS in different positions dealing with EU-Ukraine and EU-Asia relations. Ivo Schutte is a national of the Netherlands.

Etienne Soula is a Research Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, specializing in the intersection of economic security and hybrid threats. He tracks how authoritarian actors use technology and infrastructure exports, supply chains, and investment to create dependencies and reshape global information spaces. Etienne turns open-source research into practical options for risk mitigation, from interference indicators to policy briefings. He works across policy communities on both sides of the Atlantic and regularly briefs officials, lawmakers, and media on approaches to coercion and influence in Europe and the United States.

Tomáš Strážay has been the director of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA) since September 2019. Prior to that, he served as deputy director and head of the Central and Southeastern Europe research program. He was also the editor of the quarterly International Issues and Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs. Tomáš is a leading expert in projects focused on regional cooperation in Central Europe and EU enlargement. He is one of the founders of the Think Visegrad - V4 Think Tank Platform. He graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava in 1999 and received his PhD. from the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2010.

Bernadett Szél is a sociologist and political economist affiliated with the Democracy Institute (Budapest) and the Department of Public Policy (Vienna) at Central European University. Her research focuses on autocratic backsliding and the political economy of global power, with empirical work on Central and Eastern Europe and Taiwan. She holds a PhD in Sociology. She was a Taiwan Fellow (2025), an International Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, and a Visiting Scholar at the Chang Fo-chuan Center for Human Rights (2024). She served as a Member of the Hungarian Parliament (2012–2022) and is a member of the Public Body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Filip Šebok is the Head of Prague office at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies. Filip’s research primarily looks at Chinese domestic and foreign policy, especially relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries and China’s propaganda and disinformation. He is also coordinating CEIAS involvement in the Chips Diplomacy Support Initiative suppported by the European Comission. Previously, Filip worked for think tanks the Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague, Czech Republic and Stratpol in Bratislava, Slovakia. Filip graduated in International Relations and Chinese Cultural Studies at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, and Renmin University in Beijing, studying in a full-time program taught in Mandarin. He is currently pursuing his PhD. at the Asian Studies Department of the Palacký University in Olomouc.

Matej Šimalčík is the Executive Director of the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, a think tank that focuses on foreign and security policy issues related to East Asia and Asia-Europe relations. Matej's research looks at China’s economic and political presence and influence in Central Europe, elite relations, corrosive capital, and the role of European legal instruments in mitigating risks posed by China. In 2022, he founded the China-Europe Academic Engagement Tracker project, which aims to bring transparency to research collaborations with Chinese entities. In 2021, he was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Governance and Social Innovation category. He holds a Master's in Law from Masaryk University (Czechia) and a Master's in International Relation (East Asian Studies) from University of Groningen (the Netherlands).

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Dolma Tsering is a postdoctoral researcher, affiliated with the International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS) at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), Taiwan.  Her work examines the Tibetan diaspora, Tibet–Taiwan relations, migration, statelessness, and the role of digital technologies in shaping social networks and state surveillance.

Richard Turcsányi is a Program Director at the Central Europe Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and Assistant Professor at Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic. He is an author of "Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea” (Springer), co-editor of “Contemporary China: A New Superpower?” (Routledge) and has published numerous articles on Chinese foreign policy and relations between China and (Central and Eastern) Europe. In recent years he led a large-scale public opinion survey in 56 countries worldwide regarding their attitudes towards China and international affairs (sinofon.cz/surveys). He received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Masaryk University, where he also studied economy and political science. In the past, he conducted long-term study and research stays at the University of Toronto, Peking University, National Chengchi University in Taipei, and the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels. He also participated in the IVLP program of the US State Department in 2020 and was a recipient of the Taiwan Fellowship in 2014.

David Tvrdon is a freelance tech journalist, podcaster, and digital strategist specializing in audience revenue and engagement. He spent a decade at the Slovak daily SME.sk as a journalist, podcaster, and product manager, co-creating some of the most popular podcasts and newsletters on the Slovak market. In 2022, he launched an independent podcast network and digital production consultancy, 58p.digital. He also co-founded the Slovak Podcast Awards. David specializes in direct audience revenue and engagement. He has advised media outlets across Europe and Asia on digital strategy and podcasting.

Martin Weis is a Professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, where he leads a research laboratory focused on advanced semiconductors and semiconductor characterization. He has held a visiting scholar position at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He serves as Chief Scientific Advisor to the Slovak Semiconductor Competence Center (SK Chips), contributing to the development of Slovakia's semiconductor ecosystem and its integration into European chip supply chains. He is principal investigator on multiple national research projects and an active advocate for science-industry collaboration in the semiconductor sector.