Speaker Bio:

John Prendergast is an author and human rights activist who for over 25 years has worked for peace in Africa. He is Co-Founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity. During the Clinton administration, Prendergast was involved in a number of peace processes in Africa while he was Director of African Affairs at the National Security Council and Special Advisor to Susan Rice at the Department of State. Prendergast has also worked for two members of Congress, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has also been a youth counselor, a basketball coach and a Big Brother for over 25 years.

He has authored ten books on Africa, including Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, a New York Times bestseller and NAACP non-fiction book of the year that he co-authored with actor Don Cheadle. His most current book, The Enough Moment, also co-authored with Mr. Cheadle and released on September 7, 2010, focuses on building a popular movement against genocide and other human rights crimes. His other forthcoming book draws on his many years in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program.

Prendergast has worked with a number of television shows to raise awareness about human rights issues in Africa. He has appeared in four episodes of “60 Minutes,” for which the team won an Emmy Award, and has consulted on two episodes of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” one focusing on the recruitment of child soldiers and the other on rape as a war strategy. He has also traveled to Africa with ABC’s Nightline, PBS’ The Lehrer NewsHour, and CNN’s Inside Africa.

He has appeared in several documentaries including: "Sand and Sorrow," "Darfur Now," "3 Points," and "War Child." He also co-produced "Journey into Sunset," about Northern Uganda, and partnered with Downtown Records and Mercer Street Records to create the compilation album “Raise Hope for Congo,” which shines a spotlight on sexual violence against women and girls in the Congo.

With Tracy McGrady and other NBA stars, John co-founded the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program to fund schools in Darfurian refugee camps and create partnerships with schools in the United States. He also helped create the Raise Hope for Congo Campaign, highlighting the issue of conflict minerals that fuel the war in Congo. John is a board member and serves as Strategic Advisor to Not On Our Watch, the organization founded by George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Brad Pitt.

Prendergast’s op-eds have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, and The International Herald Tribune, and he has been profiled in Vanity Fair, Men's Vogue, Time, Entertainment Weekly, GQ Magazine, Oprah Magazine, Capitol File, Arrive Magazine, Interview Magazine, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Kenneth Cole’s Awearness.

Prendergast has been a visiting professor at the University of San Diego, Eckerd College, St. Mary’s College, the University of Maryland, and the American University in Cairo, and will be at Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh. He has been awarded six honorary doctorates.

Since 2006, more than 40,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related homicides, and recent figures indicate that the pace and severity of drug-related violence is increasing. Experiencing a significant breakdown of its rule of law, the population of Ciudad Juárez alone suffered more than 3,000 homicides in 2010, making it the most dangerous city anywhere in the world. Dr. Poiré Romero will address the characteristics of the security situation in Mexico, the historical events and situations that made it what it is now, and the current strategy that the Federal Government is implementing to achieve security. Dr. Poiré’s talk will be completely off-the-record, and is by invitation only.

Speaker biography:

On September 9, 2011, Dr. Alejandro Poiré Romero was appointed as Director of Mexico´s National Security Agency by President Felipe Calderón. Prior to that, Dr. Poiré served as Secretary of the National Security Council and Cabinet, and has held a variety of cabinet-level positions since 2007. He also worked as an adviser to the National Institute of Statistics on the creation of the first National Survey on Political Culture and Citizenship Practices. He has published several academic pieces analyzing public opinion, campaign dynamics and voting behavior in Mexico, in addition to two books on Mexico’s democratic process, Towards Mexico’s Democratization: Parties, Campaigns, Elections, and Public Opinion and Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election.

Dr. Poiré holds a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s degree in the same field from Mexico’s Autonomous Technological Institute (ITAM), where he has been a professor and the Political Science Department Chair. He has also been a visiting researcher and lecturer at several institutions in the USA, including MIT, and Latin America.