Shain Shapiro, PhD is the Founder and CEO of Sound Diplomacy. Sound Diplomacy is the leading global advisor on growing music and night time economies in cities and places. He has defined a new way to think about the value of music in cities and places and through it, influenced over 100 cities to invest in music and culture. He is also the co-founder of Music Cities Convention, the world’s largest event bringing together the music industry with city planners, developers, policymakers and executives. Through Sound Diplomacy, he has consulted in over 60 cities and countries, including developing the Cuban official music strategy for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

Andrea Carmen, Yaqui Nation, began her work with the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) as a student intern in the San Francisco Office in 1976 and has been a staff member since 1983.  She became IITC’s Executive Director in 1992.  Andrea has many years of experience working as a human rights trainer and observer around the world and was IITC’s team leader for work on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  In 1997 she was one of two Indigenous representatives invited to formally address the UN General Assembly for the first time in history at the UN Earth Summit +5.   In 2006, Andrea was a Rapporteur for the UN “Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources and their Relationship to Land”, the first time an Indigenous woman had been selected to serve as a Rapporteur for a UN Expert Seminar.  Andrea has been an expert presenter at UN bodies and seminars addressing Human Rights, Treaties and Treaty Rights, Cultural Indicators, Biological Diversity, Food Sovereignty, UN Sustainable Development Goals, Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Participate in Decision-making, Indigenous Children under State Custody including impacts of Boarding and Residential Schools, Climate Change and Human Rights, Reproductive and Inter-generational Health, International Repatriation and Cultural Rights, Indigenous Languages and Rights of the Child including Indigenous Children’s right to Environmental Health.  Andrea has served on a number of Boards and Advisory Councils. In 2010 she became a member of the Global Steering Committee, one of two from North America, for the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) which coordinates Indigenous Peoples’ work with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. In February 2019 Andrea was selected by Indigenous Peoples, Tribes and organizations in North America to serve as their representative on the new Facilitative Working Group for the development of the UNFCCC Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Traditional Knowledge Exchange Platform for its first three years of operation.  

IITC was founded on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota in 1974 to be an international voice and advocate for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  In 1977 IITC was the first Indigenous Peoples organization to receive Consultative Status from the UN Economic and Social Council and in 2011 it was the first to be upgraded to General Consultative Status.